King Lysen: A reformer in the Legislature who took on the old boys

Mar 20, 2017|Updated Mar 21, 2017 4:21 p.m.

King Lysen was a young man despised by his state’s powerful old boys. As a state legislator, he challenged an out-of-control nuclear construction program that threatened to melt down the Northwest’s economy.

Lysen, who died last week at age 75, served 12 tumultuous years in the Washington State Legislature, from 1970 to 1982, eight years in the House and four in the State Senate. He had his district abolished out from under him in 1982.

A product of O’Dea High and Seattle University, with a stint at the University of the Americas in Mexico City, Lysen brought a dose of Catholic social activism to Olympia. He was in the group of reformers, nicknamed the “Seattle 10” elected to the House of Representatives in 1970.

Two of Lysen’s memorable battles, fought in both houses of the Legislature, helped shape Washington’s energy and environmental future.

He adamantly opposed the proposal, backed by then-Gov. Dixy Lee Ray, for a “superport” at Cherry Point north of Bellingham that would receive oil from Alaska’s North Slope, and put it on a pipeline to the Midwest and East.

It was a seminal battle. Gov. Ray and Big Oil (most prominently ARCO) were on one side, the state’s spill-wary environmentalists on the other.

Lysen was instrumental in crafting legislation that would ban oil supertankers from traversing the Strait of Juan de Fuca, east of Ediz Hook, and entering waters of our Salish Sea. Ray vetoed the bill, and Lysen sought a federal solution.

The battle culminated with Sen. Warren Magnuson and Rep. Norm Dicks pushing through a “little amendment” (Magnuson’s phrase) to the Marine Mammal Protection Act. It kept out supertankers and sank the oilport.

Ray called Sen. Magnuson “a dictator”. She found herself shaking Dicks’ hand at a Rose Bowl game, and dropped it like a wet rat. Lysen was already on her enemies list. Still, he won election to the Senate in 1978, and took on WPPSS.

The Washington Public Power Supply System was trying to build five nuclear plants at once, with costs that soared from preliminary estimates of $4.1 billion to an eventual $23.8 billion.

WPPSS stood by its plans as costs soared, chaos reigned at its construction sites, and projections of power need began to rise less quickly. Costs were blamed on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Critics were sneered at. One Grant County PUD commissioner made sneering references to “King Lysol.”

Eventually, under leadership of Lysen and State Sen. Sue Gould, R-Edmonds, the State Senate undertook an investigation of WPPSS’ soaring costs.

The probe found that WPPSS mismanagement was the prime cause of cost overruns. WPPSS eventually shut down four of the five reactors: Two 496-foot-tall cooling towers sit forlornly at Satsop. WPPSS would trigger the biggest municipal bankruptcy in American history.

With his district gone, Lysen ran as an independent in 1982 against U.S. Sen. Henry Jackson, and retired from politics.

Such was the animosity against this reformer that then-U.S. Rep. Mike Lowry came under pressure to not appoint Lysen’s wife, Toni Lysen,. to Lowry’s House staff. Lowry resisted the pressure (in memorably salty language) and Toni Lysen became an indispensable aide.

Post-politics, King Lysen worked as a fisherman, grew potatoes and sugar beets over near George, Washington, and ended his career as a drafting teacher at Franklin High School.

He is survived by Toni, six children and 15 grandchildren. The life of King Lysen will be celebrated at 10:30 a.m. Thursday in St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Burien. The family suggests remembrances to the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration (www.theaftd.org).

King Lysen learned that it can be lonely standing up to the march of folly. The lawmaker from Burien did not waver for so much as a New York minute.

By Joel Connelly

Joel is a reporter and columnist for seattlepi.com.

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