Booth-Gardner-Obituary

Booth Gardner

Obituary

OLYMPIA, Washington (AP) — Booth Gardner, a two-term Democratic governor who later in life spearheaded a campaign that made Washington the second state in the U.S. to legalize assisted suicide for the terminally ill, has died after a long battle with Parkinson's disease. He was 76.

Gardner died Friday at his Tacoma home of complications related to the disease, family spokesman Ron Dotzauer said Saturday.

"We're very sad to lose my father, who had been struggling with a difficult disease for many years, but we are relieved to know that he's at rest now and his fight is done," said Gail Gant, Gardner's daughter, in a statement.

He was the northwestern state's 19th governor.

The millionaire heir to the Weyerhaeuser timber fortune led the state from 1985 to 1993 following terms as Pierce County executive, state senator and business school dean.

Since then, he had worked as a U.S. trade ambassador in Geneva, in youth sports and for a variety of philanthropic works. But his biggest political effort in his later years was his successful "Death with Dignity" campaign in 2008 that ultimately led to the passage of the controversial law that mirrored a law that had been in place in Oregon since 1997.

The law allows terminally ill adults with six months or less left to live to request a legal dose of medication from their doctors.

Gardner knew that he wouldn't qualify to use the law because Parkinson's disease itself, while incurable, is not fatal. But at the time, he said his worsening condition made him an advocate for those who want control over how they die.

"It's amazing to me how much this can help people get peace of mind," Gardner told The Associated Press at the time. "There's more people who would like to have control over their final days than those who don't."

The Washington state law took effect in March 2009, and since then more than 250 people have used it to obtain lethal doses of medication.

A documentary about that campaign, "The Last Campaign of Booth Gardner," was nominated for an Academy Award in 2010. A biography published by the Washington state Heritage Center's Legacy Project, titled "Booth Who?" — after a campaign slogan in political buttons created during his first run for governor — was published that same year.

William Booth Gardner was born Aug. 21, 1936, in Tacoma to his socialite mother, Evelyn Booth and Bryson "Brick" Gardner.

His parents divorced when he was 4 and his mother remarried Norton Clapp, one of the state's wealthiest citizens who was a former president of Weyerhaeuser and was one of a group of industrialists who helped build the Space Needle for the 1962 Seattle World's Fair.

Gardner had his share of tragedy: his mother and 13-year-old sister were killed in a plane crash in 1951 and his father, who had struggled with alcohol, fell to his death from a ninth-floor Honolulu hotel room balcony in 1966.

Clapp remained a presence in Gardner's life, and though he was a Republican, he made significant donations to both of Gardner's gubernatorial runs.

In November 1984, Gardner beat Republican Gov. John Spellman, and since his first election victory, Democrats have won the governor's race seven times.

During his two terms, Gardner pushed for standards-based education reform, issued an executive order banning discrimination against gay and lesbian state workers, banned smoking in state workplaces, and appointed the first minority to the state Supreme Court. The state's Basic Health Care program for the poor was launched in 1987 and was the first of its kind in the country.

Toward the end of his first term, he appointed Chris Gregoire, then an assistant attorney general, as head of the Department of Ecology. Gregoire went on to be attorney general, and then governor. Gardner was easily re-elected in 1988. In his second term, he and Gregoire, then attorney general, secured an agreement with the federal government that the nuclear waste at Hanford nuclear site would be cleaned up in the coming decades, and Gardner banned any further shipments of radioactive waste to Hanford from other states.

Gregoire, who stepped down as governor in January after not seeking a third term, called Gardner a "progressive visionary ahead of his time."

In 1991, Gardner announced he wouldn't seek a third term, saying he was "out of gas." He went on to become the U.S. ambassador to the General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade in Geneva. While abroad, in 1995, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Gardner didn't make his battle with the disease public until 2000, when he discussed it in an interview on TVW, the state's public affairs network. That same year, he launched a clinic in Kirkland, the Booth Gardner Parkinson's Care Center.

He announced his plan for a ballot measure to allow assisted suicide in 2006 as he continued to battle Parkinson's.

Washington state had already rejected a similar assisted suicide initiative in 1991, but after a contentious campaign, where Gardner contributed $470,000 of his own money of the $4.9 million raised in support of the measure, nearly 58 percent of voters approved the new law in 2008.

In his biography, when asked how he wanted to be remembered, he responded, "I tried to help people."

He is survived by his son, Doug, his daughter, Gail, and eight grandchildren.

Associated Press writer Manuel Valdes contributed from Seattle.

RACHEL LA CORTE, Associated Press



Copyright © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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our hearts go out to you, he will be missed
Affected so many lives.I played soccer for him on cozars. Great man great gov,great role model and coach. one of a kind .Tarri Bockmann/Coulter

May the family be comforted,John 5:28...

Prayers go out to the Gardner family.I know Booth was there for ex-player Paula
French when she struggled with the trial of her brother,former Pierce county sheriff Mark French Thanks

Thanks forever you have done for the community( central area.) Cd panthers football..

Coach Gardner in Sweden

Gail and family, I'm so sorry for your loss. Booth was a great supporter for women's soccer and provided many of us with opportunities we would have otherwise not had. I have many wonderful memories of those years spent playing for the Cozars - Hawaii, Norway, St. Louis, even a practice at the Governor's mansion! I'm grateful to have met Booth.

Sorry for your loss.May the God of all comfort be with you in the days ahead.

happy are the mericiful,since they will be shown mercy.matt.5:7...sorry for your loss........

Thoughts and prayers go out to family and friends. A wonderful man has passed...