Walter Huss

Walter L. Huss (May 19, 1918 August 28, 2006) was a fundamentalist minister, and newspaper publisher who served as chairman of the Oregon Republican Party between August 1978 and May 1979. Huss ran multiple times for statewide office in Oregon as a Republican, but never won a primary.

Career

1964 congressional campaign

Huss was a candidate for congress in 1964, running in the republican primary to represent Oregon's 3rd congressional district. He ultimately finished second behind Lyle Dean, with 21,087 votes to Dean's 27,325. Dean went on to lose the general election to incumbent congresswoman Edith Green.

1966 senatorial campaign

In 1966 Huss ran in the Republican primary for Oregon's Class 2 senate seat. He finished second behind Mark Hatfield, who went on to win the general election. Hatfield was an opponent of the Vietnam War, which Huss supported.

Chair of Oregon Republican Party

On August 5, 1978, at a GOP organizational meeting in Bend, Oregon, Huss defeated incumbent Oregon party chair Steve Young in a delegate vote by a margin of 51 to 44.

During Huss's tenure as chair, he repeatedly clashed with moderates in the party. At one point, moderate Republicans including secretary of state Norma Paulus and state treasurer Clay Myers organized a rival organization, the Council of Elected Republicans, to raise funds without going through the state party. Packwood won both the primary and the general.

1982 gubernatorial campaign

In 1982 Huss ran against incumbent governor Victor Atiyeh in the Republican gubernatorial primary. Atiyeh won both the primary and the general elections.

Extremist ties Huss owned a rare Canadian antisemitic tract that had been sold and circulated at Silver Shirt, German American Bund, and American Defenders meetings in Portland in the late 1930s. In the 1980s, Huss was on the mailing lists for the Institute for Historical Review and David Duke's National Association for the Advancement of White People. For much of his life, he subscribed to Gerald L. K. Smith's antisemitic magazine The Cross and the Flag. In 1978, Gerald Ford asked colleagues in Oregon whether they'd managed to oust Huss from his position, referring to him as "that nut."