Journal describing months following win in 1974 US House of Representatives election and first few months in Congress

Title

Journal describing months following win in 1974 US House of Representatives election and first few months in Congress

Description

US Congressman Les AuCoin's 37-page-long journal describing the immediate months following his win in the 1974 US House of Representatives election. Providing a picture of how Congress operates behind the scenes, AuCoin writes in detail about his transition from Oregon to Washington, D.C.; the process of hiring congressional staff; attending the Democratic mini-Convention in Kansas City; him, his wife Sue, and their children Stacy and Kelly moving into a condominium apartment in Washington, D.C. from their house in Forest Grove, Oregon; the attention he received from the media and fellow politicians; the four-day train trip through America's heartland; his swearing-in ceremony on the US House floor; attending President Gerald Ford's State of the Union address; his first markup session in the Banking, Currency, and Housing Committee; his first time successfully legislating with the Emergency Middle-Income Housing Act in the Housing Subcommittee; scheduling town meetings back home for his constituents, writing a letter to one of his campaign staff's sons to encourage him to finish high school; his first embassy party with his wife Sue at the West Germany embassy; and congressional discussions on the Vietnam Humanitarian Assistance and Evacuation Act of 1975. On the Democratic Party in 1975, AuCoin stated: "All of which means, in my judgement, that there must be a new dogma in the Democratic Party -- a new impetus for cost-consciousness and performance accountability in government programs. The old pork chop vote of the New Deal days is gone forever. You just can't spend a million dollars for this, or that -- or create a new federal office for this, or that -- and win the hearts and minds of the voters in either party today.... People just distrust government -- they distrust its morality and ethics and they distrust its ability to solve problems....Certainly, the party cannot thrive in the '70s and '80s if, intellectually, it's still serving warmed-over New Dealism."

This is one of a collection of digitized objects from the Les AuCoin Papers (MS.147) at the Pacific University Archives. AuCoin served in the Oregon House of Representatives (1971-1975) and in the United States House of Representatives from Oregon's 1st District (1975-1993).

Identifier

PUA_MS147_536

Creator

AuCoin, Les

Date

1974/1975

Date Created

November 1974-May 1975

Spatial Coverage

United States

Oregon

Washington, D.C.

Subject

United States. Congress. House.

Legislators--United States

Elections--United States--20th century.

Diaries.

Source

Les AuCoin Papers, Pacific University Archives

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/

Type

Text