Longtime United States Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon to retire in 2024

One of the Pacif­ic North­west­’s longest-serv­ing mem­bers of Con­gress has decid­ed it’s time to pass the torch. Earl Blu­me­nauer, sev­en­ty-five, declared today he won’t seek reelec­tion as the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Ore­gon’s 3rd Dis­trict in 2024, bring­ing a dis­tin­guished career of pub­lic ser­vice to a close after half a century.

“For fifty years, I have served in elect­ed office at every lev­el — as a State Leg­is­la­tor, Mult­nom­ah Coun­ty Com­mis­sion­er, Port­land City Coun­cil mem­ber, and for twen­ty-sev­en years as a mem­ber of Con­gress,” said Blu­me­nauer in a state­ment announc­ing his retire­ment. “It is a dif­fi­cult deci­sion. Par­tic­u­lar­ly after the amaz­ing suc­cess of the last sev­er­al years. But sim­ply said, it is time to con­tin­ue my life’s mis­sion with­out the bur­den of day-to-day politics.”

“I have ded­i­cat­ed my career to cre­at­ing liv­able com­mu­ni­ties where peo­ple are safe, healthy, and eco­nom­i­cal­ly secure,” Blu­me­nauer noted.

“This mis­sion has guid­ed my involve­ment in Con­gress on a wide range of issues. I may best be known in Port­land for work on light rail, street­cars, and bicy­cles. But our work also includ­ed crit­i­cal issues of war and peace, cham­pi­oning the fight to end the failed war on drugs, help­ing to write the [Patient Pro­tec­tion and] Afford­able Care Act, res­cu­ing inde­pen­dent restau­rants, food and farm pol­i­cy, ani­mal wel­fare, and writ­ing the sin­gle largest invest­ment in renew­able ener­gy in history.”

“I look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing cham­pi­oning liv­able com­mu­ni­ties start­ing right here in Port­land and being a resource and a part­ner for the next generation.”

The affa­ble Blu­me­nauer is known for being a bow-tie wear­er and for his prin­ci­pled stands on issues. He became the most senior mem­ber of Ore­gon’s U.S. House del­e­ga­tion fol­low­ing the retire­ment of his friend Peter DeFazio at the end of the last Con­gress. All of the state’s oth­er Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tives have few­er than ten years of ser­vice; most joined Con­gress with­in the last five years.

The 3rd Dis­trict is deep blue — it’s Ore­gon’s most Demo­c­ra­t­ic dis­trict, encom­pass­ing most of the City of Port­land as well as Gre­sham and Trout­dale, which means Democ­rats won’t have a prob­lem hold­ing it in 2024.

The cur­rent incar­na­tion of the dis­trict, which Blu­me­nauer has rep­re­sent­ed since he took over for Ron Wyden (one of Ore­gon’s U.S. Sen­a­tors since the mid-1990s) also includes Hood Riv­er, Mount Hood and its foothills, where com­mu­ni­ties like Sandy, Esta­ca­da, Bor­ing, and Dam­as­cus are locat­ed. The 3rd bor­ders three of Ore­gon’s five oth­er con­gres­sion­al dis­tricts: the 1st, the 5th, and the 2nd. It does not bor­der the 6th, though por­tions of the 6th are in close prox­im­i­ty to it.

Ore­gon Demo­c­ra­t­ic lead­ers began offer­ing trib­utes to Blu­me­nauer after his announce­ment, which con­firmed months of spec­u­la­tion he might not run again.

“Since I was in high school, Earl Blu­me­nauer has been a pow­er­ful force in the pol­i­cy and pol­i­tics of Ore­gon and Amer­i­ca,” said Sen­a­tor Jeff Merkley. “He is a nation­al leader on issues from urban trans­porta­tion and hous­ing to cli­mate and cannabis. I so thank him for his over fifty years of pub­lic service.”

“From the first time I met him to now, it’s always been a plea­sure to be his part­ner fight­ing for projects and pro­grams ben­e­fit­ing Ore­go­ni­ans. He has made his home­town of Port­land, and all of Ore­gon and the coun­try a bet­ter place.”

