After his adoptive father left the family in 1921, the young Magnuson made his own way. He trained as a lawyer, entered Washington state politics, and won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1936. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, he didn't just vote for war -- he served in it, joining the Navy and seeing heavy combat aboard an aircraft carrier in the Pacific Theater until President Roosevelt ordered all serving congressmen home in 1942. By 1944, Magnuson had moved to the Senate, where he would remain for 36 years. He was reelected five times, in 1950, 1956, 1962, 1968, and 1974, each victory deepening his hold on the levers of legislative power.

Magnuson's legislative legacy is remarkable for its breadth. In 1943, he co-authored the Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act, dismantling one of America's most explicitly racist immigration laws. Six years later, he pushed through special legislation allowing Poon Lim -- a Chinese sailor who survived 133 days adrift at sea in 1942 -- to immigrate to the United States and become a citizen. When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 came before the Senate, it was routed through Magnuson's Commerce Committee. He played a key role in moving it to the floor and into law over the fierce opposition of Senator William Fulbright and other segregationists. On November 7, 1967, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act, singling out Magnuson as one of the legislators who made it possible.

At least four major pieces of legislation bear Magnuson's name. The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act established America's framework for managing ocean fisheries. The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act reformed consumer protection law. But perhaps his most enduring contribution to his home state was blocking supertankers from Puget Sound. Rather than fight a high-profile legislative battle, Magnuson attached an amendment to a routine funding reauthorization bill on the Senate and House consent calendars -- a maneuver so quiet that most of his colleagues barely noticed. The waterway that defines western Washington remained navigable for ferries and fishing boats rather than becoming a corridor for oil tankers. President Jimmy Carter, speaking at a Spokane town hall in 1978, called Magnuson a man of "national and even international renown and leadership." The NIH Clinical Center was renamed the Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Center in his honor in 1981.

In November 1961, President Kennedy visited Seattle and attended a dinner honoring Magnuson's first 25 years in Congress. Nearly 3,000 people paid $100 each to be there. By 1980, however, the political winds had shifted. Republican attorney general Slade Gorton defeated the 75-year-old senator, making Magnuson the longest-serving member of Congress ever to lose a reelection bid. He stayed active in retirement, working with a U.N.-sponsored organization studying nuclear proliferation and lobbying for school funding. But health problems accumulated -- diabetes forced the amputation of several toes in 1982, and his public appearances dwindled. On May 20, 1989, Magnuson died at his Seattle home from complications of diabetes and congestive heart failure. He was 84. He and his wife are buried in Acacia Memorial Park in Lake Forest Park, north of the city where the adopted boy from Minnesota built a political career that reshaped a state and touched the nation.