The Gortons and Slades - Washington Secretary of State

the JoLt fRoM BoLdt 125
Often forgotten in the choosing up of sides is that while Magnuson
and Jackson enjoyed good relations with the tribes, in 1978 “even those
supposed friends asked Interior Secretary Cecil Andrus to consider ‘less
than full implementation of the Bodlt Decision.’” 15
whiLe goRton AggRessiveLy Led the Attorney General’s Office in resisting
the Indians, his clients—especially the state Game Department—
were of the same mind, says Al Ziontz, who represented the Makahs,
Quileutes and Lummis. The Game Department’s constituents were the
sports fishermen, “and I don’t think I’m exaggerating or slandering them
when I say they were fanatics. When it comes to steelhead these guys
couldn’t accept the idea that anybody could take a steelhead except a
sportsman. They were almost a government within the government. The
Game Department had its own director, who was not appointed by the
governor. . . . The board was made up of representatives of the major
sportsmen’s organizations and they were armed with police power. They
had patrol officers who could arrest Indians. The sad result was that for
80 years Indians were forced to sneak at night in order to fish and to take
a chance on being arrested. Many of them were arrested and ended up in
jail. Their catch was confiscated and their boats were confiscated. Their
nets were confiscated.”
For all his warts, Ziontz says, President Nixon was a solid progressive
on Native American self-determination. Suddenly the State of Washington
found itself on the defense. “Instead of the state apparatus prosecuting
the lone Indian who was not equipped financially or with expert witnesses
to contest the testimony of biologists and fisheries management
specialists, now they faced the full force of the federal government.”
The Boldt Decision “hit like a bombshell,” Ziontz says. The tribes’ attorneys
were as stunned as their adversaries. Gorton could have advised
his clients “that federal treaties were supreme under the Constitution of
the United States. They couldn’t be ignored. But the Game Department
turned a deaf ear to that. I don’t know what he told them,” the tribal lawyer
says. “I wasn’t there. But they certainly acted as though they were
prepared to fight it to the death.” 16
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the Boldt Decision
in 1975. Gorton was thwarted again the next year when the U.S. Supreme
Court refused to review the case. “I’ll get this case in the U.S. Supreme
Court,” Johnson says he declared “to considerable laughter around
the office” because once a case has been denied review it’s rare to succeed
the second time around. “I think I’m the only guy who’s ever done that,”