164 sLAde goRton: A hALf centuRy in poLitics
thoughtful, according to female former staffers. They call their sorority
“The Gorton School of Public Affairs”—as opposed to “The Clinton
School of Affairs that Have Become Public.”
Flirtation or any sort of sexual harassment? “You’re kidding?” says for-
mer legislative assistant Cassie Phillips, laughing out loud. “The underly-
ing reason Slade has hired so many women is that he doesn’t know the
difference. He’s utterly gender and color blind.”
Perez says, “Slade didn’t think of me as black; he thought of me as
Anna. The only judgment he made about me was the quality of my work.
I think Slade’s attitude toward gender and race is like Ella Fitzgerald sing-
ing Ira Gershwin.”^4
McGettigan marveled that Gorton’s brain was always working overtime.
When the Equal Rights Amendment was about to expire in the summer of
1982—three states short of ratification—Slade asked her to draft a simple-
majority bill that would by statute provide women the same rights. McGet-
tigan ran it by a law professor Gorton admired. The opinion was that it
would pass constitutional muster, “but women’s groups opposed it, which
I thought was shortsighted,” the former legislative assistant says.
Avoiding the corps of professional staffers who pop from office to of-
fice on Capitol Hill, Gorton rarely hired anyone without Washington
State roots. He wanted people who understood the issues back home.
Painstaking competence was his expectation. He also fostered a casual
atmosphere. On the day Agnew joined the staff, she greeted Gorton with
a cheery yet deferential “Hello, senator.” When the staff meeting began,
Gorton announced, “Creigh just made the most serious mistake any of
you can make. I want all of you to call me ‘Slade,’ not ‘senator.’” He also
gave them leeway and courtesy that many other staffers on the Hill en-
vied, according to Koch, who succeeded McCaffree as chief of staff in
1983 and went on to become chairman of the Federal Maritime Commis-
sion. “He was a delight to work around. Slade Gorton was never an ass-
hole to his staff, and that doesn’t sound like a big deal until you’ve seen
the way many other politicians treat their staffs.”^5
Gorton is so single-minded, however, that he can be oblivious. The
Butterworths have a summer place next to the Gortons’ on Whidbey Is-
land. Sometimes Slade would open a window or door at 8 a.m. on a day
ostensibly dedicated to leisure and yell out to Ritajean “as though we were
in the office and he wanted me right now, like I worked for him 24 hours
a day, regardless of where.” No shrinking violet, she would shout back,
“Not now, Slade!” He’d be chastened until the next time. No one on the
staff knew or understood him better. He trusted her implicitly.