The Capi­tol Hill office of Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Don Bonker, D‑Washington, bore an unusu­al por­trait, that of one William Wilber­force, inde­pen­dent mind­ed British par­lia­men­tary reformer, phil­an­thropist, evan­gel­i­cal Chris­t­ian and cru­sad­er who helped abol­ish the slave trade.

Wilber­force was an unusu­al mod­el for the sev­en-term (1974–88) Demo­c­ra­t­ic con­gress­man from the “rust belt” of South­west Wash­ing­ton, but the earnest Bonker was a do-good­er, deeply reli­gious and will­ing to chal­lenge old boy net­works and mod­ern-day eco­nom­ic power.

Bonker, eighty-six, died Tues­day sur­round­ed by fam­i­ly at his home in Silverdale.

Bonker was pro­pelled into Con­gress by virtue of his oppo­si­tion to log exports. Big tim­ber com­pa­nies in the 3rd Dis­trict had dis­cov­ered you could make more mon­ey send­ing cut-down trees around rather than through their mills.

The con­se­quence was unprece­dent­ed, unsus­tain­able cut­ting of forests, com­bined with loss of jobs as pro­cess­ing oper­a­tions were shuttered.

The young Clark Coun­ty Audi­tor won a pri­ma­ry over State Sen­a­tor Bob Bai­ley, long­time aide to out­go­ing Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Julia But­ler Hansen, and then faced Repub­li­can Sec­re­tary of State A.L. “Lud” Kramer in the 1974 gen­er­al election.

Kramer had beat­en Bonker in 1972. Not this time.

Bonker had the issue, while Kramer used one of history’s worst cam­paign slo­gans: “Don’t get bonked.” Bonker won by a 60%-40% spread.

Bonker fit into a Wash­ing­ton del­e­ga­tion that was the envy of oth­er states.

It was head­ed by the “gold dust twins,” Unit­ed States Sen­a­tors War­ren Mag­nu­son (“Mag­gie”) and Hen­ry (“Scoop”) Jack­son. Both chaired pow­er­ful Sen­ate com­mit­tees. The Democ­rats’ reformist “Class of ‘74” dumped the old Texas reac­tionary who chaired the House Agri­cul­ture Com­mit­tee, and elect­ed Spokane’s Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Tom Foley as chair­man. The del­e­ga­tion held a month­ly break­fast and worked col­le­gial­ly across par­ty lines to resolve state issues.

Bonker didn’t want raw logs going over­seas but saw glob­al trade as a path to pros­per­i­ty for a dis­trict fronting on the Pacif­ic Ocean.

He rose in senior­i­ty on the House For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee, chair­ing both its trade and human rights sub­com­mit­tees. He wrote leg­is­la­tion and chaired House Speak­er Tip O’Neill’s trade task force.

Back home, if you want to see Bonker’s accom­plish­ments, just look around. He suc­cess­ful­ly pushed to add Point of Arch­es and Shi Shi Beach, crown­ing glo­ry spots of the Pacif­ic Coast, to Olympic Nation­al Park. It wasn’t easy: Tim­ber com­pa­nies and prop­er­ty rights wack­os had fought cre­ation of the nation­al park and accused Bonker of want­i­ng to “lock up” the Peninsula.

He took on the Port of Grays Har­bor in cre­at­ing the Grays Har­bor Nation­al Wildlife Refuge. With inter­tidal flats and salt marsh­es, Bow­er­man Basin near Hoquiam is a key spring stopover for hun­dreds of thou­sands of shore­birds migrat­ing north to the Arc­tic. At oth­er sea­sons, it is an impor­tant stop for local teenagers to make out.

Bonker suc­ceed­ed in pro­tect­ing an impor­tant bird nest­ing area – Pro­tec­tion Island – from a pro­posed real estate development.

He helped ran­som an old growth for­est, Cedar Grover on Long Island in Willa­pa Bay, from the clutch­es of Weyerhaeuser.

