Packwood’s Final Day As A Senator Filled With Votes, Farewells Oregon Republican Forced To Resign After Ethics Scandal

Sen. Bob Packwood, forced to resign in an ethics scandal, spent a low-key last day Friday in the U.S. Senate where he once was known as the leading Republican defender of abortion and women’s rights.

No formal farewell was planned in the Senate or in his personal office, although Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole had a small party for him in Dole’s office Thursday night “with a fair number of my closest senatorial friends,” said Packwood, 63.

“It was touching. It wasn’t like, ‘Farewell, you’re going off to Never-Neverland.’ But it was handshakes and hugs and, ‘Good luck, the door’s open, come any time.’ Those types of comments,” he said.

He said he might some day write a book about his travails and intends eventually to retire back in Oregon.

Friday was the last day of Senate business before his Oct. 1 resignation and Packwood said he was carrying it out like any other day, with the exception of taking time out to say goodbye to friends. He continued to cast votes on the Senate floor and said he would do so late into Friday night until the body adjourned for a week off.

“As long as you’re a U.S. senator and you’re in office, then you ought to do the job you were elected to do,” Packwood said.

Reflecting on his 27-year Senate career, Packwood said he would miss the “camaraderie and the closeness.”

“Where else could you have the opportunity to do something for this country that you have in this United States Senate?” he asked.

“A zillion dollars would not buy that opportunity - to be able to make a change in something like tax reform or saving Hells Canyon. You can only do that from the inside.”

The Senate Ethics Committee recommended Sept. 6 that Packwood be expelled for alleged sexual and official misconduct. It found he made uninvited sexual advances toward women employees and colleagues, solicited jobs from lobbyists for his ex-wife and obstructed the nearly 3-year-long ethics probe by altering his personal diaries.