US Congressman Les AuCoin's typewritten journal from November and December 1982. The journal describes his everyday life as a member of Congress, such as giving an address to the Oregon Sierra Club, having a discussion with an anti-missile and nuclear freeze activist group, meeting with a political advisory committee regarding the Balanced Budget Constituional Amendment, talks surrounding an Oregon wilderness bill, meeting with the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, meeting with Senator Mark Hatfield, voting against "the vaunted 'Infrastructure/Jobs Bill,'" giving a house floor speech on the Defense Appropriations Bill on the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, receiving a conference report for the Transportation Appropriations Bil, and his work on the "automobile 'domestic content' bill" that affected the Port of Portland and the electronics industry.
US Congressman Les AuCoin's typewritten journal from late June 1987. The journal notably describes his meeting with Soviet Ambassador Yuri Dubinin in order to support the immigration cases of refuseniks, as well as the early brainstorming of his run for the Senate in the 1990s.
US Congressman Les AuCoin's 37-page-long journal describing the immediate months following his win in the 1974 US House of Representatives election. Providing a picture of how Congress operates behind the scenes, AuCoin writes in detail about his transition from Oregon to Washington, D.C.; the process of hiring congressional staff; attending the Democratic mini-Convention in Kansas City; him, his wife Sue, and their children Stacy and Kelly moving into a condominium apartment in Washington, D.C. from their house in Forest Grove, Oregon; the attention he received from the media and fellow politicians; the four-day train trip through America's heartland; his swearing-in ceremony on the US House floor; attending President Gerald Ford's State of the Union address; his first markup session in the Banking, Currency, and Housing Committee; his first time successfully legislating with the Emergency Middle-Income Housing Act in the Housing Subcommittee; scheduling town meetings back home for his constituents, writing a letter to one of his campaign staff's sons to encourage him to finish high school; his first embassy party with his wife Sue at the West Germany embassy; and congressional discussions on the Vietnam Humanitarian Assistance and Evacuation Act of 1975. On the Democratic Party in 1975, AuCoin stated: "All of which means, in my judgement, that there must be a new dogma in the Democratic Party -- a new impetus for cost-consciousness and performance accountability in government programs. The old pork chop vote of the New Deal days is gone forever. You just can't spend a million dollars for this, or that -- or create a new federal office for this, or that -- and win the hearts and minds of the voters in either party today.... People just distrust government -- they distrust its morality and ethics and they distrust its ability to solve problems....Certainly, the party cannot thrive in the '70s and '80s if, intellectually, it's still serving warmed-over New Dealism."
