The Gortons and Slades - Washington Secretary of State

70 sLAde goRton: A hALf centuRy in poLitics
cratic Caucus because its leaders would not brook dissent. He lectured us
every now and then on the proposition that the Constitution of the People’s
Republic of Romania was much superior to the United States Constitution.
He admitted that Romania didn’t follow it, but nonetheless we
should look at it because it is an ideal document.”
As the redistricting debate was raging in February of 1965, Gorton
continues, “Bob Greive said to me, ‘All right, I’ll make a deal. You’ll get
what you want if I can determine which Democratic senators lose.’ ‘Fine,’
I said, though I didn’t like it. In the case of Web Hallauer I almost cried
tears because he was such a good guy. He had courageously defended
John Goldmark and was never a strident partisan. But this was the price
for getting the job done. The last unsettled question was the fate of Jack
Dootson. Under redistricting, we had to go with ‘one person, one vote,’ so
the districts were going to have one senator and two representatives. We
put Dootson in a different district where he’d have a chance of finishing
second. But the Democrats wouldn’t settle for that. Dootson was going to
go. Their position was ‘He’s a Democrat. You can’t protect him. We made
the deal. We determine which Democrats lose.’ ‘Hell no!’ say I and Dan
Evans. ‘Dootson is our guy.’
“This goes on for 24 or 48 hours, though we’ve never actually talked to
Dootson. Then Dootson came to me and said, ‘I’ve got to see you and the
governor in the governor’s office.’ We go down to the governor’s office.
Jack says, ‘I understand you’re holding up redistricting over me.’ ‘Goddamn
right, we are Jack! And we’re going to keep on doing it.’ ‘Oh,’ Jack
says, shaking his head, ‘I’m so disappointed. I’ve always looked at you two
as my ideals in principled politics, and you’re holding up the people’s
business over my legislative district? I don’t think I can support you anymore.’
Gulp. We said, ‘OK, Jack.’
“But it gets better!” Gorton declares, mirth in his voice. “Jack Dootson
wouldn’t accept campaign contributions. He’d buy small ads in the Everett
Herald. They’d say, ‘Jack Dootson, independent Democrat for the Legislature
stands for . . .’ and then in small print he’d list 20 things that he
was for. And so help me, at the end it would say, ‘If you disagree, perhaps
another candidate would suit you better.’ This was long before public disclosure
of campaign contributions.
“A year later we’re all running for re-election and we aren’t going to
give up on Jack. I go to Gummie Johnson, who is now the state Republican
chairman, and I get a thousand dollars in cash. I also get a good ad
agent, someone who will at least write decent ads. I take the money and
the ads to Dootson’s house in Everett and I say, ‘Jack, this is my money. I