Posted on 01/03/2006 8:57:34 PM PST by Clinging Bitterly
Former lawmaker Charles Porter dies
By Jim Feehan and Diana Elliott
The Register-Guard
Published: Tuesday, January 3, 2006
Charles O. Porter, a firebrand activist and former congressman who fought and won a 33-year battle to have a Christian cross removed from Skinner Butte, died Sunday night at age 86 from complications of Alzheimer's disease.
Porter, a courtly man who opposed the Vietnam War - and had stood for a host of liberal causes since - was remembered as a champion of the little guy.
"He was willing to take on the power structure - whether it be big business or forces of money or the powerful - in an effort to preserve people's rights and civil liberties," state Sen. Floyd Prozanski said Monday.
Porter served two terms in the U.S. House from Oregon's 4th District from 1957 to 1960, and lost a re-election bid in 1960. Attempts to return to the House in 1962, 1964, 1966 and 1972 also failed.
His left-leaning stances cost him. He endorsed unpopular ideas, such as admitting China to the United Nations and trading with China in nonstrategic materials. He backed disarmament and called for a halt to nuclear testing. In 1958, after Porter was warmly welcomed in Venezuela, the Roseburg News-Review wrote that "Porter's speeches sound as if they were made by (Soviet premier Nikita) Khrushchev."
As a lawyer, he fought against a nuclear plant in Lane County and the use of ratepayers' money to promote it; against noxious odors from a Lane County pulp plant; for tubal ligations by choice for social and economic reasons; for decriminalization of marijuana; and for statutory status reviews of institutionalized mentally retarded people.
David Fidanque, Oregon's director of the American Civil Liberties Union, recalled that "Porter was best known as the irascible ex-congressman who frequently promoted a political view on the liberal edge, in many cases, ahead of his time.
"I think he was one of the most principled people I have run across," Fidanque said. " He never shied away from controversy."
Perhaps his most controversial fight was his mission to remove the hilltop cross from Skinner Butte. He had championed removal of the cross ever since it was erected by Eugene businessmen John Alltucker and Jay Oldham in 1964. The first lawsuit to remove the cross was filed in 1965. In 1970 voters approved a charter amendment to designate the cross as a war memorial. But that wasn't good enough for Porter.
For two more decades the case wound its way through the courts. In 1997, Lane County Circuit Judge David Brewer declined to interfere with a federal court's order to move the cross. The cross was removed, despite a pending appeal before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The city didn't want to pay to fight the court battle anymore. Months later, however, the 9th Circuit ruled the cross unconstitutional. Porter said at the time that displaying the cross on city-owned land "sends a compelling, biased message that it endorses Christian religious tradition and is not religiously neutral."
Once again, Porter was in the minority. Polls showed that most Eugene residents wanted the cross to stay. But it was the principle that mattered, said son, Sam Porter.
"My father, who was a Christian, would say his greatest accomplishment would have been taking the cross down from Skinner Butte," Sam Porter said Monday.
The removal of the cross was by no means Porter's only fight. In 1975 Porter demanded under the Freedom of Information Act that the CIA turn over a file the agency was keeping on him. The 222-page document dealt largely with Porter's peace activities and his efforts to abolish the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Fast-forward to the year 2001. Porter, now seen as an elder statesman, was still embroiled in national issues. He wrote a resolution seeking the impeachment of Supreme Court Justices William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy.
Porter's argument: The American Bar Association requires judges to uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary and to avoid even the appearance of impropriety in their activities.
The justices' Bush vs. Gore decision was so transparently political - all the conservative justices supported it, and all of the liberal justices opposed it - that it compromised its five supporters as independent champions of the rule of law, he said.
The U.S. Constitution requires "good behavior" from Supreme Court justices, and impeachment is the mechanism for removing them from power.
In July 2001, the state Democratic Party passed a resolution supporting impeachment. Washington and California party members were considering similar resolutions but backed out after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Porter said.
Lane County Commissioner Bill Dwyer, a Democrat, said Porter served the community well.
"There was some maverick in him - after all, he tried to impeach members of the Supreme Court. He was a real constitutionalist who tried to fight the abuses of power," Dwyer said.
Porter is survived by a daughter, Anne Cooper of Seattle; three sons, Don of Seattle, Chris of Springfield and Sam of Eugene; and five grandchildren.
His wife, Priscilla, died in 2002.
England's Eugene Memorial Chapel is in charge of arrangements. The family plans to hold a public memorial in late January at First Congregational Church.
It would be too easy here to just say Burn in hell Charlie but I won't. Though I don't know his family they are my neighbors and I wish them peace.
Can we put our cross back up now?
Charlie the Communist bastard is dead. Long live America.
I wonder how that whole anti-Christian thing is working out for him now.
Last act, last grandstand,,,,shortly after assuming room temp.,,,he declares himelf superior to God? I wouldn't be surprised.
Hmmmmm.....he died of Alzheimers.....seems he had it for a long time/sarcasm......may his family find comfort....
"He wrote a resolution seeking the impeachment of Supreme Court Justices William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy."
Of course the Democrats were just following the law.
Statesman?
Liberal loon more descriptive.
Did I miss the burial info, or are they just going to flush this turd?
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