Evans Offers Perspectives from Senate and Statehouse

Immediately after his wedding, Daniel Evans and his bride dropped everything in their hectic lives for a six-month honeymoon in Europe.

Several years later, after three consecutive terms as governor of the state of Washington, Evans and his wife--and three sons--took off for Europe again.

On his return, Evans accepted the presidency of Evergreen State College, a small liberal arts school in Washington started while he was governor. That presidency, says Evans, was a "refreshing change of pace."

Now, just after finishing a six-year term in the Senate, Evans is once again taking a breather from the rough and tumble world of politics. This time, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government is his place of retreat.

Evans, a fellow at the Institute of Politics (IOP) this spring, brings to Harvard a perspective of experience from the executive and legislative branches. Meanwhile, the Kennedy School offers him the chance to sit-back and review his political experience of the past three decades.

"These breaks are a great transition from one piece of your career to another," says Evans, explaining that over the next few months he hopes to begin a book on the political and social shifts that have marked his political career.

A former member of the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the International Economic and Environmental Subcommittee, Evans now leads a student study group called "The Search for a Livable Planet." As a fellow, he is available to undergraduates and graduates and participates in brown bag lunch programs. He also speaks at University events on invitation.

Evans says his book will focus on 1965 to 1977, the turbulent years when he was governor of Washington, overseeing years of Civil Rights strife Vietnam protests and pollution problems.

"I don't just want to write an autobiography," says Evans. "I want it to be a serious book that might be useful for students and other people."

In addition, Evans says that his experiences will be useful to students of politics because he says that he is "a great believer in political cycles. "Nonetheless, his moves from office to office in themselves could easily fill a book.

Recalling his entrance to the statehouse in 1965, the Washingtonian said changing from private citizen to private figure caused a major shift in his family life. Evans explains that his wife had a difficult job, with two of their sons in pre-school and the third a newborn.

"We couldn't fit more than six people around the dinner table," Evans says. "But being the governor in Washington, we lived in the governor's mansion, which meant we did an awful lot of entertaining. My wife was a partner in the whole effort."

He adds that socially, the state's first family had a much greater responsibility. Evans says that before he was governor, his family lived a simple life in a little house in Seattle.

The former governor and senator says that he did not find his experience in the Senate as enjoyable as the statehouse.

"I sometimes got frustrated at the length of time it took to get things done legislatively," said Evans. "There's no question that those who come to the Senate after having been governors tend to be frustrated--they are used to being in charge of their own time and having more control of the political arena in which they work."

But Evans says he has a special appreciation for the slower pace of the legislature.

"Our forefathers came from dictatorial, totalitarian rules. These people who fled Europe and came to the North American continent had a great suspicion of too much power," Evans says, adding that the founding fathers were aware of the corruptive nature of power. "The whole idea of the legislature was to slow down the political process...You just have to have a lot of persistence."

Evans' experience in Senate and statehouse give him insight into the great debate of whether a governor or a legislator is more qualified for the presidency.

"I would say that if you only have one experience, being governor is closer to the job of the chief executive," Evans says. "The only problem is that today, governors don't have the foreign policy experience and knowledge."

Evans says that after the Second World War, more presidents started to come from Congress, with the exception of Carter and Reagan.

"At governors' conferences, we used to frequently talk and say `Isn't it terrible that all these presidents are coming from the Senate."

It would seem his experiences as a governor and senator would make Evans himself a contender for the presidency, but the IOP fellow says he has no interest in running for the office--or any other--in the near future.

"People ask if I will run for governor again. I don't want to do that, even though I loved the job," says Evans. He says he would prefer to wait and see what fate drops in his lap.

"Timing is everything--that's the old saw in politics," Evans says. "That more than anything else opens up opportunities."