Helen Sommers: An Oral History

pg. 112 Wayne Ehlers
down, but Spellman said “Oh, we got along OK.”
Well, that wasn’t true! Spellman did not get along
at all with the House Republican majority! He got
along OK with Senator Jeanette Hayner and the
Senate Republicans. But, he and Polk just did not
get along! I think Speaker Polk abused him badly;
and there are all kinds of examples of that.
While I must admit that I was guilty of giving
Spellman a bad time sometimes when I was Speaker,
I had a lot of respect for Spellman as a decent person,
and generally a pretty good governor. He was
probably much closer to our caucus when we had
the majority (1983-84), than he was to Polk and the
Republican majority in l981-82. When Polk was
Speaker, I was Minority Leader, so I was in the
midst of this. I’d go to leadership meetings and see
the hostility that was there. I remember it very well!
Monahan: When you completed your second term
as Speaker, you did not run for the House again.
When you left the House in 1987, did you go to
work for Gov. Booth Gardner?
Speaker Ehlers: No, initially I went to work for the
Dept. of Social and Health Services as the Secretary’s
representative for Region 6, which is King
County. I was working in Seattle, and I reported
directly to DSHS Secretary. I was kind of a trouble
shooter for children’s services. DSHS asked me to
come down for part of the session in 1990 before
I would retire, to work for Jule Sugarman, but he
got bumped by Gov. Gardner, and Dick Thompson
was appointed by Booth to be the DSHS Secretary.
So, I spent the 1989 session working for DSHS and
I did handle the Mental Health Reform Executive
bill for Gov. Gardner.
I planned to retire, but Booth asked me to
come over to his staff. I didn’t want to originally,
because I wanted to retire. But, I did agree to work
for Booth to head his Legislative Office. He also
had a federal office, so I supervised them as well.
I did that for 2 ½ years and then I did retire!
Monahan: Tell me a little about Governor Gardner
and your friendship with him.
Speaker Ehlers: He is beyond... when everybody
talks about him, and even when he used to play golf
with us when he was no longer governor, we would
go to a restaurant or wherever, Booth would be out
talking to people and meeting people in the kitchen
of a restaurant. There would be times when he was
supposed to be doing something as governor, and
he’d have some major leader or a VIP in his office,
and I was supposed to be getting him back to the
office for the meeting! But I’d find Booth talking
to and visiting with a lot of kids in the rotunda,
or someplace.
There are all kinds of Booth Gardner stories I
could tell about things he did for people – you know
he had a lot of money. When he was in college,
he was living down in Seattle’s Central District.
He was coaching baseball for some young teams
in the Central District, and the teams didn’t have
balls, gloves, uniforms or anything. One day, a
truck pulls up with bats, balls, uniforms, bases and
everything else. Nobody knew who it came from.
It clearly was from Booth, but he never let anyone
know. He did things like that for lots of people. I
could tell you a lot of stories about his generosity
and his friendliness.
Booth had a tough childhood with his mother
and sister having died in a plane crash. He lived in
Lakewood with his father, who was an alcoholic.
He understood the problems people had. People
spent a lot of time talking about how rich he was,
but they didn’t talk about all the generous things
he did for people or about him losing his mother.
Monahan: When you were Speaker of the House,
what was Helen Sommer’s position then?
Speaker Ehlers: I always thought Helen would become
Speaker long before I ever would! She had all the
abilities and skills and was very, very bright. She
could be a great team player. When I was Minority
Leader and Speaker, if we had something we were
going to do, she would do it as part of the team.
But sometimes she couldn’t help herself. If it
was something that she just didn’t want to do, she
wouldn’t be upfront about it, she would arrange for
someone else – usually a freshman – there would
be some issue. She knew she would get in trouble
with us if she was out front, so I had cases where a
bunch of people from a committee or the Caucus
would come to me, objecting to me putting her on
a conference committee. I had conversations with