(Images courtesy of Washington State Archives) 

Washington state is celebrating the life and service of Tom Foley, who represented Eastern Washington’s 5th Congressional District for 30 years and as House Speaker from 1989 to 1994.  Foley died last Friday at the age of 84.

Foley was a Democrat who was first elected to the U.S. House in 1964 and served until Republican George Nethercutt defeated him in the “Republican Revolution” election of 1994. Foley  later served as U.S. ambassador to Japan from 1997 through 2001 and joined a law practice in Washington, D.C.

Our State Archives brought out these historic items of Foley. The top photo shows Foley with Washington Gov. Booth Gardner in the early 1990s. The lower photo, also from the early ‘90s, features Foley shaking hands with North Dakota Gov. George Sinner while Gardner chats with a certain governor from Arkansas named Bill Clinton, who went on serve two terms as U.S. president.

The document at the bottom is Foley’s declaration for candidacy for his first U.S. House race, in 1964.