Slade Gorton

Gorton was born in Chicago, Illinois on January 8, 1928, and raised in the suburb of Evanston, the son of Ruth (Israel) and Thomas Slade Gorton, Jr.[1][2] His younger brother is Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. He attended and graduated from Dartmouth College and subsequently from Columbia Law School. Gorton served in the United States Army from 1945 to 1946 and the United States Air Force from 1953 until 1956. He continued to serve in the Air Force Reserve Command until 1980, when he retired as a Colonel.

Gordon practiced law and entered politics in 1958, being elected to the Washington House of Representatives, in which he served from 1959 until 1969, becoming one of its highest-ranking members.[3] He then served as Attorney General of Washington from 1969 until he entered the United States Senate in 1981. During his three terms as Attorney General, Gorton was recognized for taking the unusual step of appearing personally to argue the state's positions before the Supreme Court of the United States, and for prevailing in those efforts.

In 2002, Gorton became a member of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (popularly known as the "9/11 Commission") and the commission issued its final report in 2004.[12]

In 2005, Gorton became the Chairman of the center-right Constitutional Law PAC, a political action committee formed to help elect candidates to the Washington State Supreme Court and Court of Appeals.

Gorton was an Advisory Board member for the Partnership for a Secure America, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to recreating the bipartisan center in American national security and foreign policy. Gorton also served as a Senior Fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center.[13]

Gorton served on the Board of Trustees of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, which is a museum dedicated to the U.S. Constitution.[14]

Gorton represented the city of Seattle in a lawsuit against Clay Bennett to prevent the relocation of the Seattle SuperSonics basketball franchise, in accordance to a contract that would keep the team in KeyArena until 2010. The city reached a settlement with Bennett, allowing him to move the team to Oklahoma City for $45 million with the possibility for another $30 million.[15]

In 2010, the National Bureau of Asian Research founded the Slade Gorton International Policy Center. The Gorton Center is a policy research center, with three focus areas: policy research, fellowship and internship programs, and the Gorton History Program (archives).[16] In 2013 the Gorton Center was the secretariat for the ‘Commission on The Theft of American Intellectual Property’, in which Gorton was a commissioner.[17] Gorton is also a Counselor at the National Bureau of Asian Research.[18]

In 2012, Gorton was appointed to the board of directors of Clearwire, a wireless data services provider.[19]

Gorton was a member of the board of the Discovery Institute, notable for its advocacy of the pseudoscience of intelligent design.

Gorton was also of counsel at K&L Gates LLP.[20]

Gorton opposed the candidacy of Donald Trump for President of the United States in 2016, instead writing in Independent candidate Evan McMullin.[21] He later supported the impeachment of President Trump and urged other Republicans to join him.[22]

He married Sally Clark Gorton on June 28, 1958.[23] Sally died in 2013.[23] Gorton died after a brief illness at the home of his daughter in the Seattle suburb of Clyde Hill on August 19, 2020, at the age of 92.[24]

• Hughes, John C., Slade Gorton: A Half Century in Politics (2011) (authorized biography)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Slade Gorton.

• Congressional Bio
• Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis LLP ("K&L Gates") Lawyer Bio
• The Next Ten Years of Post-9/11 Security Efforts, Q&A with Slade Gorton (September 2011)
• Appearances on C-SPAN