78 sLAde goRton: A hALf centuRy in poLitics
voters also supported neighborhood improvements, sewer bonds, en-
hanced fire protection and $81.6 million for arterial highways. But in
what Gorton calls “the stupidest ‘no’ vote the people of Seattle ever cast,”
the Forward Thrust rapid transit proposals fell far short of the required
60 percent supermajorities.
Ellis regrouped for another go in 1970, only to be caught out by the
“Boeing Bust,” which generated the legendary “Will the last person leav-
ing Seattle turn out the lights” billboard. “By the time the election came
we knew we didn’t have a chance,” Ellis remembers so vividly. “People
were just scared. Fifty-thousand people had left Seattle. It was just night
and day between 1968 and 1970.”
Gallingly, with the failure of the 1970 proposal, the city also lost nearly
$900 million in federal matching funds—three-quarters of the total
tab—that had been earmarked by Senator Magnuson at the height of his
powers. The original rapid transit proposal, if approved, would have been
operational by 1985, Ellis notes, while the last bonds would have been re-
tired in 2006. “You know who got our share of the federal money? At-
lanta,” he says, “and they built a beautiful light rail system.”
Ellis was down but never out. He knew he could always count on Gorton.
When Slade became a United States senator they teamed up often. The
Mountains to Sound greenway project was a landmark accomplishment.
While Gorton would be at odds with the greens more often than not in
the years to come, he had a solid reputation as a friend of the environment
during his decade in the Legislature. He was a sponsor and floor leader in
the successful push for green belt legislation and energetically promoted
Evans’ proposed Environmental Quality Commission, which came to frui-
tion in 1971 as the Department of Ecology. He also backed seashore conser-
vation and was a member of the State Oceanographic Commission.
theventfu e L 1967 session featured the only speech Gorton has never
finished. Sam Smith, a gregarious Democrat from Seattle, was elected to
the House together with Gorton in the Class of 1959. They got along fine,
though frequently at odds philosophically. Their backgrounds couldn’t
have been more different. It was hard not to like Sam, even when he
talked too often or too long, because he was a remarkable self-made man,
the son of a Louisiana preacher who turned to sharecropping to feed his
wife and eight kids. Sam Smith was the only African-American in the
Washington Legislature.
About a month into the session, Smith stood to excoriate the Republi-
cans. They weren’t giving Democrats their fair share. They were rude and