A pamphlet from US Congressman Les AuCoin's first campaign for Oregon's 1st Congressional District in 1974. The pamphlet features numerous photographs of AuCoin, descriptions of his personal background and record as Oregon House Majority Leader, including his legislative efforts and accomplishments relating to the economy, the gasoline shortage, political reform, workers' benefits, health care, consumer protection, farming, and offshore fisheries.
A flyer from US Congressman Les AuCoin's 1976 re-election campaign for Oregon's 1st District. The flyer features two photographs of Congressman AuCoin, a list of some of his then recent accomplishments, and some of his legislative goals for 1977-- including tax reform, establishing national health insurance, protecting the environment, restraining government spending, and protecting social security. The back of the flyer is titled "Les AuCoin makes a big difference in Clatsop County" and features a list of his accomplishments in the county, such as his work for the Knappa Water Association and passing legislation to finance public works projects.
A booklet from US Congressman Les AuCoin's 1980 re-election campaign for Oregon's 1st District. The flyer features numerous photographs of Congressman AuCoin and his family, descriptions of his personal and legislative background, and a list of his then recent accomplishments and goals, including keeping a balanced federal budget, using federal funds to stimulate new housing, advocating for safe renewable energy and condemning the building of nuclear power plants, advocating for Oregon farmers and small business owners in the immediate aftermath of the Mount St. Helens eruption.
A rack card from US Congressman Les AuCoin's 1976 re-election campaign for Oregon's 1st District. The rack card features a photograph of Congressman AuCoin, and gives a description of his background and his accomplishments in Congress, describing his sponsoring of "laws to halt 'tight money' and high interest rates, to stimulate housing and create jobs....bills to put all government spending on a 'show-results-or-else' base; voted to halt foreign aid to countries which refuse to pay debts to America....[and] voted to close $3 billion in tax loopholes." The rack card also describes how AuCoin had "a 100% voting record on Common Cause and League of Women Voter issues."
A campaign pamphlet from US Congressman Les AuCoin's 1980 re-election campaign for Oregon's 1st District. The pamphlet features of photograph of Congressman AuCoin, and describes his then recent legislative record and accomplishments, including voting no on the 1979 Chrysler bailout, taxing Social Security benefits, hiking the gas tax 10 cents, the B-1 "boondoggle" and the MX Missile, "extravagant" federal spending, and withholding interest earnings on savings; voting yes on "a truly balanced budget," helping senior citizens pay for heating bills, establishing the Solar Bank, increasing the pay for American soldiers, reforestation, new housing, the maritime fleet, and raising "the amount of interest small savers can earn." The pamphlet also describes his work helping Oregon farmers and small business owners following the Mount St. Helens eruption, keeping Amtrak's Pioneer train running, keeping downtown hotels converted into apartments for low-income seniors open, helping Tillamook lengthen their jetty, helping the town of Aloha with issues with the Post Office, and helping to reunite three orphan sisters within a Hillsboro family.
A 1984 re-elect Les AuCoin campaign ad published in the Portland Jewish Review describing Congressman AuCoin's legislative record of supporting Israel, the Jewish people, and refuseniks. Refuseniks were Soviet Jews who faced discriminiation and were denied permission to emigrate away from the Soviet Union by authorities.
A 1982 AuCoin re-election campaign ad printed in The Advocate magazine, describing US Congressman Les AuCoin's history of supporting the gay community. The first page is a message from the Human Rights Campaign Fund to the office of Les AuCoin regarding the details of the ad.
A photocopy of a Washington Post newspaper article tited "AuCoin: Ready to 'Kick Ankles' for Abortion Rights" by Don Phillips, published on December 8, 1989. The article describes US Congressman Les AuCoin's famous "take names and kick ankles" speech, delivered on the House floor in defense of abortion rights before the vote of an antibortion amendment (which did not pass) which would have restricted Medicaid funding of abortion in the cases of rape and incest. The article quotes a part of AuCoin's speech: "Those of us who defend a woman's freedom of choice are drawing a line in the sand today, a line of decency, a line of fair play-- and a line of serious politics....If you vote for those amendments, you will be held accountable in ways you have never dreamed possible at ballot boxes all over this county. The pro-choice movement is mobilized. And from this day forward, it is going to take names and kick ankles."
