The Gortons and Slades - Washington Secretary of State

298 sLAde goRton: A hALf centuRy in poLitics
tee to the 9 th Circuit. He picked Barbara Durham, chief justice of the
State Supreme Court. Although Governor Gary Locke and Attorney General
Christine Gregoire, both Democrats, endorsed her nomination, liberals
lamented the deal as Faustian, saying Durham was a sharply partisan
conservative with a “constricted understanding” of individual rights. 9
The key to Clinton ceding one of the presidency’s prime perquisites
was a Republican promise to advance the appointment of his friend William
E. Fletcher to the 9 th Circuit bench, together with two other stalled
nominees. Confirmation of the Berkeley law professor had been stonewalled
by Republicans for more than three years. Fletcher’s mother, the
redoubtable former Seattle attorney Betty Fletcher, would move to senior
status on the 9 th Circuit bench to make way for Durham. 10
While Gorton and Murray continued to work together on judicial nominees,
the Barbara Durham story lacks a happy ending. In the spring of
1999 she withdrew her name, saying her husband’s heart problems had
grown severe. That fall, she resigned from the State Supreme Court, saying
it was time to “take a fresh look at the future.” Her colleagues knew
the sad truth: With each passing day dementia was dimming her fine
mind. The trailblazing Stanford graduate was suffering from early-onset
Alzheimer’s disease. Durham was dead at the age of 60 within 21⁄2 years. 11