Earl Blumenauer
Earl Francis Blumenauer[1] (/ˈbluːmənaʊ.ər/ BLOOM-ə-nowər; born August 16, 1948) is an American lawyer, author, and politician serving as the U.S. representative for Oregon's 3rd congressional district since 1996. The district includes most of Portland east of the Willamette River.
Earl Blumenauer
2
A member of the Democratic Party, Blumenauer previously spent over 20 years as a public official in Portland, including serving on the Portland City Council from 1987 to 1996, when he succeeded Ron Wyden in the U.S. House of Representatives. Wyden was elected to the U.S. Senate after Bob Packwood resigned.
Early life and education[edit]
Blumenauer was born in Portland on August 16, 1948. In 1966, he graduated from Centennial High School on Portland's east side and then enrolled at Lewis & Clark College.[2] He majored in political science and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Lewis & Clark in 1970.[3] Blumenauer completed his education in 1976 when he earned a Juris Doctor degree from the school's Northwestern School of Law (now Lewis & Clark Law School).[4] Before starting law school in 1970 and until 1977, he worked as an assistant to the president of Portland State University.[2][5]
Early political career[edit]
In 1969–70, Blumenauer organized and led Oregon's "Go 19" campaign, an effort to lower the state voting age (while then unsuccessful, it supported the national trend that soon resulted in the Twenty-sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which lowered the voting age to 18). In 1972, he was elected to the Oregon House of Representatives, representing the 11th district in Multnomah County.[6] He was reelected in 1974 and 1976, and continued representing Portland and Multnomah County until the 1979 legislative session.[2] From 1975 to 1981 he served on the board of Portland Community College.[2] After his time in the Oregon legislature, he served on the Multnomah County Commission from 1979 to 1986.[2] He lost a race for Portland City Council to Margaret Strachan in 1981.[7] He left the county commission in March 1986 to run again for city council.[8]
Blumenauer was elected to the Portland City Council in May 1986.[9] His first term began in January 1987,[10] and he remained on the council until 1996.[5] From the start of his first term, he was named the city's Commissioner of Public Works,[5] which made him the council member in charge of the Portland Bureau of Transportation (also known as the Transportation Commissioner).[11] During his time on the council, Blumenauer was appointed by Oregon Governor Neil Goldschmidt to the state's commission on higher education, on which he served in 1990 and 1991.[12] In 1992, Blumenauer was defeated by Vera Katz in an open race for mayor of Portland—to date, only the second time that Blumenauer has lost an election. At the time he was called "the man who probably knows the most about how Portland works", but he left local politics to run for Congress.[13] After winning election to Congress, he resigned from the city council in May 1996.[14] In 2010, Blumenauer received The Ralph Lowell Award for outstanding contributions to public television.[15][16]
Political positions[edit]
In 1996, Blumenauer's first year in Congress, he voted in support of the Defense of Marriage Act, which passed that year. The law was found unconstitutional in 2013 and repealed.[57] Since then he has supported LGBTQ rights.[58]
On October 1, 2015, following the Umpqua Community College shooting, Blumenauer tweeted[59] his report[60] addressing the issue of gun violence in America, Enough is Enough: A Comprehensive Plan to Improve Gun Safety, which he had published earlier that year.[61]
Blumenauer has supported alternative energy sources, health care reform, and continuing federal support for education.[58] He is also known as one of the most fervent advocates for the legalization of marijuana, co-founding the Congressional Cannabis Caucus.[62][63] He was the chief sponsor of a bill to expand the research of medical cannabis and its drug derivatives that passed the House in July 2022 and the Senate in November.[64]
Personal life[edit]
Blumenauer has been married to Margaret Kirkpatrick since 2004.[65]
An avid cyclist, Blumenauer is the founder and co-chair of the Congressional Bike Caucus.[66][67]
Each year, in the weeks leading up to Christmas, Blumenauer bakes and delivers hundreds of fruitcakes to his colleagues on the Hill.[68][69]