Washington state is mourning the loss of popular Democratic governor, Booth Gardner, who died Friday from complications of Parkinson’s disease. Gardner served two consecutive terms, winning the second by a 25-point margin and initiating a 20-year stretch of Democratic governors which continues to this day.

Gardner was a bit of a political anomaly. He didn’t have the voice of an orator or the demeanor of a cut-throat legislator. He was a real “real people person,” and took the trouble to check in at every Olympia office he could just to see how things were going. He loved junk food and ditching his security detail to grab an occasional hamburger.

He began his political career as a state Senator in 1970, running for office so that he could help people. Sounds hokey, I know, but he did. After his term was up, he returned to the business world briefly to head up his stepfather’s Laird Norton Co. But he soon returned to public life as Pierce County executive in 1981 and then, in 1984, he ran for governor. He beat Gov. John Spellman, who became the last Republican governor this state has seen. During Gardner’s tenure, Washington enacted the Growth Management Act and Basic Health Plan. He put a young Christine Gregoire in charge of the Department of Ecology and they were victorious in forcing the federal government to clean up the nuclear waste at Hanford.





He was passionate about education and instituted the Running Start program, which allows high school students to earn both HS and college credits by taking classes at state community colleges. The program fills up so fast that, if a student waits until the end of the first day of school to sign up, it’s too late. I know this from first-hand experience.

Two years after he left the governor’s office, Gardner was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. This led to his most recent legacy, Initiative 1000, the “death with dignity” law that passed in Washington state in 2008 with 58% of the vote. Gardner campaigned hard for the initiative even while he was struggling with what Parkinson’s was doing to him. A documentary about his campaign for the initiative, The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner was nominated for an Oscar.

On a personal note… Gardner was elected governor of Washington the year my husband and I moved up here to start a new life, far away from the Mojave desert in which we grew up. We chose the Puget Sound area because it was everything the desert wasn’t. But we also settled here because of the atmosphere and diversity. Washington was – and still is – progressive. Part of the reason we fell in love with and stayed in this place was due to efforts of Booth Gardner. He helped make Washington the place where we wanted to spend the rest of our lives.

I’d like to share Sen. Patty Murray’s words, as they embody what most Washingtonians feel about our former governor:

“Booth was a leader of tremendous compassion, dignity, and bravery whose service to our state will live on far into the future. He was generous in sharing his wisdom and his time… He demonstrated that governing is about the people you serve – and serve with – by learning everyone’s name, what issues they cared deeply about, and by taking the time to work with anyone that shared his desire to make Washington state a better place to live. Booth also showed that compromise and compassion were not competing ideals by being pragmatic when he needed to be, but by always working to protect the needs of the most vulnerable. “Booth’s imprint on our state will long be seen in our classrooms and the many open spaces he fought to protect. Up until the very end of his life Booth remained a fighter for the issues he cared most about — those of us who knew him couldn’t have imagined it any other way. My thoughts and prayers are with his family today. I will miss Booth.”

T. Steelman is a life-long Liberal. She has been writing online about politics since 2007. She lives in Western Washington with her husband, daughter, 2 cats and a small herd of alpacas. How can anybody be enlightened? Truth is, after all, so poorly lit…