Former Lt. Gov. Pritchard Dead At 72 From Cancer

Joel Pritchard, the former Seattle congressman and lieutenant governor who exemplified civility and bipartisanship, died yesterday after a 10-year battle with cancer. He was 72.

The genial Republican from a pioneer family retired in January after eight years as lieutenant governor. Earlier, he had spent 12 years in the Legislature and 12 years in Congress, quietly forging centrist coalitions for causes ranging from literacy and campaign reform to abortion rights and nuclear disarmament.

He died quietly last night in his Seattle apartment, having decided not to undergo another series of chemotherapy treatments.

"Joel was the last of a breed in politics, that rare politician who could work across partisan lines to solve problems," said Steve Excell, a Seattle consultant who worked for Mr. Pritchard in Congress. "Now politics is more like mud-wrestling, and Joel didn't like it."

Mr. Pritchard fit few contemporary political stereotypes. He was neither tall nor handsome, ambitious nor eloquent. He never learned to speak in TV sound bites. He considered himself a regular guy who happened to have been selected by his fellow citizens to represent them in Olympia or Washington, D.C.

"He subscribed to that quaint notion that he was elected to listen and help people," Excell recalled.

Cooperation, compromise

In Congress, Mr. Pritchard rubbed elbows with world leaders, dined at the White House and represented Congress during a session of the United Nations. But he was happiest on the tennis court with friends or working the legislative hallways for his favorite causes.

"Joel believed deeply in the value of political compromise and cooperation, the qualities that make democracy work," said former Seattle Times political reporter Dick Larsen, who covered most of Mr. Pritchard's career. "Of course, those qualities are now considered to be political liabilities."

In a recent article written for The Times, Mr. Pritchard listed some of the qualities of effective lawmakers - the ability to control their egos, to select good staffers, to share credit for accomplishments, to work with the other party and understand its views and to laugh at themselves.

"Politics is a serious business," he wrote, "but a sense of humor is essential to keeping a realistic sense of proportion."

But Mr. Pritchard's colleagues say his fundamental lesson was that "there is no limit to what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit."

As a result, Mr. Pritchard never became a household word in Washington politics. At home, he is perhaps best known for "pickleball," a combination of tennis, badminton and pingpong, invented at the request of his children for a game that could be played in the family driveway.

Today, Washington is home to thousands of pickleball courts - a fitting legacy to the inventor.

Early family settlers

Mr. Pritchard's grandparents arrived in Seattle in 1895 and settled in Southeast Seattle, where the family name is preserved by the Pritchard Beach Bathhouse on Lake Washington.

Mr. Pritchard grew up on Queen Anne Hill, attended Queen Anne High School and followed his father into the printing business, eventually rising from salesman to president of Griffin Envelope.

At the same time, he dived into local issues such as the creation of Metro and cleanup of Lake Washington.

In 1958, he was elected to the Legislature, where he became an ally and a close friend of Dan Evans, who later rose to the governorship.

When Seattle reformers urged him to run for mayor in 1969, Mr. Pritchard dismissed the idea. "I'd love to run," he told them. "Trouble is, I don't want the job!"

Congress, however, felt like a better match. In 1970, he challenged longtime Rep. Tom Pelly, a Republican from Seattle's 36th District, and lost narrowly. Pelly retired two years later, clearing the way for Mr. Pritchard's election in 1972.

Unusual politician

Long before congressional term limits became popular, Mr. Pritchard vowed to limit himself to 12 years. He insisted on a smaller office and smaller staff than most of his colleagues. He had no press secretary. When he made his first visit to the White House, he wore a rented tuxedo and showed up in an aging Volkswagen Beetle.

During his six terms, Mr. Pritchard was respected for his diplomacy on such issues as abortion rights and for his resistance to huge pork-barrel projects such as the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway. His major success may have been to squelch a plan to tear down the Madison Library and replace it with a new House office building.

"It was a conflict between the nation's culture and creature comforts for Congress," Excell recalls. "Joel went to bat for culture, and won."

Even as Seattle became a Democratic bastion, Mr. Pritchard was re-elected five times until he retired from Congress, as promised, in 1984.

In the mid-1980s, he worked in government relations for a Seattle law firm, Bogle and Gates, while fighting his first bout with lymphoma, a form of cancer.

In 1988, he ran for lieutenant governor and won, presiding over eight legislative sessions that spanned the state's dramatic swing from Democratic to Republican control.

He almost certainly would have won a third term last year, but declined to run. One quality of a successful politician, he said, is knowing when to step down.

Earlier this year, the state library adjacent to the state Capitol was renamed in honor of Mr. Pritchard's recent efforts to expand literacy. The ceremony drew little attention, Excell said. "Joel didn't want the attention."

Married and divorced twice, Mr. Pritchard had four children, Frank Pritchard, Anne Pritchard, Peggy Olson and Jeanie Fullerton.

Funeral plans are pending.

Ross Anderson's phone message number is 206-464-2061. His e-mail address is: rand-new@seatimes.com