Gary Nelson: No longer the ‘angry young man’

Doctors once thought Gary Nelson would never walk again.

It was 1966 when he contracted polio. Pain shot through both of his legs and his left arm. He would become paralyzed from the neck down.

Drawing on his Scandinavian stubbornness, he would recover and slowly relearn to walk.

Once he could walk again, he would run. And run. And run.

Fifteen elections later, the Snohomish County councilman stands as one of the longest serving public officials in the state. He spent 40 straight years in office, serving first on the Edmonds City Council, then rising to power during 22 years in the state Legislature and finally serving often as the lone Republican voice on the Snohomish County Council.

This is his last month in office; he is forced to leave by term limits.

Through all those years and all those elections, Nelson fought against the effects of polio. To this day, he walks with a limp.

Even so, it never appeared to slow him down. He started out as a hard-charging politician. Over the years, he matured with experience and leaves a legacy of laws that shape the everyday lives of the people in the state.

Nelson, 71, spent decades rubbing elbows with presidents and congressional leaders. Before clearing out his office, Nelson displayed photos of himself with many of the Republican presidents who served in his lifetime.

Ford. Reagan. Both Bushes.

All except Nixon. He never displayed the one with Nixon after Watergate.

“I just didn’t feel as though I had any reason to identify with him,” Nelson said. “If he had said, ‘Gentlemen, you’re all fired,’ he would have gone down as a great president.”

The vigor in which he pushed legislation and whipped up support for votes earned him a nickname from Everett’s favorite son, U.S. Sen. Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson.

He called Nelson “the angry young man from Edmonds,” a term he wears today with tempered pride.

In some ways, it fit.

Heated debates

“Frankly, people in other counties were fearful of the hard-driving, young, unpredictable politician,” said Paul Elvig, a former Republican party chairman in Snohomish and Whatcom counties.

“There were times he just would annoy the living hell out of you,” said Don Brunell, president of the Association of Washington Business who was a pulp mill lobbyist when Nelson was in the Legislature.

“He was pretty powerful when he stood up and spoke against you on the floor, but that’s what a legislator is supposed to do.”

When the fighting was over, Nelson never held a grudge, Brunell said. “You could have a knockdown, drag-out difference in the legislative process, but he never took it personally,” he said. “Today, that’s a rare commodity.”

In time Nelson grew in prestige, Elvig said. He became a “skilled master” at listening to people’s problems and concerns.

At a roast in November, 300 people cheered Nelson’s successes and howled in laughter at his “fiscally responsible ways,” including re- using hand-painted campaign signs election after election.

Supporters lament that the workaholic politician who struck a chord of fear is heading for retirement. The “angry young man from Edmonds” has become more accurately the “mellower grandpa from Edmonds.”

“I’m not angry and I’m not young,” Nelson said.

He plans to spend more time doting on his five grandchildren far away from meeting rooms.

That won’t mean he’ll be too far away to share his mind with county and state officials.

Workhorse politician

His former legislative staff director estimates Nelson took as many as 750,000 votes during his 22 years in the state Legislature alone. He proposed hundreds of bills and had about 250 signed into law. One session alone he introduced 113 bills and 33 were signed into law.

Nelson sponsored the state’s first DNA identification bill, criminal sentencing reforms and creation of the first state Heritage Council. Condominium owners can thank his legislation for setting the guidelines for how condos are built, bought and sold.

Nelson comes from a hard- working political family.

He grew up in the rural town of Millwood, outside Spokane. His father, Nils, emigrated from Sweden and was a Millwood City Councilman for 14 years. Nils was a devout Democrat, active in the local pulp mill union. He died the evening of the 1972 primary and never saw his son elected to the Legislature.

“He was very, very conscientious about the role of government and the representation of people,” Nelson said of his father.

Gary Nelson worked for the family flower farm.

He left home to study to be an electrical engineer at Washington State University. There, he would shift to more conservative views and become a Republican.

