Les AuCoin

Infobox Congressman
name= Les AuCoin


state= Oregon
district=1st
party= Democratic
term=January 3 1975-January 3 1993
preceded=Wendell Wyatt
succeeded=Elizabeth Furse
date of birth=Birth date and age|1942|10|21|mf=y
place of birth=Portland, Oregon
date of death=
place of death=
spouse=
current occupation=

Les AuCoin (born October 21, 1942) is a former Representative from Oregon, United States. He was the first Democratic congressman to represent ushr|Oregon|1 since statehood. He served in the House of Representatives for 18 years until 1993, rising to the position of dean of the Oregon House delegation and becoming 84th in overall House seniority.

Early life

AuCoin was born in Portland and spent his childhood in Redmond. He graduated from Redmond Union High School in 1960, and attended Pacific University for a year before joining the United States Army infantry, where he became a public information specialist in West Germany. His army postings including Fort Ord, California; Fort Campbell, Kentucky; Fort Benning, Georgia; Sullivan Barracks, West Germany; and Fort Slocum, New York. Among other units, he served in the 2nd Infantry and the 10th Mountain Divisions. Honorably discharged in 1964, he graduated from Pacific University, receiving a bachelor's degree in journalism with an emphasis on political science in 1969.

Political career

From 1971 to 1973, AuCoin served in the Oregon House of Representatives. At the age of 32 he became the youngest House Majority Leader (1973–1975), a record that still stands. AuCoin has been a member of the Democratic Party for his entire life, and is considered to be in the liberal wing of that party.

AuCoin earned the Herman Scoville Award from the Union of Concerned Scientists for legislating a ban on flight testing anti-satellite weapons in the 1980s, the national Distinguished Service Award from the Sierra Club in 1985 for his work in doubling Oregon wilderness lands, and in 1976, was named by the U.S. Jaycees as "One of America's Outstanding Young Men."

AuCoin was a member of the United States House Committee on Appropriations, serving on the Defense and Interior Subcommittees. He also served as an official congressional observer to the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks in Geneva and the Helsinki Human Rights Commission.

Among AuCoin's legislative accomplishments were the development of the Army's Javelin infantry anti-tank missile, first used in the Iraq War, the first ban on off-shore oil and gas drilling, the buy-out of a mining claim at Rock Mesa in Oregon's Three Sisters Wilderness area, restoration of the Grande Ronde and Siletz Indian tribes, location of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Forensics Laboratory in Ashland, Oregon, the Oregon Trail Center in Baker City, the Seafood Consumer Research Center in Astoria, and, in collaboration with Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield, the construction of Portland's east- and west-side light rail projects. The latter was the largest public works project in Oregon history and contains a plaza at one of the stations dedicated to him.

In 1992, AuCoin gave up his seat in the House of Representatives to run for the United States Senate against Republican incumbent Bob Packwood. AuCoin lost by some 78,000 votes (winning 46.5% to Packwood's 52.1%) and subsequently retired from elective office.

Life after political office

Les AuCoin went into higher education after leaving the Congress. In 2004, while a visiting professor of government at Southern Oregon University (SOU) in Ashland, he was named Outstanding Professor of the Year by the SOU chapter of Phi Kappa Phi, the nation’s largest scholarly society, and in 2004 SOU students voted voted him one of the university's four "most popular professors." While at SOU, he won an Oregon Associated Press award for political commentary at Jefferson Public Radio, serving southern Oregon and northern California.

AuCoin began his second retirement in 2004 and returned to writing. He is an author, and writer of op-eds, essays, and book reviews for daily newspapers throughout the western states, the Writers on the Range newspaper syndicate, and the Huffington Post, CounterPunch and Blue Oregon blogs. He also writes the Les AuCoin Blog. [ [http://lesaucoin.squarespace.com/welcome/ Les AuCoin Blog - Welcome ] ] He is co-author of "Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest Policy," [ [http://www.amazon.com/dp/1597260878] Island Press, 2006] and is currently working on his first novel.

He is a director of two corporations, Teton Heritage Builders, Inc., of Jackson Hole, Wyoming and Bozeman, Montana, and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle. [ [http://www.fhlbsea.com Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle ] ]

Les and Sue AuCoin, now in their 43rd year of marriage, live in Ashland and spend their summers in Bozeman.

References