The Gortons and Slades - Washington Secretary of State

132 sLAde goRton: A hALf centuRy in poLitics
burnish his image. The truth was that he “wasn’t about to sit back and let
someone else have all the fun” of arguing cases before the highest court
in the land. He didn’t run for attorney general to push paper at the Temple
of Justice. 36
“Welcome to the big leagues! You’ve got nine of the smartest people in
the country asking you questions,” Johnson says, recalling the six times
he helped Gorton prep for the Supreme Court and his own appearances
in the years that followed. “It’s a real high. Slade was very good at that, in
part because he had prepared so thoroughly. We got former U.S. Supreme
Court clerks and the National Attorney Generals’ Office to do moot courts
for us, so that was great preparation.”
For the DeFunis case, Gorton followed his usual routine, arriving in
Washington, D.C., five days early. He holed up in a modest room at the
Quality Inn within shouting distance of the Capitol. A reporter from The
Seattle Times’ Washington Bureau found him there, plopped on the bed
in socks and shirt sleeves, surrounded by mounds of documents. Several
pairs of tennis shoes were piled in a corner. Gorton confessed he’d taken
a break for a round of tennis with one of Congressman Pritchard’s legislative
aides, but mostly it was all work and no play. He’d spent most of
Sunday in a moot court staged by the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights
Under Law, which included a number of former Supreme Court clerks.
“They grilled me!” Gorton grinned. “It may well be tougher than what
will happen before the Supreme Court justices.” Preparation, he said, was
“everything.” Surprisingly, he revealed that he was nervous before any
public appearance, “whether it’s the United States Supreme Court or the
Davenport Kiwanis Club. You tend to get very keyed-up. . . . The buildup of
adrenalin is of great assistance in doing an adequate job.” 37
After all that work, things ended in a fizzle. The high court ruled the
case was moot. DeFunis was nearing graduation, magna cum laude, no
less.
no one cAn eveR RecALL seeing Slade Gorton sweat in a courtroom. But
a rash act of Evergreen pride in 1977 could have spelled trouble. Gorton
was poised to argue a case on behalf of the Washington State Apple Advertising
Commission, challenging a North Carolina law stipulating that
containers of out-of-state apples had to be labeled with a U.S. Department
of Agriculture grade. The core of Gorton’s argument was that Washington
State’s standards were demonstrably superior. “In other words, an extra
fancy USDA apple won’t necessarily be an extra fancy under Washington’s
grading system.” To protect its growers, North Carolina had passed