“My philosophy started making a dramatic change away at college,” he said. To survive and thrive, people have to be willing to “pursue education or a vocation and become as self-sufficient and self-supportive as possible. Don’t always count on government to be the solution for the rest of your life.”

He met his wife, JoAnne, in 1956 at WSU. The two were married in 1959.

Nelson wanted to be an Air Force pilot, but the avid swimmer hurt himself on a diving board and his swollen eye caused him to fail a required depth perception test.

He still served in the Air Force and left as a captain. The family settled in Edmonds in 1963, and their three sons were born in 1964, 1966 and 1968.

For two years, Nelson was general manager of the Edmonds Warriors semi-pro football team. In his first steps of civic life, he became a city planning commissioner.

Polio strikes

Then in 1966, Nelson came down with a fever and experienced intense pain in his legs and left arm. He was diagnosed with polio.

He said he was inoculated for two strains of polio while in the military, but missed a third inoculation because he had recently fallen ill. The inoculation was supposed to be rescheduled, but never was.

Nelson said he was exposed to a live strain of polio while changing his son Grant’s diaper. Grant had recently been given a newer oral vaccine.

Nelson soon became paralyzed from the neck down, a condition that would last more than a month. He spent years struggling in leg braces, and doctors thought he would never walk again.

While recovering in the hospital, he saw a young girl who had been badly burned after sledding into a gasoline can and a campfire in the mountains.

“I made a commitment I would never complain about my ailment again after seeing what she went through,” Nelson said.

He was forced to give up his seat on the city planning commission while he recovered.

Pushed to run

Even so, community business leaders soon came asking if he would run for Edmonds City Council.

“That’s not in my repertoire,” he said he told them. He was still in a leg brace, and that meant any kind of running was the farthest thing from his mind, he said.

The Jaycees service group pledged they would campaign for him. He eventually agreed and the campaign was on. On a shoestring budget, supporters silk-screened campaign signs and printed brochures free of charge after hours on commercial printing presses.

Nelson won, but he had little idea that he would be serving the public for decades.

While on the City Council, he led budget talks and voted to designate Brackett’s Landing an underwater park for divers.

In 1971, political boosters came calling again. Legislative district boundaries had been changed in Edmonds, creating an open seat in the 21st District. Republicans needed Nelson to run.

“You guys have got to be kidding me,” Nelson said he told them. “I had no interest in running for the Legislature. By then I had gotten rid of the right leg brace and I learned to re-walk, but I’m not the strongest guy in the world.”

In the end, he consented, launching a 22-year career in the state Legislature.

“I thought ‘I’ll run one term,’” he said. “‘One two-year term, just to simply have the experience and save the seat.’”

He won, and about the same time the “angry man from Edmonds” was born.

Hard-driving politician

He was in his early 30s at the time, and still green. Scoop Jackson’s nickname seemed to fit.

“I was anxious to get things done, and I hardly took ‘no’ for an answer those days,” Nelson said. Upon reflection, he said maybe he should have built his reputation before becoming so politically aggressive.

His career marched on, day by day, bill by bill. Each election, he hit the campaign trail hiking his south Snohomish County district, which was good therapy for his legs.

His shift to state politics would lead him to be House majority leader — just behind speaker of the House — when Republicans were in charge, and minority leader when they weren’t.

Whenever a bill died, “I came right back as quick as possible,” he said.

He was feeling a little smug on his way to Democratic Gov. Dixy Lee Ray’s office in 1980. The Everett Community College district held too much control over Edmonds Community College and he thought for sure she would sign his bill severing the ties and allowing Edmonds more independence.

Once inside Ray’s office, he was in for a shock.

“She said it wasn’t time to start a new community college,” he said. She pulled out a red pen and vetoed the bill right in front of him.

“I was speechless,” he said.

The next year, he brought the same bill back, and this time it was signed by new Republican Gov. John Spellman.

“I would stay up late to make sure things would get accomplished,” Nelson said.

Four decades in office is rare, said Republican Dan Evans, 82, Washington’s only three-time governor and a former congressman.

