Oregon is losing an able and hardworking advocate in Congress with the impending retirement of Peter DeFazio.

The Springfield Democrat announced last week that he will not seek reelection in 2022, bringing his political career to a close after 36 years in the U.S. House of Representatives. That longevity has made him Oregon’s longest-serving member of Congress — and has given him the political clout to do a lot of good things for this state and the nation.

“He is very smart, very passionate and very knowledgeable about the details,” 2nd District Rep. Earl Blumenauer said of his longtime colleague during a Zoom call Friday with representatives of the East Oregonian Media Group. “This is a tremendous loss for Oregon and a tremendous loss for the country.”

At 74, DeFazio has certainly earned the right to retire. He recently underwent back surgery, and his announcement stated that he was stepping down in order to focus on his health and well-being.

But Oregonians will feel the loss of his considerable influence on Capitol Hill, especially in the realm of transportation.

DeFazio joined the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee when he first came to Congress in 1987 and gradually rose through the ranks, becoming chair of the panel in 2019. Over the years, his position on the committee and his vast expertise on transportation issues has enabled him to steer millions of dollars in federal funding to his home state, helping to bankroll important improvements for Oregon’s ports and railroads. In 2006, he was able to tweak the federal highway funding formula to free up an additional $1.3 billion in funding for Oregon roads and bridges. His fingerprints are all over the $1.2 billion infrastructure package recently passed by Congress, which may finally pave the way for the Columbia River Crossing, a badly needed project that would ease the bottleneck where Interstate 5 links Oregon and Washington. And it was DeFazio who led the charge to hold Boeing and the FAA accountable after a malfunctioning control system caused two Boeing 737 MAX jetliners to crash, killing 346 people.

Of course, DeFazio has his share of detractors, many of whom take issue with some of his more left-leaning positions. But he’s never been afraid to stand up against his own party. He crossed the aisle to support a Republican plan to create a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget, bucked Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama on free trade agreements he thought harmed American workers and harshly criticized Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package in the wake of the Great Recession, saying the money should have gone toward infrastructure improvements rather than Wall Street bailouts.

And it’s worth noting that DeFazio has been able to hold his seat against all comers for 18 terms in the House. Oregon’s 4th Congressional District is a politically diverse territory that encompasses not only the liberal enclaves of Eugene and Corvallis but a large swath of conservative Southwest Oregon. The district leans a bit more to the left after the recent redistricting orchestrated by the Democrat-held Legislature, but it’s been competitive in the past: Last year, Republican Alek Skarlatos lost by just 6 percentage points.

Whoever the voters elect in 2022 will have a tough time matching DeFazio’s long-running political tightrope act — or his ability to serve the interests of Oregonians of all party affiliations.