“I have been for­tu­nate to call Earl Blu­me­nauer a men­tor and a friend since I first ran for Con­gress,” said Blu­me­nauer’s col­league Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, who rep­re­sents the 1st Dis­trict. “The Port­land region, the State of Ore­gon, and the coun­try have all ben­e­fit­ed enor­mous­ly from Earl’s vision and leadership.”

“Through­out his many years of pub­lic ser­vice, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Blumenauer
has been a con­sis­tent & vocal advo­cate for Ore­gon val­ues,” said Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Andrea Sali­nas, who rep­re­sents the state’s newest con­gres­sion­al dis­trict. “I know I speak for the entire Ore­gon del­e­ga­tion when I say Earl will be great­ly missed in Con­gress. I wish him & his fam­i­ly all the best in this new chapter.”

One of Blu­me­nauer’s two Repub­li­can col­leagues swift­ly offered her thanks, too.

“Thank you for your decades of ser­vice to Ore­go­ni­ans, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Blu­me­nauer,” said Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Lori Chavez-DeRe­mer, who cur­rent­ly rep­re­sents the 5th Dis­trict and suc­ceed­ed Kurt Schrad­er at the begin­ning of 2023. “I appre­ci­at­ed the advice you gave me when I was just get­ting start­ed ear­li­er this year, and I look for­ward to serv­ing out the remain­der of this Con­gress with you.”

Blu­me­nauer’s office cit­ed the fol­low­ing as his accomplishments:

• Lead­ing the Ways and Means Com­mit­tee to craft pro­vi­sions includ­ed in the sin­gle largest mea­sure to com­bat the cli­mate cri­sis in Amer­i­can his­to­ry: the Infla­tion Reduc­tion Act.
• Secur­ing more than $1.5 tril­lion in the Bipar­ti­san Infra­struc­ture Law, the largest invest­ment in rebuild­ing and renew­ing Amer­i­ca in his­to­ry. This includ­ed his­toric amounts of fund­ing for active trans­porta­tion: a 70% increase in bike and pedes­tri­an fund­ing and the cre­ation of a $1 bil­lion Safe Streets and Roads for All program.
• Sav­ing more than 100,000 restau­rants dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic by cre­at­ing the $28.6 bil­lion Restau­rant Revi­tal­iza­tion Fund.
• Expand­ing health care cov­er­age for more than 500,000 Ore­go­ni­ans through the Afford­able Care Act, includ­ing a new Medicare ben­e­fit for end-of-life care planning.
• Pro­vid­ing key lead­er­ship in oppo­si­tion to America’s mis­ad­ven­tures in the trag­ic wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. With the late Sen­a­tors John McCain and Ted Kennedy, he passed leg­is­la­tion to cre­ate a path­way to legal per­ma­nent sta­tus for Iraqi and Afghan nation­als who direct­ly sup­port­ed the U.S. mil­i­tary mis­sion in their country.
• As a local elect­ed offi­cial and mem­ber of Con­gress, Blu­me­nauer was respon­si­ble for the devel­op­ment of Portland’s inno­v­a­tive tran­sit sys­tem, includ­ing the light rail and street­car sys­tem. This includes build­ing out Portland’s bike net­work, mak­ing Port­land inter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­nized as one of the nation’s most liv­able cities.

Blu­me­nauer also:

