THE BOB PACKWOOD YOU DIDN’T KNOW: Sen. Robert Packwood (R-ORE) passed away recently. The prototypical Senate GOP RINO, Packwood is probably most remembered these days, if he is recalled at all, for sleeping with certain female staffers. But there was much more to the man.

Former Reagan White House official Chuck Donovan, writing in The Washington Stand, tells about Packwood’s devotion to advancing the cause of population control (remember Erhlich’s “The Population Bomb”?). and the closely related issue of legalizing abortion. Packwood played a huge role in blocking Reagan’s major pro-life initiative:

Packwood “was a key force within the GOP in blocking progress on life. In 1982, the Reagan administration endorsed a measure called the Human Life Bill, which, less than a decade after Roe v. Wade, would have made clear that the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution applied to all human beings from conception, freeing the states and, by implication, the federal government to protect human life from abortion. Packwood joined fellow Republican Millicent Fenwick of New Jersey and many Democrats in opposing the HLB, as it was dubbed. The Senate failed to break a filibuster against the bill, and it was ultimately tabled,” Donovan writes. There is much more like this, courtesy of Donovan’s careful re-telling.