36 Facts About Les AuCoin

Les AuCoin was an early advocate of diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China and arms control with the Soviet Union, and a critic of US support for the Nicaraguan Contras and the rightist government of El Salvador in the 1980s.

Les AuCoin was a two-term member of the Oregon House of Representatives from 1971 to 1974.

Les AuCoin is a full-time author, writer, lecturer and occasional blogger.

Les AuCoin is a member of the ReFormers Caucus of Issue One.

Les AuCoin was born in Portland, Oregon, on October 21,1942, to Francis Edgar Les AuCoin, a short order cook from Portland, Maine, and Alice Audrey Darrar, a waitress from Madras, Oregon.

Les AuCoin attended Redmond High School, where he was elected most valuable player on the school's basketball team.

Les AuCoin enrolled at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon, then transferred to Portland State University.

Les AuCoin was assigned to the 2nd Infantry Division and the 10th Mountain Division where he served as a public information specialist, writing dispatches to The Nashville Banner, the Louisville Courier-Journal, The Nashville Tennessean, Stars and Stripes, and Army Times, among other publications.

Les AuCoin married Susan Swearingen in 1964, and the couple had two children: Stacy in 1965 and Kelly in 1967.

McCarthy's upset victory over Robert F Kennedy in the Oregon Democratic primary encouraged AuCoin to run for elective office in 1970, seeking and winning an open seat in the Oregon House of Representatives in Washington County.

Les AuCoin chaired the committee that led the efforts to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.

In 1981, Les AuCoin won a seat on the House Appropriations Committee, and two years later, was appointed to the subcommittee on Defense appropriations.

Les AuCoin became a legislative critic of weaponizing space, opposing the Strategic Defense Initiative, basing his opposition on probability theory, holding that it could not fully defend the United States in the event of an attack.

Les AuCoin authored a legislative ban on US flight tests of anti-satellite weapons, which carried the force of law unless the president certified that the Soviet Union tested a similar weapon of its own.

Les AuCoin supported the nuclear freeze movement and was a leading critic of President Reagan's proposed MX missile, arguing that such "first strike" weapons would prompt the Soviet Union to match them, and, since a first strike ability favored the aggressor, reasoning that such an event would increase the vulnerability of the US.

Les AuCoin's legislation resulted in the adoption of the FGM-148 Javelin missile, which put its homing device in the round rather than the launcher to allow its operator to fire and immediately seek cover.

In 1987, a constituent of Les AuCoin's named Ben Linder was killed by Contra forces while helping build a small hydroelectric electricity generator for Nicaraguan villagers.

In February 1979, Les AuCoin led a trade mission of Oregon business leaders to China, the first such delegation from any US state.

Les AuCoin used his seat on the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee to address a number of economic priorities throughout Oregon, including construction of the Oregon Trail Center in economically distressed Baker City, renovation of Crater Lake Lodge, restoration of the Confederated Tribes of the Grande Ronde and Confederated Tribes of Siletz, and construction of the Seafood Consumer Research Center in Astoria and the Fort Clatsop Memorial Visitors Center.

Les AuCoin had a hand in the rescue of Northwest lumber and plywood mills during the recession of the early 1980s.

Les AuCoin helped preserve Cascade Head on the Oregon Coast, supported the Columbia Gorge Scenic Protection Act, helped stop the construction of Salt Caves Dam on the last free-flowing stretch of the Klamath River, co-authored the 1988 bill quadrupling the designation of National Wild and Scenic Rivers in Oregon, and fought the construction of a plant at the Umatilla Chemical Depot to incinerate excess chemical weapons.

Les AuCoin was one of the House's key leaders for abortion choice, helping to defeat the Hyde Amendment, which barred public funds for abortion services for pregnant Medicaid recipients as well as in US military hospitals abroad.

Les AuCoin switched his position during his legislative career, emphasized with an essay in The Washington Post, supporting what would become the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act which passed after he left office in 1993.

In 1992, Les AuCoin ran for the United States Senate against Republican incumbent Bob Packwood, giving up his seat in the House of Representatives.

Les AuCoin faced Portland attorney Joe Wetzel and Bend businessman Harry Lonsdale in what became a "brutal, bitter" contest.

Les AuCoin turned accusations of undue influence back on Lonsdale, pointing out that his company had received millions in federal defense contracts.

Les AuCoin opposed weakening the Endangered Species Act to erase the northern spotted owl's impact on the timber industry, but Packwood assailed "environmental extremists" and introduced legislation to convene a presidential cabinet committee to exempt the endangered owl from the ESA.

Les AuCoin was considered for Secretary of the Interior and Secretary of the Army in the new Clinton administration, though he was not offered either post.

When news of Packwood's resignation broke, Les AuCoin stated that he would not come out of retirement to run for the seat.

Les AuCoin went into higher education five years after leaving the Congress, joining the faculty at Southern Oregon University in Ashland as a visiting professor of political science and business ethics.

Les AuCoin was named Outstanding Professor of the Year by the SOU chapter of Phi Kappa Phi, the nation's largest scholarly society.

Les AuCoin is co-author of The Wildfire Reader: A Century of Failed Forest Policy.

Les AuCoin is a corporate director at the Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle and Teton Heritage Builders, Inc.

Les AuCoin has been an expert witness in federal district court on issues regarding fiduciary duties of corporate board directors, and he served as vice chair of the board of trustees of Pacific University.

Les AuCoin is a member of the ReFormers Caucus of Issue One.

In 2019, Les AuCoin wrote a political memoir, Catch and Release: An Oregon Life in Politics, published by Oregon State University Press.