The May 18th, 1980 erup­tion of Mt. St. Helens reshaped a grace­ful sym­met­ri­cal vol­cano known as the “Amer­i­can Fuji” and flat­tened two hun­dred and thir­ty square miles of land. Bonker was dri­ving force behind cre­ation of the Mount St. Helens Nation­al Vol­canic Mon­u­ment — at 110,000 acres, far larg­er than what had been pro­posed for pro­tec­tion by the Rea­gan Administration.

Bonker was also instru­men­tal as Con­gress des­ig­nat­ed the Colum­bia Gorge Nation­al Scenic Area, where the Northwest’s great­est riv­er carves a path through the Cas­cades. The usu­al actors protest­ed the “land grab” and “lock­ing up” of pub­lic lands, but the Gorge has flour­ished as a recre­ation des­ti­na­tion with Hood Riv­er, Ore­gon, emerg­ing as the wind surf­ing cap­i­tal of America.

“I admired Con­gress­man Bonker for tak­ing a lead­ing role on inter­na­tion­al trade and help­ing estab­lish the Grays Har­bor Nation­al Wildlife Refuge and the Mount St. Helens Nation­al Mon­u­ment, Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell, D‑Washington said in a state­ment. The state is “more pros­per­ous and our nat­ur­al places bet­ter pro­tect­ed” because of his service.

Bonker sought the Sen­ate seat of retir­ing Repub­li­can Sen­a­tor Dan Evans in 1988, only to lose the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion to House col­league Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mike Lowry. In turn, Lowry lost to the Repub­li­can Par­ty’s Slade Gorton.

Four years lat­er, he again came up short as Pat­ty Mur­ray won the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nod and cap­tured a Sen­ate seat which she still holds.

Bonker stayed active in trade pol­i­cy, find­ing a post-Con­gress career at APCO World­wide, a con­sult­ing and legal firm, and com­ment­ing on nation­al and inter­na­tion­al pol­i­tics, includ­ing here on The Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate.

He emerged in recent years with a mem­oir enti­tled “A High­er Call­ing.” It was a kind of ode to an era of “trust and respect,” a cel­e­bra­tion of when mem­bers of both par­ties in the House occa­sion­al­ly found com­mon ground and were able to intense­ly dis­agree with­out becom­ing disagreeable.

He loathed Newt Gin­grich, whose ele­va­tion to House Repub­li­can lead­er­ship sig­naled a sharp turn to reac­tion and demagoguery.

“He (Gin­grich) made it clear he was not inter­est­ed in bipar­ti­san­ship,” Bonker would say. “He just laid the ground­work, and it has got­ten much more worse in the last few years.” Of his tenure in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Bonker wrote: “My own achieve­ments on inter­na­tion­al trade, human rights, pre­serv­ing our nat­ur­al resources hap­pened only because of bipar­ti­san support.”

The pro­tec­tion of the Colum­bia Gorge, done in tan­dem with Sen­a­tors Dan Evans and Bob Pack­wood, R‑Oregon, was a clas­sic exam­ple of act­ing across both par­ty lines and state bound­aries. So was the 1984 Wash­ing­ton Wilder­ness Act, which saw the pro­tec­tion of Gif­ford Pin­chot Nation­al For­est lands in both Bonker’s turf and the adjoin­ing dis­trict of Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Sid Morrison.

The 3rd Dis­trict once again has a Demo­c­ra­t­ic mem­ber of Congress.

New­ly elect­ed Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Marie Glue­senkamp Perez said Thurs­day: “Don was always there to answer my ques­tions, share a word of advice or even lend my hus­band a suit to wear to my swear­ing on cer­e­mo­ny in D.C… His work to pre­serve the woods and our way of life will con­tin­ue to be felt by South­west Wash­ing­ton for gen­er­a­tions to come.”

Bonker is sur­vived by his wife of fifty-one years, Car­olyn, and two adult children.