booth gardner - Washington Secretary of State

plus its major stake in Weyerhaeuser. Booth would also oversee the Medina Foundation
and the Laird Norton Family Foundation, two of the Northwest’s top philanthropies.
Booth’s stepbrothers and half-brothers were either temperamentally unsuited, disinclined
or not ready to run the family store. Clapp told his stepson he had his full confidence,
which sealed the deal. They both understood, however, that Clapp was stepping aside, not
going away. That was fine with Booth. “Getting to work for Norton and run a company like
that was the opportunity of a lifetime for any manager.”
Booth resigned from the State Senate on Dec. 13, 1973, saying the pressure of
meeting his business and family responsibilities was too great for him to do justice to the
seat. In the wake of redistricting, he no longer lived within the 26 th District, so whether
he would seek another term had been up in the air in any case. His resignation had been
rumored for some time, the Tacoma News Tribune noted, adding that “despite rumors he
might wish to run for governor or other high office, Gardner denied any such aspiration at
this time.”
Some speculated he left the Senate because he didn’t want to comply with
a new financial-disclosure law. But he’d already done a legal end-around, placing his
investment portfolio in a blind trust nearly a year earlier after voters approved the law,
which had hundreds of public officials in a dither. City council members and citizenlegislators
protested that their competitors in the insurance and widget business would
crib from their list of customers and “quality people” would be discouraged from entering
public service. The asset value reporting categories under the new law were so broad,
however, that they offered only vague insight into personal wealth. When he was running
for governor 11 years later, Gardner responded to calls to open his blind trust to public
inspection. Well, sort of. Citing federal law, the Public Disclosure Commission told Gardner
he need only report the assets originally placed in the blind trust. State statutes were also
lenient. The value of Gardner’s Weyerhaeuser stock in 1972 was listed simply as “more
than $25,000.” Federal law, however, stipulated that officers and directors of publicly-held
corporations had to reveal their stock holdings and transactions. When he succeeded
Clapp on the Weyerhaeuser Company Board of Directors on April 15, 1976, Gardner owned
105,240 shares of Weyerhaeuser, worth approximately $4.7 million. He sold 10,000 shares
that December at $45 a share. He also became a director of Puget Sound National Bank
and stepped up his giving to charities and social betterment programs.
He had work to do at home, too.
56