the coALition 59
Greive came up with a stopgap plan. He and Foster unveiled it for Gor-
ton, McCurdy and the other four members of a conference committee.
They quickly focused on the 10th District in Eastern Washington, the
state’s smallest. Greive wanted to save its senator, Dewey Donohue, and
Gorton wanted to eliminate the district. They bickered and bargained for
an hour, McCurdy recalled. “Finally Gorton agreed to Greive’s solution. It
was a classic gerrymander, a dumbbell-shaped district one-half mile wide
at the middle, but it would elect Senator Donohue. In return, Gorton won
the Republican district he wanted for the adjoining Tri-Cities area.”^22
In King County, they were swapping half a scalp here and half a scalp
there, Greive seeking to preserve Democratic hegemony, Gorton out to
create new opportunities for Republicans. When the plan saw the light of
day, the weary conferees got an earful. Bitter accusations reverberated
through both chambers.
twentyh-t Ree dAys of oveRtiMe couldn’t break the stalemate. The nas-
tiest legislative session in state history ended on April 6, 1963. Two weeks
later there was a biting postscript. Timing his veto so that it couldn’t be
overridden, Rosellini axed an appropriation to fund interim committees.
The move played right into the hands of his opponents and unleashed a
torrent of bad press. “Shocking,” one editorial said. Another branded it
the “childish act” of a fast-and-loose politician—an Italian politician,
many said sotto voce. Evans said the veto was “the most shameful political
act in the last 30 years in this state.”
Between the sessions, the jockeying for positions continued, with
Rosellini artfully dodging another special session and O’Connell playing
political rope-a-dope. The federal court talked a good fight, only to balk
when push came to shove. Gorton was more frustrated with the courts
than with Greive—and utterly disgusted with the attorney general. “You
can’t get frustrated with Greive for being political,” McCurdy says, “but
you can get frustrated when federal judges don’t do what their constitu-
tional duties require them to do and the attorney general keeps arguing
for more delays” for partisan political advantage.
“Slade had proposed some redistricting legislation in the 1961 legisla-
tive session, but he really hadn’t been in combat,” McCurdy continues. “The
’63 session was his first Normandy. He found out what people later ac-
knowledged—that besides being very smart he was very politically capa-
ble too.” In fact, looking back nearly a half century, McCurdy believes
Evans, Gorton and Pritchard—the whole crew of “new breed” Republicans—
came of age in that year. They said to themselves, “We’re as good as these