Thomas Slade Gorton III (8 January 1928-19 August 2020) was a Republican US Senator from Washington from 3 January 1981 to 3 January 1987 (succeeding Warren Magnuson and preceding Brock Adams) and from 3 January 1989 to 3 January 2001 (succeeding Daniel J. Evans and preceding Maria Cantwell).
Biography[]
Thomas Slade Gorton III was born in Chicago, Illinois on 8 January 1928, and he was raised in Evanston; he was the elder brother of judge Nathaniel M. Gorton. He served in the US Army from 1945 to 1946 and in the US Air Force from 1953 to 1956, and he went on to practice law and be elected to the Washington state legislature in 1958 as a Republican. He served in the legislature from 1959 to 1969, as Attorney General of Washington from 1969 to 1981, and as a US Senator from 1981 to 1987 and from 1989 to 2001. He constantly tried to weaken Native American sovereignty while he was in the state, and their support for his Democratic opponent Maria Cantwell in 2000 helped to defeat his re-election bid. He then returned to practicing law, and he died in Seattle in 2020 at the age of 92.