booth gardner - Washington Secretary of State

Gardner and Heck had even practiced putting their tray tables in the upright
position. “We were in D.C. for a meeting,” Booth remembers, “and I said to Denny, ‘Let’s
simulate a trip I’d typically make if I was a senator. We’ll take the red-eye Friday night, and
we’ll get back in Seattle early Saturday morning.’ We got to Seattle, made a speech, then
went from there to an afternoon Democratic gathering. Sunday morning I had to myself,
but that afternoon was filled with more campaign stuff. Then we got back on the plane and
flew back to D.C. When I got there the second time I talked with the 15 members of the
Senate who were former governors. Fourteen of them said the best job in the world was
governor. Only Jay Rockefeller was happier being in the Senate. Dan Evans never loved the
U.S. Senate like Slade did. Dan said, ‘Why don’t you get another four years as governor?’ I
didn’t know what to do. I was really conflicted.”
* * *
With Gardner out of the way, a host of hopefuls began jockeying for governor
and Adams’ Senate seat. The Republican field for governor featured Attorney General
Ken Eikenberry, Congressman Sid Morrison and Senator McDonald. Speaker Joe King was
the leading Democrat, with Lowry as the wild card. Would the old-shoe liberal rather be
governor than a U.S. senator? And which office offered better prospects for victory? King
and McDonald would occupy center stage in the 1992 legislative session, giving them the
advantage of bully pulpits and the disadvantage of being cooped up in Olympia while the
others were busy raising money.
Booth was one of four candidates for headmaster of his high-school alma mater,
the Lakeside School in Seattle. He spent Christmas playing lame-duck Scrooge and his last
year in office dealing with the largest budget deficit in state history, $900 million. “Very
much at peace” with his decision to not seek re-election, he seemed reinvigorated by
the challenge. For starters, he ordered all state agencies to cut spending by 2.5 percent.
Next, he proposed canceling the raises set for 1993 for teachers, college faculty and other
state workers. He also advocated deeper cuts in health care and social services programs
and called for dramatically higher college tuition, rather than pruning faculty. He was
even willing to siphon $200 million from reserves, depleting the rainy day account to $60
million. That was anathema to his instincts as a businessman, but he saw no alternative. A
recession is a “deadly time” for a general tax increase, he said.
Securing prime-time for his State of the State Address, Booth told the Legislature its
biggest challenge was health care reform, not the budget deficit, although the problems –
then as now – were intertwined. Pointing to polls that found health care to be the voters’
No. 1 issue, the governor noted that state-paid health benefits alone were $850 million
higher in the last budget year, while health insurance costs for most employers were
increasing by 20 percent annually. “Anyone who says we can’t afford health care reform has
got it exactly backwards,” he said. “We can’t afford not to do it. … Health care is a right.”
His plan would extend coverage to the estimated 550,000 Washingtonians who had none.
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