Read Politics Never Broke His Heart - Washington Secretary of State

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PREFACE
A Paradoxical Politician
“Who was Washington’s last Republican governor?”
John D. Spellman is tired of being the answer to a trivia question. It’s
as if he hasn’t done anything since 1984 when he lost to the charismatic
Booth Gardner after one bumpy term. Or, for that matter, it’s as if he didn’t
do anything before he was elected governor in 1980. When I told a longtime
Democratic campaign consultant I was writing Spellman’s biography,
he said, “Why?”
Consider this: But for John Spellman, an oil pipeline with a capacity
of a million barrels a day could be snaking along the bottom of Puget
Sound. Rejecting Northern Tier’s pipeline application in 1982 in the face of
a full court press by the Reagan Administration was “monumental,” says
Tom Bancroft, executive director of People for Puget Sound. “An oil spill in
Puget Sound from a pipeline could be absolutely devastating. It could mean
the demise of the killer whale, of salmon stocks, of recreation and the livelihoods
of hundreds of thousands.” 1
Moreover, during 14 eventful years at the King County Courthouse,
Spellman swept out a rat’s nest of patronage and palm-greasing to create
a modern government. “John was the George Washington of King County”
after the voters approved a home-rule charter in 1968, says Dow Constantine,
who was elected county executive in 2009. 2
Spellman promoted racial equality, criminal justice reforms, land-use
planning and farmlands preservation. He persevered at every turn to build
a landmark domed stadium, the Kingdome, and helped secure the sports
franchises that made Seattle a big-league town. Former state treasurer Dan
Grimm, a Democrat who sparred with Spellman when he was in the Legislature,
disagrees with using public funds to finance sports stadiums. “But
the ones we have now and those yet to be built in generations to come” owe
their existence to Spellman. “The Kingdome was nothing more than the
initial incarnation of what he achieved,” says Grimm. “Justice dictates every
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