299 Days: The Preparation

Chapter 7 Olympia

Grant and Lisa had opportunities to relocate just about anywhere in the U.S., but they wanted to stay in Washington State. They loved it there; the beauty of it, and the generally laid back people.

Lisa quickly found a job at a Tacoma hospital. Grant needed to find a lawyer job in Tacoma or nearby Olympia, which would be hard for him. Not because he had a bad résumé, but because he was “conservative.” Washington was not a hospitable environment for conservatives.

The State of Washington had a very large government. Per capita, Washington’s government was much larger than most states. For the most part, people in Washington State were liberals, at least in Western Washington around Seattle. In Eastern Washington, which looks a lot more like Idaho, people were largely conservative. The rural areas in Western Washington outside of the Seattle metropolitan area were largely conservative, too. Most people lived in the Seattle area. They had all the votes in the state that were needed to run the more conservative areas like their little parks and nature preserves. People in Washington State, just like the rest of the country, had been taught for generations that government was there to help the little guy and prevent evil corporations from exploiting them. Everything good came from government; everything bad came from a lack of government. Kids doing well on standardized tests? That came from government spending money on education. Kids not doing well on standardized tests? That came from a lack of government spending on education. Everything in life could be explained by the “fact” that government needed to do it, and needed to do more.

Of course, most people in Washington State didn’t really think of it this way. They didn’t think about it at all. They were happy to have a politician or bureaucrat or the media explain that every issue can be resolved through government action. They didn’t think about what this really meant; they were just happy to have it taken care of.

Running a business in Washington State was not easy. Taxes were very high and could be “interpreted” by the taxing authorities to mean that a person always owed more. Labor laws meant that firing an employee, even one who is stealing from the company, was very difficult. As for building on one’s land, the environmental impact studies and permits made their land the government’s land that they may get to use if Big Brother said so.

A group known as the Washington Association of Business was formed to represent businesses and to fight against government abuses. They were similar to a statewide chamber of commerce, except they had more balls than any chamber of commerce. WAB was an association of small business only; big businesses, which usually went along with government and received special breaks as a result, were not allowed into WAB.

WAB was run by a real character, Ted Foster. He was in his early forties and looked like a weathered Detroit factory worker, because that’s where he came from.

He was a fighter, and was very effective. He was hated by bureaucrats and politicians. WAB and Ted Foster became a semi- household name in Washington State because they were regularly demonized in the newspapers and by the politicians.

WAB was located in Olympia, the state capitol of Washington, which was the town where Grant needed to find a job.

WAB was looking for an in-house lawyer to sue the government on behalf of members being terrorized by absurd regulations. Their current lawyer, Julie Ramirez, was moving to Texas to get married and, as she put it, “live in a state that is still free.”

Julie’s husband was in the Army at nearby Ft. Lewis and was friends with Bill Owens, who promptly told Grant about the opening at WAB in Olympia before the position was advertised.

Grant applied and nailed the interview. Ted loved the fact that Grant was from scrappy Forks and had experience from the Attorney General’s Office. Grant’s confidence from all the things he’d been through and conquered was appealing to Ted. The interview was supposed to be twenty minutes, but it ended up lasting two hours. Grant got the job.

Olympia was about an hour and a half south of Seattle. It was a beautiful town, right on the water; the southernmost end of the Puget Sound. It was an easy walk from the state capitol, which was breathtakingly beautiful with its grand rotunda, down to the waterfront of the Pacific Ocean. Mountains only a few miles away jutted out. Mountains and the ocean in one package—it can’t be beat.

There was one downside to Olympia, however. Almost everyone worked for government in Olympia. They were mostly state employees; mid- to high-ranking bureaucrats who staffed the headquarters of the zillions of state agencies. They said that Olympia was a “company” town and the company was government.

But Grant was not complaining. He got his dream job that allowed him to carry out his purpose in life. Lisa had a great job, too. Life was good.

