Former Sen. Bob Packwood, an Oregon Republican who resigned from the Senate in 1995 after a sexual misconduct scandal, died at 93 on June 6, 2026, at a residential care facility in Rancho Mirage, California.

Packwood served nearly 27 years in the Senate before resigning when the Senate Ethics Committee unanimously voted to recommend his expulsion for sexual misconduct, abuse of office and obstruction. The vote capped a 33-month investigation that produced 10,145 pages of documentation and reshaped how Congress confronted harassment by its own members.

According to the committee’s findings, Packwood made unwanted sexual advances toward at least 17 women during his time in the Senate and altered evidence in an attempt to mislead investigators. Among the most damaging material were Packwood’s own taped diaries, which the panel obtained under subpoena. In one entry, he joked that he was performing his “Christian duty” by having sex with a staff member.

A Rare Forced Exit From the Senate

The committee’s unanimous vote in September 1995 marked the first time the panel had voted to remove a sitting senator since 1981 — a rare and tense moment for an institution that has historically been reluctant to police its own. Packwood announced his resignation the next day on the Senate floor.

“I am aware of the dishonor that has befallen me,” he said. “It is my duty to resign.”

The Ethics Committee’s recommendation was based on the documentation it had compiled, not on additional allegations that surfaced later — including one involving unwanted sexual advances toward a 17-year-old who had served as an intern in Packwood’s office.

An Architect of the 1986 Tax Overhaul

Before his downfall, Packwood was one of the most consequential policy figures in the Senate. As chair of the Senate Finance Committee, he played a central role in the Reagan-era tax overhaul signed into law in 1986. Packwood was initially skeptical of the sprawling rewrite, but eventually helped broker the final product in partnership with then-House Ways and Means Chair Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill.

The legislation, declared dead by lobbyists and lawmakers at multiple points during a stop-and-start negotiation, ultimately dropped the highest personal income tax rate while raising the top capital gains tax rate. It remains a touchstone for tax reform debates.

Packwood’s perch on the Finance Committee is mirrored by Sen. Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat who replaced him in the Senate and now serves as the panel’s top Democrat. Following Packwood’s death, Wyden said that while Packwood’s record on abortion rights and tax reform merited recognition, his treatment of women told a different story. “His horrible history as documented in his own diaries will forever overshadow that public record,” Wyden said. “Simply put, historians’ first line about Bob Packwood must include those women who he abused and assaulted for years and years.”

Health Care Champion Turned Opponent

Long before President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act in 2010, Packwood championed a similar concept as the lead Senate sponsor of President Richard M. Nixon’s 1974 health care proposal, which would have required employers to offer health insurance to their workers. However, as resistance within the Republican Party intensified in the early 1990s, Packwood changed his position and ultimately opposed the legislation he had once backed.

The flip exemplified Packwood’s pragmatic, critics said opportunistic, approach to legislating. He was also an early Republican supporter of legalized abortion, introducing legislation to protect abortion rights in the early 1970s — before the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision codified that right into law.

From Portland to Capitol Hill

Mounting press reports about his behavior toward female staffers, lobbyists and constituents triggered the ethics inquiry that would end his career.

His resignation in 1995 became a watershed for Congress, frequently invoked in the years that followed as lawmakers wrestled with how to handle accusations of harassment against their colleagues. The release of his own taped diaries, in particular, set a precedent for the kinds of personal records the Ethics Committee could compel under subpoena.

Packwood is survived by his wife, Elaine Franklin, two children, two stepchildren and three grandchildren.