Earl Blumenauer - Early Political Career

Early Political Career

In 1969-70, Blumenauer organized and led Oregon's "Go 19" campaign, an effort to lower the state voting age (while then unsuccessful it supported the national trend which soon resulted in federal law lowering the voting age to 18). In 1972, he was elected to the Oregon House of Representatives as a Democrat representing District 11 in Multnomah County. He won re-election in 1974 and 1976, and continued representing Portland and Multnomah County until the 1979 legislative session. From 1975 to 1981 he served on the board of Portland Community College. Following his time in the Oregon Legislature, he served on the Multnomah County Commission from 1979 to 1986. He lost a race for Portland City Council to Margaret Strachan in 1981. He left the county commission in March 1986 to run again for city council.

Blumenauer was elected to the Portland City Council in May 1986. His first term began in January 1987, and he remained on the council until 1996. From the start of his first council term, he was named the city's Commissioner of Public Works, which made him the city council member in charge of Portland's Bureau of Transportation (also known as the Transportation Commissioner). During his time on the city council Blumenauer was appointed by Oregon Governor Neil Goldschmidt to the state's commission on higher education, and he served on that board in 1990 and 1991. In 1992, Blumenauer was defeated by Vera Katz in an open race for mayor of Portland—to date, only the second time that Blumenauer has ever lost an election. At the time he was described as "the man who probably knows the most about how Portland works", but left local politics to run for Congress. After winning election to Congress, he resigned from the city council in May 1996, to take up his new office.