PORTLAND, Ore. — Having let slip the news on Monday that he won't run for reelection in 2024, longtime Portland-area U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer held a press conference Tuesday morning where he candidly answered questions from members of the local media, often at length.
Blumenauer will be nearing the end of his 14th term come next November, which will be his 28th year in Congress. He was first elected representative for Oregon's 3rd Congressional District, which contains most of Portland and stretches east to include Hood River, back in 1996.
Oregon's most senior representative in Congress is 75 years old, and he's held one elected office or another for the past 50 years. His very first win was for a seat in the Oregon Legislature way back in 1973, and he went on to serve on the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners, followed by a stint on Portland City Council in 1987.
His walk is not quite as quick as it used to be — time and innumerable airplane rides between Portland and Washington, D.C., will do that. But while Blumenauer has every intention of retiring, he's still in the thick of things when it comes to D.C. politics. He did not mince words Tuesday when summing up the future outlooks for the House Republican majority and their new speaker.
"It's going to be a bumpy ride for a while. Some things the Republicans just have to get out of their system," Blumenauer said. "I mean, they have elected a guy who is a climate denier who tried to overturn the election. In fact, that was one of the reasons that his path to be speaker was smooth."
Republicans in the U.S. House are increasingly learning that there's a price to be paid for bending to the far-right wing of the party, Blumenauer indicated — which is out of step with the majority of American voters.
"The public is not there. The public is tired of this insane process," he continued. "It has not changed any of the basic math. They don't have the votes for something that will dramatically reduce the deficit and that they can agree on. They're ultimately going to have to work with Democrats, and we will move to approve something that's remarkably like the agreement that we all came together on in the spring; 149 Republicans voted for it."
Blumenauer was referring to a bill passed by the House in early June that suspended the country's debt limit. Without it, the country faced a potentially catastrophic default.
The bike-partisan agenda
Blumenauer said that he takes pride in the fact that most of his work in Congress was focused on uniting people. Virtually all of the legislation he authored, he said, was intended to win bipartisan support.
"The NAFTA revision was dead on arrival when it was delivered by Trump, and we spent a lot of time and energy bringing people of different points of view together and it passed overwhelmingly with Republicans and Democrats," he said. "My bike-partisan agenda really does bring people together in ways that they that they find satisfying. What we're doing with the most amazing array of energy legislation — not just in our history, but anywhere in the country — that's in the pipeline that can be transformative in terms of fighting the challenge, the threat of climate change."
In retirement, Blumenauer said he hopes to be around the community much more, helping the Portland area recover from a particularly rough few years. The Story's Pat Dooris was able to pull the congressman aside later to ask what he had in mind. He said it's about "returning to basics," focusing on the institutions that matter a great deal to the Portland community.
"For example, Portland State University and Portland Community College are amazing resources, and we need to come together to make sure that they're able to provide the services for young people and be an entryway into economic improvement," Blumenauer said.
There are opportunities for development in places like the Lloyd Center, OMSI, Montgomery Park and the city's efforts to improve 82nd Avenue that will bring in federal infrastructure funds as well as private investment, he continued, and create a shift in perception of the city.
"People complain, you know, 'No one wants to invest in Portland.' Well, they will," Blumenauer said. "Because Portland has good bones, strong neighborhoods and amazing people who care, and we need to just harness that energy and that enthusiasm on simple, bite-sized steps."
Blumenauer lives in Northeast Portland. Dooris recalls being out for a run several years ago when he spotted Blumenauer jogging the other direction on Fremont. Dooris said he considered waving, but then he saw that the Congressman was speaking very deliberately into a dictation machine as he ran.
When confronted with the memory, Blumenauer laughed. He said that his staff became accustomed to wading through voice memos peppered with huffing and puffing.
The congressman's current and final term in Congress ends in just over a year, in January of 2025. It's not clear as yet which contenders will come forward in the months ahead in hopes of taking up the 3rd District mantle. The seat has been a safe one for Democrats for nearly 70 years, since the mid-1950s.