January 8, 1926-August 19, 2020
You were the Attorney General in my home state of Washington when I was born in 1971 and then serve as US Senator from 1981 to 2001. You were defeated by Brock Adams in 1986 came back in 1988 to defeat Mike Lowry to serve the next 12 years until you were defeated in 2000 in a very close election that required a recount against current US Senator Maria Cantwell. I did not always support you in fact I voted against you in 1994 for a King County Council Member Ron Sims at the time. My experience with you was when back in the late 1970's a child entering school in the Upper Snoqualmie Valley School District. As Attorney General you refused to intervene in a law that my home town state representative Frances North from North Bend wrote the Rural School Special Education Act which was also called the Mark Kim Marion Special Education Act of 1979 signed by Dixie Lee Ray the Governor. This required that school district where to enroll the Special needs where the child lived this law was repeal in 2007 by the Washington State Democrat controlled legislature. In fact you praise this law later on in your career as US Senator during the time you were in the US Senate. I do remember briefly meeting you as a young child when you were Attorney General during this act signing in 1979.
Slade's legislative career started in 1959 at as state representative in the 46th legislative district which represented NE Seattle which today is represented by liberal Democrats at all levels of government. Before the 1970's Seattle had elected Republicans to the state legislature. My late Grandfather Russell Carter who is resting in a cemetery in Brier north of the city was one of those Republicans who lived in Green Lake around that time. Then in 1968 when Washington State still had Republican leanings ran for Attorney General served under two Governors one was Dan Evans who was a three term governor that last governor to do so. He also serve under Dixie Lee Ray the last honest Democrat governor in my opinion in the State of Washington too bad a volcano destroyed her political career. Then 1980 Slade did what most people thought could never been done with the help a national victory of Ronald Reagan won the presidency watched KOMO News Vote 1980 show my hometown of North Bend at my birth house on the corner of Park and Ballarat. They declared Slade the winner of the Washington US Senate race and Peter Jennings showed his picture. My mother said that he was considered safe by the Washington State Democrat Party and the media at that time. I was attending Snoqualmie Elementary as a 3rd grader and then as a freshman in high school at Mt Si I remember in a mock election as member of the Snoqualmie Valley Young Democrats at the time remember his defeat when watching television on KOMO in our apartment on Meadowbrook Way in Snoqualmie chanting his defeat. Then I remember rooting for him when reading a magazine I bought on Kodiak Island a teenager in 1988 found out he was running again and supported him. I moved back to the state to finish high school in Cle Elum and lived there for the next ten years. He was always an individual first not a Republican he was like a few lawmakers we know. He considered his residents of his state first. Washington State will miss him a lot. He was the last Republican US Senator elected from the State of Washington. He is enjoying himself with the great lawmakers like Alaska's Ted Stevens.
After his 2000 general election defeat he had volunteered on various state and federal commission including the famous 9/11 commission. He helped design the latest Washington state election district he was responsible for why the 8th congressional district goes from Auburn to Chelan and Kittitas County in Washington. If Kim Schrier is reelected you can kiss this goodbye.
There was a fictional television series that lasted one season called Citizen Baines which was a recently defeated US Senator was defeated by a tech mogul he had to find a job in the private sector. This was based on Slade many Washingtonians objected to this show at the time. I also remember the Washington CBS stations also decided not show this at the time over the objections of the Washington State Republican Party.
Here are some oral histories of Slade Gorton from the Washington State Archives
News report from KING 5 News about his death
Citizen Baines
only lasted one season on CBS based on Slade Gorton
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