Bob Packwood, senator who resigned amid sexual misconduct scandal, dies aged 93

Former Oregon senator Bob Packwood in 1998. Photograph: Jack Smith/AP View image in fullscreen Former Oregon senator Bob Packwood in 1998. Photograph: Jack Smith/AP Bob Packwood, senator who resigned amid sexual misconduct scandal, dies aged 93 The moderate Republican, an advocate of abortion rights, resigned in 1995 amid accusations of sexual harassment Former US senator Bob Packwood, a moderate Oregon Republican whose reputation as a champion of abortion and women’s rights was spoiled at the end of his career by allegations of sexual harassment, has died. He was 93. Packwood’s death on Saturday was announced in an obituary sent to media outlets by his family. The release didn’t include additional details. Packwood was a political scrapper who first refused to quit the chamber in which he had served for 27 years, saying he didn’t want to be remembered only for that controversy. Before the era marked by the #MeToo social justice movement, Packwood stood out as an example of private behavior undermining a man’s public image. He had been praised by Planned Parenthood and others. The great-grandson of a member of the 1857 Oregon Constitutional Convention, Packwood established himself as a social moderate and fiscal conservative who often voted across party lines. He considered running for president in 1980. Elected to the Senate in 1968, Packwood was best known as the leading Republican advocate of abortion rights – and was widely admired by women’s groups throughout the US until the Senate ethics committee launched an investigation into the allegations of sexual and official misconduct in 1993. More than two dozen women, former employees and acquaintances, accused him of making unwanted or uninvited sexual advances. The allegations remained the target of an ethics investigation that widened to include other alleged acts of official misconduct. He resigned in September 1995 – then went to start a lucrative lobbying business in Washington. Democratic senator Ron Wyden, who replaced Packwood in 1996, said while he should be praised for his record on abortion rights and tax reform, how he treated women overshadows it all. “His horrible history as documented in his own diaries will forever overshadow that public record. Simply put, historians’ first line about Bob Packwood must include those women who he abused and assaulted for years and years,” Wyden said in a statement. As chair and then ranking Republican on the Senate finance committee, Packwood was a master of cutting deals and forging compromises needed to pass tax legislation through Congress. He was most proud of the lead role he played in a sweeping tax reform of 1986 that lowered the top income tax bracket and eliminated many itemized deductions. Over his career, he was described as a blunt, independent, outspoken politician who was a maverick, boat-rocker, loose cannon, skilled partisan, and, above all, political survivor. “I think they probably all ring true,” Packwood told the Associated P