[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Page 6596]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 REMEMBERING CONGRESSMAN ROBERT DUNCAN

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to recognize a man who 
deserves his own branch on the tree of Oregon politics.
  Former Congressman Robert B. Duncan, died Friday in Portland at the 
age of 90. He will long be remembered for what he achieved in reviving 
the Oregon Democratic Party in the years after World War II and being 
elected to represent two of Oregon's congressional districts during the 
1960s and 1970s where he championed such great causes as civil rights 
and the war on poverty.
  He will also be remembered as someone who bravely took on two of 
Oregon's iconic figures. Bob Duncan ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. 
Senate three times, narrowly losing to names that are familiar to 
everyone in this room--Wayne Morse and Mark Hatfield.
  On a personal note, I might also add that Bob Duncan was the 
incumbent and my opponent in the 1980 primary race for Oregon's 3rd 
Congressional District. When I won that race I was afraid that I had 
made an enemy for life out of someone who was revered in State 
Democratic circles. I couldn't have been more wrong. He reached out to 
me and became both a friend and a supporter.
  Throughout his life, Bob Duncan was a major force in Oregon politics, 
shaping the state through his various roles as speaker of the Oregon 
House to influential member of the House appropriations subcommittee on 
transportation where he played a key role in bringing light rail to the 
streets of Portland. His public life ended in 1987 when he stepped down 
as chairman of the Northwest Power Planning Council.
  Bob's service in Congress covered a pivotal time in American politics 
the war in Vietnam. In 1966, at the urging of President Lyndon Johnson, 
Bob gave up his congressional seat from southern Oregon to run for the 
Senate against then-Governor Mark Hatfield. It was a nationally watched 
race pitting Duncan, a proponent of the war, against Hatfield, one of 
the Nation's earliest opponents of the United States' Vietnam policy.
  Two years later, Bob lost by only about 10,000 votes when he ran 
against Wayne Morse in the Democratic primary for Oregon's other Senate 
seat. Morse eventually lost to Republican Bob Packwood. In 1972, he 
lost again to Morse in a Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate.
  Never one to remain idle, Duncan having moved to Portland, won an 
open congressional seat in 1974, making him the only person in Oregon 
history to represent U.S. House districts in different parts of the 
State.
  But Bob Duncan's life should not be defined by races won and lost. He 
was a tireless advocate for civil liberties, civil rights and 
eliminating the scourge of poverty in America. His friends and you can 
count me among them remember him as tenacious and hard working with a 
brilliant legal mind.
  I will always remember him as a larger-than-life figure who loved 
telling stories and never let politics getting in the way of doing what 
he felt was right. Despite running a hard-fought race against each 
other, Duncan and Mark Hatfield became close friends and working 
partners. Thanks to Hatfield's efforts, a government building in 
downtown Portland now bears Duncan's name.
  Please join me in extending my condolences to his wife Kathryn and 
his children. All of Oregon shares in their loss.

                          ____________________