Tacoma-born Gov. Al Rosellini, a Stadium High School graduate who left his mark on Washington’s universities, state institutions, roads and bridges and modern economy, died Monday.
At 101, Albert Dean Rosellini was believed to have been the nation’s oldest living former governor, according to Gov. Chris Gregoire’s office. He was a political power in the state as Senate majority leader before Gregoire was born.
The Democrat was elected governor in 1956 and won a second term in 1960. He tried to return to the governor’s office in 1964 and 1972, losing both times to Republican Dan Evans.
Rosellini’s daughter Lynn said he died of complications from
pneumonia. She said her father, who grew up in an immigrant family that spoke Italian at home, always identified with the “underdog” and worked on behalf of working-class people.
“Ever since I was little,” she said, “we’d go out with Dad and people were always coming up to him where he went saying ‘thank you’ for this, or ‘thank you’ for that, some small favor he did. Something he did to help them.”
Giovanni Rosellini took the family to Seattle in 1916 after he lost his Tacoma saloon due to state prohibition, according to his biographer, Payton Smith. Later, the family returned, and the younger Rosellini delivered prescription drugs on a bicycle for a Tacoma pharmacy, his daughter said.
Giovanni Rosellini operated a private club next door to a Tacoma gym where Jack Conner trained boxers, including Freddie Steele, who became world middleweight champion in 1935, Smith wrote. Al Rosellini sparred with Steele and other Conner-trained boxers.
Smith wrote that Rosellini was in Stadium High School in Tacoma when his father was convicted of trying to smuggle drugs from Mexico and that he visited his father in prison on McNeil Island.
Rosellini’s friends and connections would provide the basis for criticism, whether it was the liquor-industry clients he took on as an attorney, charges of cronyism as governor, or his friend Frank Colacurcio Sr., the Seattle strip-club mogul and organized crime figure who was convicted of racketeering and tax evasion.
Some of the attacks on the first Catholic or Italian American governor west of the Mississippi River took on ethnic overtones. Bumper stickers distributed by Evans supporters in 1972 proclaimed, “We Don’t Need a Godfather.”
CHANGING STATE GOVERNMENT
Lynn Rosellini said her father shrugged off political attacks.
She recalled his command of retail politics. “He always said if he could shake somebody’s hand, that was a vote. And that’s true, because when he shook your hand, it was like you were the only person in the room.”
Rosellini won election to the state Senate in 1938, beginning a legislative career that was notable for his work to create the University of Washington medical and dental schools.
He ran for governor in 1952 and lost. He won the position four years later.
His top campaign issue was the same one that had been his cause in the state Senate, Smith said: the conditions in state institutions, including for juvenile offenders who were still imprisoned with adult inmates. Rosellini helped overhaul the system, one of many steps he took to modernize the state.
In his first term as governor, Rosellini “created a separate justice and prison system for juvenile offenders, modernized the mental health system, increased aid to universities and colleges, established the Department of Commerce and Economic Development, set up a merit system for state employees, and led numerous other initiatives,” Gregoire’s office said in a 2009 proclamation honoring him.
He fought successfully to build a second floating bridge across Lake Washington – later named for him, though better known as the Evergreen Point or Highway 520 bridge – as well as a bridge across Hood Canal.
And he helped organize support for the 1962 World’s Fair, where the Space Needle was built and Elvis Presley filmed a movie.
Long after he left public office, Rosellini was tied to Seattle’s “Strippergate” scandal in 2003 when Colacurcio and his son Frank Jr. were using the names of dozens of friends and acquaintances from King and Pierce counties to circumvent campaign donation limits to benefit certain Seattle City Council members.
Rosellini was allegedly the “bagman” in the donations scheme, personally delivering some of the questionable donations to the council members, but he was never charged.
Rosellini outlived his wife, Ethel, who died in 2002. He is survived by his five children. Plans for his memorial service were still developing late Monday, but his son John said there would be a funeral Mass at St. James Cathedral in Seattle followed by a reception.
Jordan Schrader: 360-786-1826
jordan.schrader@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/politics
Twitter: @Jordan_Schrader
Staff writers Peter Callaghan and Lewis Kamb contributed to this story.
JOIN THE DISCUSSION | Register here
We welcome comments. Please keep them civil, short and to the point. ALL CAPS, spam, obscene, profane, abusive and off topic comments will be deleted. Repeat offenders will be blocked. Thanks for taking part — and abiding by these simple rules. A thorough explanation of rules of conduct can be found in our Terms of Service. If you have any questions, including why your comment may not be showing immediately after you submit it, be sure to visit the commenting FAQ.