He had almost thoroughly transformed himself from hillbilly to lawyer. He was very proud of that. This had been the plan. The only residual vestiges of Forks were his love of fried foods and other unhealthy things, like drinking too much on occasion. However, having a bucket of fried chicken and a half rack of beer was getting less and less common for him. He was eating food that young professionals eat. He even started to eat sushi. He traded the Pabst Blue Ribbon for microbrews.

Grant and Lisa finally had a little money for the first time in their marriage. They did all the things that people in America do when they have a little money they bought things. And more things.

Grant started wearing Dockers and polo shirts. He even took up golf. He wanted to be the typical American white-collar professional. Lisa was happy to resume her former life of plenty, which had been put on hold by medical school, and she filled up her closet with clothes and shoes. They took vacations. Nothing extravagant, but they were living very, very comfortable lives of American professionals. Looking back at this time, Grant called it the “Dockers years.”

The Matsons got to know the other WAB families. They spent time with Ted Foster and his wife, Joyce. There was also Brian and Karen Jenkins. Brian, who was in his forties and looked very distinguished, was WAB’s chief lobbyist. Brian was a great guy who worked hard for the small businesses in WAB; he was not the typical lobbyist that lines the halls of the capitol building. He was a genius at legislative strategy. His wife, Karen, was great. She was beautiful and about a foot shorter than Brian. Karen and Lisa really got along well because Karen came from a wealthy family. Karen wasn’t spoiled, but she was used to nice things.

Another of the three WAB senior staff families were Ben and Laura Trenton. Ben was the WAB political director. He got people elected to the extent it was possible to elect decent people in Washington State. He raised lots and lots of money for candidates. He knew all the rich Republicans in the state, and with a few phone calls, could raise buckets of money. Ben was dedicated to his “guys,” the small businesses of WAB. He constantly chose conflict with squishy moderate Republicans over the comfort of being a “money guy” on the Hill, as the state legislative building was called.

Ben was destined to be a politician himself, if the voters in Washington State ever wanted a change from big government. He was a very handsome guy, who at age thirty already looked like a future elected official.

His wife, Laura, complemented the future elected official by being a very beautiful wife. At first, Grant (and probably most other people) found it hard to relate to her because she was so attractive. People assumed she would be bitchy and unintelligent. She was neither. She was genuinely nice to people and smart as a whip.

The Fosters, Jenkins, and Trentons were the only conservatives the Matsons knew. These four families were like pilgrims from a far off country who settled in a new and different land. They had a bond because they were so different than those around them. They would get together every year for a giant Super Bowl party and, a few months later, a Fourth of July party with all their kids playing together.

These parties were joyous during this high point of the easy times when everyone was making a ton of money and Grant and the WAB guys’ careers were going great. They were climbing the ladder. They were the only thing close to a conservative “government in waiting” as they were often called. Everyone knew if a Republican somehow managed to get elected, that WAB would be staffing the new administration. It felt great, even though they knew that the odds of a Republican winning were so remote. They could dream.

At one Super Bowl party when Grant and Ben drank about a thousand beers, they went outside during half time to get some air. The kids were running around and it was getting loud.

Grant handed Ben a beer and said, “Here you go, Governor.” Ben laughed and then said, “You think that’s possible? You know, someday?” Ben seemed serious. Or drunk. Or both.

Grant was feeling particularly honest, given the many beers. He said to Ben, “Hell, yes it’s possible. If this state ever gets its head out of its ass… oh wait, that will never happen. So, no, man, I don’t think it’s possible.”

Grant could tell that Ben was a little hurt, “No, I don’t mean you’d suck as a governor,” Grant explained. “You would be great. It’s just that…”

“It would be insane to think I could ever be governor,” Ben said, after snapping back into reality. “I was just playing with you.”

Ben was in a part of the yard that the neighbors couldn’t see, and he took a big piss. “Hey, look, the Governor is pissing in his yard!” Ben yelled. They laughed so hard it hurt.

Grant would remember “Governor Ben” pissing in his yard for years. There was something about it that he couldn’t get out of his mind. It was like the path. It was like he was seeing the future, but he wasn’t. It was hard to explain.