• Became Con­gress’ lead­ing cham­pi­on in end­ing the failed war on drugs. He found­ed the Con­gres­sion­al Cannabis Cau­cus as a forum to edu­cate mem­bers of Con­gress about fed­er­al cannabis pol­i­cy ini­tia­tives, authored the leg­isla­tive blue­print for fed­er­al legal­iza­tion and has cam­paigned in every suc­cess­ful state legal­iza­tion effort.
• Cre­at­ed a nation­al bike move­ment shap­ing com­mu­ni­ties large and small. He is rec­og­nized as one of the top 25 change mak­ers in cycling his­to­ry. He found­ed the Con­gres­sion­al Bicy­cle Cau­cus to bring mem­bers of Con­gress togeth­er to prac­tice bike-par­ti­san­ship. Since estab­lished in 1996, the Cau­cus has suc­cess­ful­ly secured a $2.45 bil­lion increase in fed­er­al fund­ing for bik­ing and walk­ing and cre­at­ed a tax ben­e­fit for com­muters bik­ing to work.
• Became rec­og­nized as an envi­ron­men­tal cham­pi­on for pro­tect­ing resources across Amer­i­ca. Here in Ore­gon, his leg­is­la­tion pro­tect­ed 127,000 acres of wilder­ness and 80 miles of Wild and Scenic Rivers in the Mt. Hood Nation­al For­est and Colum­bia Riv­er Gorge, pre­serv­ing these spe­cial places for gen­er­a­tions to come.
• Authored the Sen­a­tor Paul Simon Water for the World Act, the most com­pre­hen­sive piece of inter­na­tion­al water pol­i­cy to date affect­ing the lives of hun­dreds of mil­lions of peo­ple. Blu­me­nauer is rec­og­nized as a pre­em­i­nent cham­pi­on for water and sanitation.
• Cham­pi­oned major leg­is­la­tion to stop imports of ille­gal­ly har­vest­ed tim­ber from around the world into the Unit­ed States. This became a mod­el for coun­tries around the world.
• Cre­at­ed the Small Starts pro­gram to help street­car projects across the coun­try receive fed­er­al fund­ing and tech­ni­cal assis­tance. This pro­gram led to over 22 street­car projects around the coun­try so far, includ­ing three in Portland.

Though Blu­me­nauer’s release men­tions his advo­ca­cy for light rail, it does­n’t men­tion his involve­ment in the found­ing of Rail~Volution, the annu­al tran­sit and mobil­i­ty con­fer­ence, now known as Mpac (Mobil­i­ty / Com­mu­ni­ty / Possibility).

Rail~Volution, which NPI staff have attend­ed in past years, has been a bright light for bet­ter and more ubiq­ui­tous tran­sit dur­ing the lat­est chap­ter of a very car-cen­tric era in Amer­i­can his­to­ry. We can’t thank Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Blu­me­nauer enough for his lead­er­ship in advanc­ing this impor­tant cause.

Blu­me­nauer spoke to The Willamette Week at length pri­or to cir­cu­lat­ing the news release con­vey­ing his deci­sion to leave Con­gress. He knows he’s giv­ing up an oppor­tu­ni­ty to poten­tial­ly be in the major­i­ty in 2025 and 2026.

“I do think we are going to take con­trol. I’m quite con­fi­dent of that,” Blu­me­nauer told WWeek dur­ing his sit-down. “But it’s not cer­tain to me that the things that I care about in terms of inter­na­tion­al water and san­i­ta­tion, cannabis reform, flood insur­ance, cli­mate change, trans­porta­tion safe­ty — I’m not cer­tain that that the best way to make a con­tri­bu­tion to that is in Congress.”

Blu­me­nauer is increas­ing­ly con­cerned about unchecked drug use in Port­land and says he’ll be turn­ing his atten­tion to improv­ing pub­lic safe­ty and com­mu­ni­ty well-being in the Rose City after he leaves Con­gress at the end of next year.

Blu­me­nauer also told WWeek he won’t be get­ting involved in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic pri­ma­ry to pick his suc­ces­sor. That means no endorsement.

“Can­di­dates either being recruit­ed or active­ly seek­ing sup­port include for­mer Mult­nom­ah Coun­ty Chair Deb­o­rah Kafoury, Mult­nom­ah Coun­ty Com­mis­sion­er Susheela Jaya­pal, state Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Travis Nel­son (D‑Portland), and Gre­sham City Coun­cilor Eddy Morales,” the week­ly explained.

Nel­son hap­pens to be one of Ore­gon’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee mem­bers and is con­sid­ered by many to be a ris­ing star in the party.

Ore­gon will hold its 2024 pri­ma­ry on Tues­day, May 21st. Whichev­er Demo­c­ra­t­ic hope­ful secures the par­ty’s nom­i­na­tion for Con­gress in the 3rd Dis­trict is extreme­ly like­ly to go on to become Blu­me­nauer’s suc­ces­sor in November.