SPOKANE, Wash. – It’s been said that the stars aligned in Spokane for Expo ‘74 to take place, but they also magically came together in Washington D.C. in an era of political turmoil to support the Lilac City.
In the ‘60s in the ‘70s Washington State had a powerhouse delegation in the US Congress.
Congressman Tom Foley, who represented the fifth congressional district, was still relatively fresh on the scene and was serving alongside two powerhouse Senators, Warren Magnuson and Henry Jackson.
The trio of Democrats represented the Evergreen State at high capacities. Foley ultimately went on to serve as Speaker of the House and both Magnuson and Jackson represented the state in leadership on the commerce, appropriations and interior committees.
One person who had a front row seat to observe these lawmakers’ work was Heather Foley, Speaker Foley’s wife.
“That’s where I first went to work, actually I was on the payroll of the senate [I started in committee,]” Heather Foley said.
It was obvious that her relationships with these three individuals were deep. In the interview she called them by nicknames, Scoop [Jackson] and Maggie [Magnuson] shedding light on their day-to-day operation in their office.
Jackson went to the gym every day at five, Magnuson enjoyed a stiff drink at the end of the day, and her husband was actually quite shy.
Foley spent the bulk of her career working at Tom Foley’s congressional office, but started as an employee of Senator Jackson’s committee office.
She saw it all and remembers the way the delegation came together to get $11.5 million through the Senate and the House and onto the president’s desk for Expo ‘74.
“The whole office [was] preoccupied with it,” Foley said. “I don’t quite recall another issue that had so many people working on it.”
For the delegation it was a topic that dominated four years’ worth of work.
“King Cole used to come to town, and he would have this great big map of Spokane, and he would say we need to knock this and that down and we need to build this up.. at the end of the day I would be stressed,” Foley said.
But before the expo could officially get off the ground it needed some help from the president.
“Well John Ehrlichman who was intimately involved in Watergate and went to jail as I recall was from Washington State and it was he who got the president to sign the proclamation establishing Expo,” Foley said.
Ehrlichman was from Tacoma and served jail time for his involvement in the Watergate scandal.
So with the help of President Richard Nixon’s pen—Spokane and Washington State’s lawmakers prepared to take center stage.
“I don’t think they had any trouble passing it, although I think [Senator] Fulbright gave Jackson some difficulty about it,” Foley said.
She remembers that it passed the Senate in the fall, where her husband was waiting to champion it in the house.
“He went and talked to our next-door neighbor, Don Fraser who was from Minnesota who was on the foreign affairs committee and Don helped get the bill out of the committee,” Foley said.
Foley stated that after leaving committee it could’ve gone either way and there were some nerves surrounding the next steps.
“It was brought to the floor on a unanimous consent request, which means one person can stand up and object,” Foley said.
She recalls their being concern that H.R Gross, a republican from Iowa, could be the one person to shoot down the legislation – but due to good old fashion bipartisan conversation—it passed.
“I think Expo is a real example of how you can work together and work across the aisle because it would’ve been very easy for someone to object on the floor and it didn’t happen,” Foley said.
Due to a bipartisan mentality, the federal support that ultimately built the pavilion and modern day riverfront park was sent to the little City of Spokane, changing it forever.
“I mean it was really quite something,” Foley said.
Foley also explained that additional funding requests were made to support the expo outside of the $11 million. The trees that line downtown streets today were paid for with congressional funding requests under the Expo umbrella.
She recognizes now that she was a part of history, but in the moment they were focused on getting the job done.
At the end of the interview Foley briefly discussed her husband, the former speaker of the house. She explained that she misses him deeply- and their life together which often consisted of watching the Price is Right and The Wheel of Fortune after dinner.
Foley illustrated their conversations did not center around politics, but rather focused on serving the people of Spokane.