Grant’s job at WAB was great. In addition to traditional legal work, he also lobbied. He saw how laws were passed. It was ugly.

He witnessed no outright bribery, but legislators were typically not very bright. They did what lobbyists said, especially lobbyists for government, unions, environmentalists, and big business. The Republicans usually listened to WAB, but listening was about all they could do.

The Republicans weren’t exactly pure and wonderful. They had no power so everything they did was designed to try and achieve some power. There was no plan to do anything good once they got power; they just wanted it. Even in the past, when the Republicans controlled the state House and Senate, they still managed to pile up more government. A little less growth in government, but a net increase, nonetheless. Republicans were more interested in getting re-elected than in actually decreasing the size of government. Getting re-elected in Washington State meant promising “more funding for our schools,” “protecting the environment” and all that. Just a little less than the Democrats.

Republicans spent much of their time on social issues, which meant they alienated most of the voters in liberal Washington State. It was pretty sad. Grant saw firsthand the reasons those in political circles said that the Democrats were the “evil” party and the Republicans were the “stupid” party.

Most of Grant’s work was representing WAB members in lawsuits against the government. His first case was for Big Sam’s Plumbing. Big Sam, who fit the name at six feet four inches, installed a water heater for a customer in some typical mildly corrupt mediumsized city in Washington State. It turned out that the customer was a city council member who was despised by the mayor. Big Sam didn’t get a permit to install a water heater, because no one ever did, although the building code technically required one. So the Mayor announced his concern that the council member had broken such an important safety law. Big Sam, who was a very bright guy, wrote an extremely elegant letter to the editor of the newspaper about how stupid it was to require a permit to do something that people did all the time. The newspaper published it and the mayor looked like an idiot.

The mayor had the city attorney convene a special grand jury and charge Big Sam and the council member with the crime of installing a water heater without a permit. It was a gross misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in jail. Conveniently enough, they announced the charges two days after the election. Big Sam was terrified about going to jail for installing a water heater. He was a WAB member so he called them.

Grant made a public records request to the city for all the water heater permits ever issued. It turned out that in a city of 90,000, exactly two water heater permits had been issued in the past ten years. A few thousand hot water heaters had been installed without permits, or criminal prosecution.

By the time Grant got the records from the reluctant city, Big Sam’s trial was in a few days. He started the case on the day before Thanksgiving. This was exactly what he loved. Big Sam was being bullied and Grant had some special skills that could beat the bully. He took Thanksgiving Day off, but worked the next day and all weekend on the case. He found a very obscure legal doctrine called “procedural equal protection” that stated it was unconstitutional if a person exercises a constitutional right like free speech (such as writing a letter to the editor) and then is the only person prosecuted for a particular crime. Grant wrote a brief on this that was amazing. He put it on Tom’s desk.

On Monday morning, Tom called Grant into his office. “You wrote this?” He asked Grant. “Over the weekend?”

“Yep,” Grant answered. “Why, is it bad?”

“No, it’s magnificent,” Tom said. “I found the right lawyer for this job.”

Grant filed the brief. The judge not only dismissed the charges, but also sternly lectured the city attorney and mayor on procedural equal protection. “What’s wrong with you people?” the judge asked the city attorney to loud applause by the audience. The headline in the paper was “What’s wrong with you people?”

Big Sam cried when the judge dismissed the case. He shook Grant’s hand and said, “I thought I was going to jail and would lose my business. Thanks, man.” They had a celebration lunch that included many beers. Grant was in his glory.

Big Sam’s case illustrated how government seemed to act in Washington State during that time. There were isolated jackasses like the mayor and city attorney, but the courts generally could be trusted to right a wrong. It took some work from a motivated attorney, but it could be done. When Grant later looked back at Big Sam’s case, being charged with a crime for installing a hot water heater seemed like the good old days. Back then, the corruption and government lawlessness were just isolated incidents instead of the norm. That would change.