176 sLAde goRton: A hALf centuRy in poLitics
erated a landslide of votes in the House to scrap the 747 amendment.
“When they went to conference, we had no chance,” Gorton says. Wein-
berger did agree to buy and test three used 747’s, a puny consolation prize
but better than nothing.^10
theuntM o st. heLens National Volcanic Monument established by Con-
gress in 1982 was a bipartisan victory for the Washington delegation, in-
cluding Gorton, Jackson and Congressman Don Bonker, the ambitious
Democrat from Vancouver who represented the area around the volcano.
Underwhelmed by the Forest Service response, Bonker and his staff de-
veloped the preservation legislation. Environmentalists pushed to have
the area declared a National Park, which would have been more restric-
tive than the deft compromise Reagan signed into law.
The Forest Service now manages 110,000 acres for research and recre-
ation, while Weyerhaeuser retained some 45,000 acres within the blast
zone, trading the rest of its holdings to the Forest Service for other land.
Company foresters nurtured 18 million Douglas fir seedlings on an ash-
covered wasteland that once looked as it might never produce another
tree. Inside the national monument, logging is prohibited. Dr. Jerry
Franklin and other Northwest forest ecologists have learned important
lessons from one of the world’s most unique biological laboratories. Na-
ture proved to be remarkably resilient—more so by far than Uncle Sam.
Chronic budget shortfalls have compromised Forest Service maintenance
of the visitors’ centers, roads and trails. The debate over access and devel-
opment is ongoing.^11
tthee sAtLe schooL BoARd’s hotly debated program to achieve desegre-
gation by busing children out of their neighborhoods generated a state-
wide ballot measure that found 66 percent of the voters opposed. In 1982,
as Ken Eikenberry, Gorton’s successor as attorney general, was prepping
to defend the initiative’s constitutionality, Gorton introduced legislation
that would have prohibited any arm of government—including the U.S.
Supreme Court—from using busing to promote integration of public
schools. Even the adamantly anti-busing Jesse Helms of North Carolina
voted no, worried that Gorton’s plan would be too vulnerable to a court
challenge. It was defeated, 49-42. Flayed by liberals, Gorton made no
apologies. “I felt then and feel today that assignments by race for whatever
reason are blatant violations of the plain language of the 14th Amend-
ment,” he said three decades later.
The Supreme Court narrowly disagreed, ruling that the initiative, not