A statement by Oregon House Majority Leader Les AuCoin regarding his previous affiliation and employment with The Oregonian newspaper. AuCoin states that he had worked during for The Oregonian for a short time in 1960 during a strike, "having no comprehension of the real meaning of a strike," before being employed again by the newspaper after the strike had ended in November 1965. A handwritten note on the front page, which was presumbly written years later, states: "During first primary, Demo [sic] opponents used my Oregonian employment against me."
Address of US Congressman Les AuCoin delivered before the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) convention in Oregon in 1982. In his address, Congressman AuCoin discussed President Reagan vetoing an anti-recession housing bill, unemployment, and the 1982 midterm elections, stating "This, my friends, is a fight, a fight over who is going to run America. Is it going to be rich men who have never stood in unemployment lines and have no understanding of what it means to be a construction boiler maker, the ranks of whom today are 90 per cent unemployed? Is this country going to be run by rich men and ultraconservatives who have no conception of what Reaganomics are doing to devastate the communities and families across this state and across this country? Or instead, is this great country going to be run by you, and your neighbors, and by workers everywhere...?"