Wendell Hampton Ford (September 8, 1924 – January 22, 2015) was an American politician from Kentucky. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 53rd governor of Kentucky from 1971 to 1974, and as a member of the United States Senate from 1974 to 1999. He was the first person to be successively elected lieutenant governor of Kentucky, governor, and United States Senate member in Kentucky history. He was the Senate Democratic whip from 1991 to 1999, and was considered the leader of the state's Democratic Party from his election as governor in 1971 until he retired from the Senate in 1999. At the time of his retirement he was the longest-serving senator in Kentucky's history, a mark which was then surpassed by Mitch McConnell, in 2009. Ford is the last Democrat to have served as a U.S. Senate member from the state of Kentucky.

Born in Daviess County, Kentucky, Ford attended the University of Kentucky, but his studies were interrupted by his service in World War II. After the war, he graduated from the Maryland School of Insurance and returned to Kentucky to help his father with the family insurance business. He also continued his military service in the Kentucky Army National Guard. He worked on the gubernatorial campaign of Bert Combs in 1959 and became Combs's executive assistant when Combs was elected governor. Encouraged to run for the Kentucky Senate by Combs's ally and successor, Ned Breathitt, Ford won the seat and served one four-year term before running for lieutenant governor in 1967. He was elected on a split ticket with Republican Louie Nunn. Four years later, Ford defeated Combs in an upset in the Democratic primary election en route to the governorship.

As governor, Ford made the government more efficient by reorganizing and consolidating some departments in the executive branch. He raised revenue for the state through a severance tax on coal and enacted reforms to the educational system. He purged most of the Republicans from statewide office, including helping Walter Dee Huddleston win the Senate seat vacated by the retirement of Republican stalwart John Sherman Cooper. In 1974, Ford himself ousted the other incumbent senator, Republican Marlow Cook. Following the rapid rise of Ford and many of his political allies, he and his lieutenant governor, Julian Carroll, were investigated on charges of political corruption, but a grand jury refused to indict them. As a senator, Ford was a staunch defender of Kentucky's tobacco industry. He also formed the Senate National Guard Caucus with Republican U.S. Senator Kit Bond from Missouri. Chosen as Democratic party whip in 1991, Ford considered running for floor leader in 1994 before throwing his support to U.S. Senate member Chris Dodd of Connecticut. He retired from the Senate in 1999 and returned to Owensboro, where he taught politics to youth at the Owensboro Museum of Science and History.

Early life

Wendell Ford was born near Owensboro, in Daviess County, Kentucky, on September 8, 1924. He was the son of Ernest M. and Irene Woolfork (Schenk) Ford. His father was a member of the Kentucky Senate and ally of Governor of Kentucky Earle Clements. From 1942 to 1943, he attended the University of Kentucky. The couple had two children. Daughter Shirley (Ford) Dexter was born in 1950 and son Steven Ford was born in 1954. He was trained as an administrative non-commissioned officer and promoted to the rank of technical sergeant on November 17, 1945. While lieutenant governor, he became an honorary member of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity in 1969.

Governor of Kentucky

At the expiration of his term as lieutenant governor, Ford was one of eight candidates to enter the 1971 Democratic gubernatorial primary. He also questioned why Combs would leave his better-paying federal judgeship to run for a second term as governor. During the 1972 legislative session, he created the Department of Finance and Administration, combining the functions of the Kentucky Program Development Office and the Department of Finance. that found that a citizen who had lived in a state for 30 days was resident in that state and thus eligible to vote there. Kentucky's Constitution required residency of one year in the state, six months in the county and sixty days in the precinct to establish voting eligibility. This issue had to be resolved before the 1972 presidential election in November, so Ford called a special legislative session to enact the necessary corrections. All of these measures passed.

Despite surgery for a brain aneurysm in June 1972, Ford attended the 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida. Cook opposed the dam, but Ford supported it and allocated some of the state's budget surplus to its construction. In 1981, prosecutors asked for indictments against Ford and Carroll on racketeering charges, but a grand jury refused.

United States Senator

Ford entered the Senate in 1974 and was reelected in 1980, 1986, and 1992. He was unopposed in the 1986 and 1992 Democratic primaries. Republicans failed to put forward a viable challenger during any of Ford's re-election bids. In 1980, he defeated septuagenarian former state auditor Mary Louise Foust by 334,862 votes. Ford's 720,891 votes represented 65 percent of the total votes cast in the election, a record for a statewide race in Kentucky.

Ford seriously considered leaving the Senate and running for governor again in 1983 and 1991, but decided against it both times.

Early in his career, Ford supported a constitutional amendment against desegregation busing. Ford got a late start in the race, and a New York Times writer opined that he overestimated his chances of unseating Cranston. Ford said he was motivated to form the caucus after seeing the work done by Mississippi United States House of Representatives member Sonny Montgomery with the National Guard Association of the United States and the National Guard Bureau. In 1999, the National Guard Bureau presented Ford with the Sonny Montgomery Award, its highest honor.

U.S. Senate member Thomas Eagleton from Missouri opined that Ford and Dee Huddleston made "probably the best one-two combination for any state in the Senate." Both were defenders of tobacco, Kentucky's primary cash crop.

As he had as governor of Kentucky, Ford gave attention to improving the efficiency of government. While serving on the United States Congressional Joint Committee on Printing during the 101st and 103rd United States Congresses, he saved the government millions of dollars in printing costs by printing in volume and using recycled paper. In 1998, Republican U.S. Senate member John Warner from Virginia sponsored the Wendell H. Ford Government Publications Reform Act of 1998; Ford signed on as a co-sponsor. The bill would have eliminated the United States Congressional Joint Committee on Printing, distributing its authority and functions among the Senate Rules Committee, the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and the administrator of the United States Government Printing Office. He worked for a time as a consultant to Washington lobbying and law firm Dickstein Shapiro. At the time of his retirement, Ford was the longest-serving U.S. Senate member in Kentucky history. In January 2009, Mitch McConnell surpassed Ford's mark of 24 years in the Senate. The Western Kentucky Parkway was also renamed the Wendell H. Ford Western Kentucky Parkway during the administration of Governor Paul E. Patton. In 2009, Ford was inducted into the Kentucky Transportation Hall of Fame.

Later in life, Ford taught politics to the youth of Owensboro from the Owensboro Museum of Science and History, which houses a replica of his U.S. Senate office.

On July 19, 2014, the Messenger-Inquirer reported that Ford had been diagnosed with lung cancer. Ford died from lung cancer at his home on January 22, 2015, at age 90. He was interred at Rosehill Elmwood Cemetery.

See also

  • Conservative Democrat

References

Bibliography

  • Fitzgerald, David. "Supporting the Troops, Debating the War", Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 117.3/4 (2019): 555–590. online

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