A clipping of an Oregonian newspaper article describing US Congressman Les AuCoin's emergence as a national leader in Congress after 15 years in the US House of Representatives. The article, which was published on January 22, 1990, describes his legislative history, including his leading of pro-choice activists in the House, his role on the House Appropriations Committee, and his future legislative goals relating to forest research, timber appeals, timber communities, the Tri-Met expansion to downtown Hillsboro, export licensing, and capital gains tax legislation. The article features a photograph of AuCoin in Portland.
A letter from Oregon journalist and author Ron Abell to US Congressman Les AuCoin, dated January 5, 2010, reflecting on Oregon politics in the 1960s and 1970s. Attached are two chapters of Abell's unpublished memoir describing his experiences working for The Oregonian in 1964 and the Palisadian-Post (of the Pacific Palisades neighborhood in Los Angeles, California) in 1962.
A draft of a nuclear arms freeze resolution with notes likely written by US Congressman Les AuCoin. The draft is of H.J. Resolution 13 of the 98th Congress, officially titled "A joint resolution calling for a mutual and verifiable freeze on and reductions in nuclear weapons," a version of which passed in the House on May 4, 1983.
A two page document titled "Memo to self: Javelin Anti-Tank Missile" by former US Congressman Les AuCoin, describing the origins of and his connection to the Javelin infantry anti-tank weapon. The opening paragraph states: "I am the author of a legislative amendment requiring the U.S. Army to conduct a shoot-off between the three alternative technologies under consideration as replacements for the infamous Dragon infantry anti-tank weapon. My amendment specificed that operator survivability had to be an essential criterion for determining the winning technology. Out of this process came the Javelin infantry anti-tank weapon, which has had a transforming effect on the relationship between infantry and armor in the field of battle."
A statement titled "History of Javelin, the Infantry Anti-Tank Missile" by Robert Sherman, the former Associate Committee Staff Member to US Congressman Les AuCoin, for the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. In his statement, written in August 2018, Sherman describes his experiences being on the staff of Congressman AuCoin in the 1980s and learning about the Army's anti-tank weapon plans.
US Congressman Les AuCoin's typewritten journal from November and December 1982. The journal describes his everyday life as a member of Congress, such as giving an address to the Oregon Sierra Club, having a discussion with an anti-missile and nuclear freeze activist group, meeting with a political advisory committee regarding the Balanced Budget Constituional Amendment, talks surrounding an Oregon wilderness bill, meeting with the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, meeting with Senator Mark Hatfield, voting against "the vaunted 'Infrastructure/Jobs Bill,'" giving a house floor speech on the Defense Appropriations Bill on the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, receiving a conference report for the Transportation Appropriations Bil, and his work on the "automobile 'domestic content' bill" that affected the Port of Portland and the electronics industry.
US Congressman Les AuCoin's typewritten journal from late June 1987. The journal notably describes his meeting with Soviet Ambassador Yuri Dubinin in order to support the immigration cases of refuseniks, as well as the early brainstorming of his run for the Senate in the 1990s.
A study of the 1974 election by Yaden Associates, Inc. titled "Les AuCoin v. Diarmuid O'Scannlain: The Race for Congress in Oregon's First District." As described in the table of contents, the study covered the method used in the study, the division of the vote (the strength of commitment, likelihood to vote, and choice for Congress by area and group), attitudes toward the race and the candidates (opinions of the candidates), issues in the race for Congress (national problem, demands on congressman, rating of Congress, rating of [Wendall] Wyatt's performance, prosecution of Nixon, wage and price controls, log exports, environment, and jobs and economy).
A 32-page memoir by Oregon journalist and author Ron Abell titled "Some Personal Observations on the Wayne Morse Re-Election Campaign of 1968," written in September 2005. In his memoir, Abell detailed his experiences and what he witnessed as a salaried employee of the 1968 Re-Elect Wayne Morse Committee for the US Senate, including the campaign's finances, the primary election, how Vietnam was viewed as a campaign issue, how the press treated the campaign, his perspective of the Bob Packwood campaign, and how the Morse campaign ultimately failed. The Robert "Bobby" Kennedy presidential campaign is notably mentioned.
A Dallas Morning News newspaper article clipping titled "Notes from Abroad: The road to Moscow: If it's Monday, this must be Kiev," by Mark Nelson. The article described the 11-day, trip taken by House Speaker Jim Wright and 19 other members of Congress, including US Congressman Les AuCoin, to Berlin, Madrid, and the Soviet Union in April 1987.
