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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Bob Greive, ex-state senator, dies at 84

Associated Press

SEATTLE – Former state Senate Majority Leader R.R. “Bob” Greive, a powerhouse in Washington politics during 28 years in the Senate and 12 on the King County Council, is dead at age 84.

Greive, a personal injury lawyer and artist who drew his own campaign literature but had trouble learning to spell because of dyslexia, died Thursday of complications from Parkinson’s disease in West Seattle, the neighborhood where he was born, relatives said.

A bow tie-wearing teetotaler, father of six and church usher for 40 years, he was known for his sharp mind and political savvy, and for engendering intense loyalties and rivalries within his own party.

An untiring advocate for affordable housing and opportunities for the poor, Greive nonetheless pooh-poohed as “whipped cream” the idea of altruism as a primary motivating force in politics.

“Now, I’m not saying that it’s impossible for a person to be motivated just by public service, but I don’t think that’s very often the case,” he said in an oral history produced by the Washington Secretary of State’s Office in 2001. “I think a person is motivated more by the love of battle and the power and importance and the instant notoriety and all of the other things that go to make up a human being.”

The son of a shipyard worker who started a salvage yard and a Canadian immigrant who became a Democratic precinct committee member, Greive studied commercial art at Cornish Institute for the Allied Arts and served in the Coast Guard as a cartoonist in the Puget Sound area during World War II.

In 1946, at age 27, he was elected to the Senate on a youth platform. At first, lacking a car, he hitchhiked to Olympia for legislative sessions.

Greive studied law at the University of Miami when the Legislature was not in session, obtained a law degree in 1951 and began a 16-year reign as Senate majority leader in 1956.

Increasingly autocratic, he cemented his power with the then-radical step of doorbelling, organizing mass mailings and by raising money for other candidates who were then beholden to him when they got elected.