BOOTH WHO? - Washington State Digital Archives

Capitol in March, demanding bigger raises from a projected $400 million revenue windfall.
The buttons depicted Gardner as a smug cheapskate with a “3%” pin on his lapel.
* * *
Gardner’s executive request package was pushing a hundred bills when Heck came
on board. “That’s not the way this can work,” he insisted. “The governor has to be for three
or four big things. Our priorities have to be clear.” Heck was determined to reassert Booth
forcefully into the legislative process. The Cabbage Patch Governor became The Terminator.
Booth shot down nearly 18 percent of the bills that arrived on his desk in 1989, using his
veto a record 83 times. Overall, he vetoed 14 percent of the bills sent to him, more than
Dan Evans in his three terms. Gardner was also more forceful with the veto pen than Dixy
Lee Ray, John Spellman and his successor, Mike Lowry.
Weary after nearly five months of tax reform horse-trading and peeved at Gardner’s
new cheekiness, the 1989
Legislature overrode his veto
of a bill creating a new crime,
residential burglary. The lawmakers
wanted to emphasize the threat
to human life created by a home
invasion. The House vote was 97-0;
the Senate 46-1. Gardner said he
supported the idea, but vetoed the
bill on the grounds that the longer
prison sentences prescribed in the
legislation would strain the budget.
Dan Evans promptly sent him a
letter that Booth had framed. Today it hangs prominently on a wall in his office. “You’re not a
governor,” Evans said, “until you have been overridden.”
Gardner, Heck and Foster had decided to pave the way to an income tax with a plan
that boosted the gas tax and reduced the sales and business-and-occupation taxes. In “Sine
Die,” a fascinating guidebook to the Washington legislative process, Edward D. Seeberger
offers the anatomy of the dustup that ensued: “The Senate took politically tough votes to
pass one gas tax increase at seven cents and another at five cents. Gardner let it be known he
would veto both efforts without overall tax reform, so much-relieved House Democrats let the
proposals die. To make up for their earlier tax increase votes, senators passed a transportation
budget with no gas tax increase at all and the House concurred.” The first special session ended
on that note. Although he still lacked a deal, the governor called a second special session. Two
days of arm-twisting made the lawmakers even crankier. Gardner said he would accept a fourcent
increase, “but by then few legislators cared. …Leaders made it known they were prepared
to vote to override six more Gardner vetoes if he called another special session.”
Booth listens intently during a visit to Pacific County. Kathy Quigg ©The Daily
World (Aberdeen, WA) 1989 Reprinted with permission.
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