Personal observation notes, perhaps taken by but not directly attributed to, US Congressman Les AuCoin at a breakfast hosted by Cyrus Vance, the US Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter from 1977-1980.
In-depth analysis comparing the legislative history of Oregon State Representatives Les AuCoin and Hugh McGilvra in 1974. As Rep. AuCoin ran for and won the election for Oregon's 1st congressional district in the US House of Representatives that year, this analysis was more than likely requested or put together by his campaign. Compared legislative positions include those on Oregon House bills on a cigarette tax, property tax relief, a port tax, an airport tax exemption, gas tax freeing, pollution prohibition, Highway Division and Tourist Information, teachers' fair dismissal, campus claims, the department of education budget, educational districts contracting, tax/education, ballot information, the legislative compensation committee, compulsory retirement, newsletter, veterans funding, agriculture, and farm labor camps. There are also sections summarizing each state representative's respective legislative proposal history.
A written piece titled "Reflections on China" by Gary Conkling, the staff director for US Congressman Les AuCoin. In the 1970s, Representative AuCoin led efforts to normalize trade relations between the US and the People’s Republic of China. When the two countries normalized economic and diplomatic relations in January 1979, AuCoin led the first trade delegation to China just one month later, traveling with a group of Oregon business leaders. In his reflections on the trip, Gonkling details AuCoin's efforts to remove barriers to trade between the nations, his experience traveling and meeting Chinese politicians and citizens, making an appeal at the Peking Zoo for a rare animal exchange involving Giant Pandas to Portland's Washington Park Zoo, seeing a brain surgery with acupuncture at Huashan Hospital, visiting Peking University and being lectured on the Cultural Revolution by a Professor Hung, visiting Feng Pan People's Commune, attending a Peking opera show, and sightseeing and investigative research at the Great Wall, Ming Tombs, Summer Palace, Imperial Palace/The Forbidden City, the Great Hall of the People, Tiananmen Square, the Port of Shanghai, Ma Ling Canning Factory, the Shanghai Arts & Crafts Research Institute, Kwangchow, and Kweilin. Conkling also described his observations about the Chinese people, the economic conditions of the average Chinese citizen, and made notes about the food the group was exposed to and what they learned about the Sino-Vietnamese War, which was ongoing while the group was in China.
The journal of US Congressman Les AuCoin detailing his trip to Warsaw and Krakow, Poland; Dublin, Belfast, and Shannon, Ireland; Berlin, Germany; and Prague, Czechoslovakia roughly a year before the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War in August 1990. In his journal, Congressman AuCoin details the devastation of Prague, meeting foreign leaders (including Polish President Lech Walesa, East German Prime Minister Lothar de Maiziere, and Czech Preisdent Vaclav Havel), the landscape of each country, and visiting the Reistag to find no Checkpoint Charlie or Berlin Wall. When describing the situation of Ireland admist the Northern Ireland Conflict (A.K.A. The Troubles), AuCoin stated "I never wanted to get out of a place so fast in my life -- as bad, really, as the Soviet Union. Taunting hatred, underlying evil everywhere; people/automotons walking in a daze." Reflecting on his trip overall, AuCoin stated "I leave with the feeling that 'minimalist' America is missing a bet here. Americans are idealized, not the Germans, not the Japanese, not even the Italiians, [sic] who are swarming through the place and trying to put together an economic block that would include Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, as a counter-weight to an united Germany and to leverage its on poistion. But with our popularity, a 'Marshall Plan' would give us a dominate position in a post-Cold War era that we've spent trillions of dollars of bombs and missiles one [sic]. Yet Geroge Bush talks of volunteers. They need infrastructure, they need massive chemical and toxic waste cleanup, they need coal scrubbing technoloogy, [sic] they need telecommunications, they need hotels, roads, hospitals, financial services -- and a plan to produce products."
An excerpt of the Oregonian article "We don't have time for this" by Steve Duin, first published on March 19, 1992, and reprinted by the Les AuCoin for Senate Committee. Duin's article analyzes the 1992 House banking scandal in Congress, of which AuCoin was later cleared of any wrongdoing by the US Department of Justice. In 1992, an investigation discovered that hundreds of members of Congress had overdrafted their House bank accounts numerous times, although it was found that the vast majority did so unintentionally -- as the House bank system did not properly alert members of their overdrafts and delayed processing deposits -- and did not break any laws. Duin describes the scandal as "absurdly overblown," defending both Congressman Peter DeFazio and Congressman Les AuCoin.
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."
