La Fayette Grover

In 1857, he was a delegate to the Oregon Constitutional Convention, representing Marion County.[1] When Oregon gained statehood, he was elected to the 35th United States Congress as Oregon's member of the House of Representatives, serving from February 15, 1859, to March 4, 1859. He did not run for reelection in 1858, and resumed his law practice and the manufacture of woolens.

Grover was elected Governor of Oregon in 1870 and was reelected in 1874.[2] He served as governor until 1877, when he resigned to serve in the United States Senate.[3] Grover served in the Senate from March 4, 1877, to March 3, 1883, serving in the 46th United States Congress as the chairman of the Senate Committee on Manufactures. He did not run for reelection in 1883.

During the 1876 Presidential Election, Oregon's statewide result clearly favored Rutherford Hayes, but then-governor Grover claimed that elector John Watts was constitutionally ineligible to vote since he was an "elected or appointed official". Grover substituted a Democratic elector in his place. The two Republican electors dismissed Grover's action and each reported three votes for Hayes, while the Democratic elector, C. A. Cronin, reported one vote for Samuel Tilden and two votes for Hayes. The vote was critical because the electoral college without John Watts's vote was tied 184–184. A 15-member Electoral Commission ultimately awarded all three of Oregon's votes to Hayes.