weiRd And wondeRfuL shApes 73
only: You have done the job.... Maybe with practice, we will be better the
next time around, but there is always the first time and this will be the
first brand-new redistricting bill that this Legislature has done since 1901.
And to that extent at least, I believe we can be proud of it.”^11
With that, they voted. Redistricting was approved, 56–43, with Doot-
son joining the majority to seal his own fate. That afternoon, Governor
Evans, flanked by Greive and Gorton, signed the bill into law. Dootson
was there—smiling like all the rest. So were McCurdy and Foster, who
had acquired an education in practical politics no university could match.
Greive, who died in 2004 at the age of 84, “had tremendous persis-
tence, and developed about as many enemies as friends,” Gorton says.
“His enemies wanted his scalp as much as his job, and being majority
leader meant everything to him. He was intense, single-minded and very
smart. We might still be there in that debate if Bob hadn’t figured out a
way to outsmart the other Democrats outside his clique of supporters.”
McCurdy went on to Cornell to earn a doctorate. He was an intern at
the LBJ White House during the summer. “Lyndon Johnson reminded
me a great deal of Bob Greive,” he says. “They were ultimate political ani-
mals. What really characterized Lyndon Johnson, especially in the U.S.
Senate, was that he understood what anybody wanted and what you could
threaten them with. He also understood which people you couldn’t
threaten, which people were cheating on their wives, which people needed
campaign contributions... So he could go to people individually and
work out the details on a one-to-one basis and never actually show them
the bill. Greive worked the same way. He would single them out one by
one and show them only the part of the bill that would influence them.
You got the full treatment. Then he’d put together a coalition without
anyone having seen the whole legislation.
“Slade was not really a true political animal in the same way Bob
Greive and Joel Pritchard were,” says McCurdy. “He was the analyst—the
Bob McNamara; the intellectual who was able to hold the policy stuff to-
gether. That was Slade’s role, and a lot of people resented how good he
was at it.”
postsctRip: the RedistRicting BAttLe was rejoined after the 1970 Cen-
sus, with Gorton as attorney general and Greive more aggrieved than ever
that he’d met his match. The court ordered the legislators to produce a
constitutionally equitable plan by February of 1972. Otherwise, a redis-
tricting “master” would be appointed, which suited the Republicans just