BOOTH WHO? - Washington State Digital Archives

and outmaneuvered. Service providers characterized her as a strident radical, which she
readily acknowledged was often absolutely true. Dolan was first and foremost a passionate
defender of the civil rights of the disabled. Then in the nick of time, the former chairman of
the Troubleshooters board – her friend Booth – became governor. “He was charming and
educated at Harvard and a divine person and he always loved us.”
Two whirlwinds collided when Dolan ran afoul of a lobbyist for the Advocates for the
Mentally Ill. “I just want you to know,” the woman said, “that I’m going to fight you every
step of the way.” Dolan protested that there was “plenty of money and plenty of room for
everybody,” but the battle lines were drawn. Dolan’s adversary was also close to Booth, who
tried to stay neutral, insisting that both groups prepare grant proposals. Then he started
getting complaints about The Troubleshooters in general and Katie in particular. In 1986, she
was told the governor had concluded she probably had to go, that “it’s gone too far.” Dolan
said Booth told a mutual friend, “Don’t worry about Katie, she’ll take care of herself.”
Dolan stayed overnight in Olympia and went to see the governor at 6 a.m. to plead
her case. “Help me,” she said. “He more or less gave us a feeling like it was going to be
fine and he’d take care of it.” She asked him to appoint someone he trusted “as kind of
a monitor on the whole system.” He sent Barlow, whom Dolan regarded as a “wonderful
man” who had lent the Medina Foundation’s support to the Troubleshooters. But Barlow
“saw a board that was out of hand, a staff that was out of hand and, after all, I was the
executive director and I think he knew that if I couldn’t handle that then I shouldn’t be
there.” On Nov. 17, 1986, she got the word unceremoniously that she was on suspension
for two months and not allowed in the office. By February, it was all over – a case study of
how the road to bureaucratic hell is paved with good intentions. Katie’s story also illustrates
how much fun it isn’t to be governor, or at least Booth Gardner caught in the crossfire.
Dolan felt betrayed and “tormented.” It was former State Senator Mike McManus
who “literally saved my life and helped me redirect my energies,” she said. “I had called
him because he’s a very close personal friend of the governor’s. He explained to me a little
bit about the governor – that he really cannot resist a lot of forces like that and often lets
his friends down mainly because they’re his friends. He might go for a stranger easily, but
his own friends he thinks of them as being either maybe stronger, not really needing (his)
help or that it would be wrong of him in some way to go out and help his friend. His friend
is supposed to make it on his own... The governor has said he has a little problem with that
kind of thing.”
They created a Katie Dolan Advocacy Award. In 1988, Booth presented it to Katie
Dolan.
* * *
Gardner made history and won widespread praise in the summer of 1988 when
he named Charles Z. Smith to the Washington Supreme Court. The court’s first ethnic
minority, Smith was born in the segregated South in 1927, the son of a Cuban auto
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