Packwood Takes Tense Tour of Home Turf : Ethics: The Oregon Republican hears angry, heartfelt pleas to resign over sexual harassment charges. He says he’s entitled to a fair hearing.

A man on the run, facing scrutiny by the courts, the Justice Department and the U.S. Senate, Bob Packwood returned home Monday to hear the toughest judgments of all: the angry, heartfelt, sometimes snide pleas of his constituents to resign.

“No,” said the five-term Republican senator, his lips tight.

“Don’t you think I’m entitled to a hearing?” he demanded.

After a two-day private rest on the Oregon coast, Packwood began a 10-day home state tour Monday, ostensibly to talk about health care reform, an ordinary enough event for ordinary politicians. But for Packwood, who has represented the state for nearly a quarter century, charges of habitually harassing women have mushroomed into full-scale scandal, and some Oregonians stood up to him Monday and said they have had enough.

“I believe you deserve a fair hearing,” said constituent Peggy Lynch, a Beaverton community volunteer who confronted Packwood at a crowded civic forum here. “But we’re in a crisis in Oregon and we’ve got to have credibility in all our government officials. And if sacrificing your personal fair hearing is for the good of the nation and the good of Oregon, then that’s what I would like to see.”

Packwood, standing a few feet away, perspired under the hot lights of massed news cameras.

“Let me ask the people in the room, how many of you think I should have a hearing?” Packwood asked.

A dozen or more in the crowd of 90 raised their hands.

“How many do not?”

Nobody.

But Packwood did not put to a vote questions that are more urgently discussed here: Should he quit? Has he lost his effectiveness? Has he given Oregon a black eye? Should a senator evoke the 5th Amendment to protect himself?

Packwood said his troubles deserved the full protection of the American legal process. He wanted a hearing, he said, and he wanted it quickly. He did not elaborate on his battle to withhold his personal diaries from the Senate Ethics Committee, a struggle that has now gone to the federal courts and has slowed the Senate investigation.

“I want a hearing, wish I had a hearing two months ago. But I can’t make the Ethics Committee work any faster,” Packwood insisted.

As for his effectiveness, he sought to depersonalize the workings of the Senate, which is frequently described as America’s most exclusive club and where some fellow senators have called for him to resign.

“Let’s say we’re on the floor of the Senate. They’re not going to vote for or against a bill because I authored it. They will vote for or against it for a variety of reasons, but it won’t be because of who authored it,” he said. And he added that his legal troubles in Washington required only two to four hours of his time each week, while the rest he devoted to the routine tasks of being a senator and member of the Finance Committee.

Another questioner in Monday’s audience of the Washington County Public Affairs Forum rose and described himself as a former neighbor of Packwood’s.

“I think it’s inevitable you’re going to have to resign. And I ask you today . . . to do it,” said the man in suit and tie.

Packwood gave no reply.

Neither did he seem to notice a small sign another guest held aloft: “Resign Now. You still don’t get it.”

What made the questions seem extraordinary is that Packwood handpicked his forum, a small suburban Portland civic group that included among its members a college classmate, a former state legislative colleague and any number of other men and women whose association with the senator went back 30 years or more.

The audience politely listened to his informal and relaxed speech on the fundamentals of health care, and a preponderance of the questions stuck to the topic. Many were quick to say that they supported Packwood.

“Think of all he has done for Oregon,” said David Eldon, a part-time pollster from Beaverton.

Critics, including a half-dozen who picketed outside, vowed to dog Packwood, just as they have since December, 1992, when the first of more than two dozen women publicly accused him of sexual misbehavior.

“I got up this morning in the rain to come and say it’s time for him to go. I’m embarrassed. We need a break,” said Jeannie Fagman, a former school board member in Oregon. “He knows it, and I just wish he’d get on with it.”

After his luncheon speech, Packwood spoke to reporters. An aide said questions would have to be limited to the topic of health care. But the inevitable question came anyway: Would he resign?

“No,” he said.

He delivered the same answer in a local television interview, although he acknowledged that for a time on a “low day” he considered resigning. But then the Justice Department issued a subpoena for his diaries, and he said he decided it was better to fight back as a senator than as a citizen.

A judge in Washington, D.C., is expected to rule this week on Packwood’s efforts to keep his diaries from investigators. Packwood’s attorney cited 5th Amendment protections against self-incrimination among the reasons the diaries should not be given to the Senate Ethics Committee.

The questions at Monday’s press conference were a measure of just how far Packwood’s star has fallen. Not only are there charges about unwanted sexual advances on women, about lobbyists offering his wife a job, about whether he altered his diaries after the scandal broke, but he now is accused of being a carpetbagger in his own state, thanks to news accounts that reported he no longer owns a home here.

Does he live in Oregon? Packwood was asked.

“I am a legal resident of Oregon,” he replied.

Where does he live?

“I am a legal resident. I do not own a home. See you later, folks.”

With that, Packwood left.