“(Nelson) came right at the time when things got a little tougher because Republicans in the House lost their majority to the Democrats,” Evans said. “He was a very active, very eager young guy. I can’t ever imagine him angry; he was always with a smile on his face. He was pretty intense sometimes about what he believed in to get things done.”

Nelson became a legend in state politics, Democratic state Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen said.

“It was his Scandinavian stubbornness,” Haugen said. “When he had something he was really determined about, he was pretty persuasive and used about all the tricks he knew.”

To move legislation, he worked hard to rally votes to his cause and called on favors and friendships, whatever it took.

By the mid-1980s, Nelson had mostly shed his “angry young man” mantle but remained fiercely partisan and would still get in heated floor debates.

Trained as an engineer, Nelson said he was drawn to transportation issues. Between 1972 and 1994, the Legislature increased the gas tax from 7 cents to 23 cents to pay for roadwork. “I voted for every single one of them,” Nelson said.

Nelson’s rise didn’t always take him where he wanted. He took a stab at running to be the first Snohomish County executive in 1980 but lost to Democrat Willis Tucker. In 1992, he ran for Congress in the 1st District but fell to Democrat Maria Cantwell.

Nelson ran for County Council to be closer to home, believing the action was in local government issues, including growth management, transit and juvenile justice. The pay was better, too, with a salary of about $51,000 a year. In the past dozen years, council salaries have risen to more than $94,000.

Since his election to the County Council, he has often been outnumbered by Democrats and on the losing side of years of 4-1 votes.

Nelson has been involved in a few flaps since joining the County Council. In 1995, he complained that the council public relations worker was campaigning on county computers. That worker, Fred Bird, was later reprimanded and paid the county back for computer time.

Countercharges targeted Nelson’s aide and son, Geoff. Around the same time, council staff asked Everett police to help find out who was snooping around desks in the council offices at night. A custodian was suspected and later dismissed, Nelson said.

In the wake of Snoopgate, the council voted in 1996 to bar nepotism in future county hiring. Nelson joined in the vote. The new ordinance didn’t affect existing staffing, and Geoff Nelson works for his father to this day.

As he leaves office, Gary Nelson takes with him an encyclopedic knowledge of Snohomish County and state politics that stretches decades. He can name legislators, lobbyists and bill numbers dating back to the earliest days of his career.

“Gary was probably out here when Lewis and Clark got out here,” Republican County Councilman John Koster said. “I’m going to miss Gary immensely.”

Nelson has mapped out the state’s political pitfalls and skeletons and is a gifted people person, Elvig said.

“He never comes across as someone who looks over your shoulder for who they can see next,” he said.

Raising hackles

After years of being outnumbered by Democrats, Republicans won the council majority in 2002. Nelson took the gavel as council chairman. He cast many swing votes, siding with Democrats on pragmatic issues — but never giving up his conservative philosophy, he said.

In 2005, Nelson surprised many when he voted with Democrats to scuttle dense-housing proposals in the Bear Creek area, in part because he lost in a bid to make an urban center near I-5 and 128th Street.

More often, he has backed housing development proposals, said Kristin Kelly, who works for Futurewise, formerly 1000 Friends of Washington, a group opposed to sprawling housing developments.

Nelson has derisively called them “1000 Friends of No One.”

“We’ve never seen eye to eye,” said Kelly, who also works for the environmental group Pilchuck Audubon Society. “His votes were consistently in favor of the development community over the best interests of the environment.”

Environmentalists feel fortune is shifting their way. Democrat Mike Cooper will replace Nelson in January to give Democrats a 4-1 majority on the County Council. Republican County Councilman John Koster already has inherited the “Lonesome R Ranch” placard that signifies he is the last GOP member standing, like Nelson and Bill Brubaker before him.

“Whether it be City Council, the Legislature or County Council member, you always like the one the best where you’re in the majority,” Nelson said. “It’s a lot more fun.”

Reporter Jeff Switzer: 425-339-3452 or jswitzer@heraldnet.com.