1. Wendell Hampton Ford was an American politician from Kentucky.
82 Facts About Wendell Ford
1. 2.
Wendell Ford was the first person to be successively elected lieutenant governor, governor, and United States senator in Kentucky history.
3.
Wendell Ford 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.
4.
Wendell Ford continued his military service in the Kentucky Army National Guard.
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Wendell Ford worked on the gubernatorial campaign of Bert Combs in 1959 and became Combs' executive assistant when Combs was elected governor.
6.
Wendell Ford was elected on a split ticket with Republican Louie Nunn.
7.
Four years later, Wendell Ford defeated Combs in an upset in the Democratic primary en route to the governorship.
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Wendell Ford raised revenue for the state through a severance tax on coal and enacted reforms to the educational system.
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Wendell Ford 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.
10.
In 1974, Wendell Ford himself ousted the other incumbent senator, Republican Marlow Cook.
11.
Wendell Ford formed the Senate National Guard Caucus with Republican US Senator Kit Bond of Missouri.
12.
Wendell Ford retired from the Senate in 1999 and returned to Owensboro, where he taught politics to youth at the Owensboro Museum of Science and History.
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Wendell Ford was born near Owensboro, in Daviess County, Kentucky, on September 8,1924.
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Wendell Ford was the son of Ernest M and Irene Woolfork Ford.
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Wendell Ford's father was a state senator and ally of Kentucky Governor Earle C Clements.
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Wendell Ford obtained his early education in the public schools of Daviess County and graduated from Daviess County High School.
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On September 18,1943, Wendell Ford married Ruby Jean Neel of Owensboro at the home of the bride's parents.
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Daughter Shirley Dexter was born in 1950 and son Steven Wendell Ford was born in 1954.
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In 1944, Wendell Ford left the University of Kentucky to join the army, enlisting for service in World War II on July 22,1944.
20.
Wendell Ford was trained as an administrative non-commissioned officer and promoted to the rank of technical sergeant on November 17,1945.
21.
In 1949, Wendell Ford's company was converted from infantry to tanks, and Wendell Ford served as a Company Commander in the 240th Tank Battalion.
22.
Wendell Ford was very active in civic affairs, becoming the first Kentuckian to serve as president of the Jaycees in 1954.
23.
Wendell Ford was a youth chairman of Bert T Combs' 1959 gubernatorial campaign.
24.
When his mother died in 1963, Wendell Ford returned to Owensboro to help his father with the family insurance agency.
25.
Wendell Ford won the 1965 election by only 305 votes but quickly became a key player in the state senate.
26.
In 1967, Wendell Ford ran for lieutenant governor, this time against the wishes of Breathitt and Combs, whose pick was state attorney general Robert Matthews.
27.
Wendell Ford ran an independent campaign and won in the general election even as Combs-Breathitt pick Henry Ward lost the race for governor to Republican Louie B Nunn.
28.
When Governor Nunn asked the legislature to increase the state sales tax in 1968 from 3 percent to 5 percent, Wendell Ford opposed the measure, saying it should only pass if food and medicine were exempted.
29.
From 1970 to 1971, Wendell Ford was a member of the executive committee of the National Conference of Lieutenant Governors.
30.
At the expiration of his term as lieutenant governor, Wendell Ford was one of eight candidates to enter the 1971 Democratic gubernatorial primary.
31.
Wendell Ford questioned why Combs would leave his better-paying federal judgeship to run for a second term as governor.
32.
Wendell Ford garnered more votes than Combs and the other six candidates combined, and attributed his unlikely win over Combs in the primary to superior strategy and Combs' underestimation of his candidacy.
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Wendell Ford finished more than 58,000 votes ahead of his closest rival, Republican Tom Emberton.
34.
Wendell Ford shepherded a package of reforms to the state's criminal justice system through the first legislative session of his term.
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Wendell Ford oversaw the transition of the University of Louisville from municipal to state funding.
36.
Wendell Ford pushed for reforms to the state's education system, giving up his own chairmanship of the University of Kentucky board of trustees and extending voting rights to student and faculty members of university boards.
37.
Wendell Ford increased funding to the state's education budget and gave expanded powers to the Council on Higher Education.
38.
Wendell Ford vetoed a measure that would have allowed collective bargaining for teachers.
39.
Wendell Ford drew praise for his attention to the mundane task of improving the efficiency and organization of executive departments, creating several "super cabinets" under which many departments were consolidated.
40.
Constitutional limits sometimes prevented him from combining like functions, but Wendell Ford made the reorganization a top priority and realized some savings to the state.
41.
Wendell Ford supported Edmund Muskie for president, but later greeted nominee George McGovern when he visited Kentucky.
42.
Wendell Ford served as vice-chair of the Conference's Natural Resources and Environmental Management Committee.
43.
Wendell Ford increased funding to human resources and continued his reorganization of the executive branch, creating cabinets for transportation, development, education and the arts, human resources, consumer protection and regulation, safety and justice.
44.
Wendell Ford was considered less ruthless than previous governors in firing state officials hired by the previous administration, and expanded the state merit system to cover some previously exempt state workers.
45.
Wendell Ford united the state's Democratic Party, allowing them to capture a seat in the US Senate in 1972 for the first time since 1956.
46.
Wendell Ford wanted lieutenant governor Julian Carroll, who had run on an informal slate with Combs in the 1971 primary, to run for Cook's seat, but Carroll already had his eye on the governor's chair.
47.
Wendell Ford's allies did not have a gubernatorial candidate stronger than Carroll, and when a poll showed that Wendell Ford was the only Democrat who could defeat Cook, he agreed to run, announcing his candidacy immediately following the 1974 legislative session.
48.
Wendell Ford resigned as governor to accept the seat, leaving the governorship to Carroll, who dropped state support for the project, killing it.
49.
In June 1972, Wendell Ford had purchased insurance policies for state workers from some of his political backers without competitive bidding.
50.
Investigators believed there was an arrangement in which insurance companies getting government contracts split commissions with party officials, although Wendell Ford was suspected of allowing the practice for political benefit rather than personal financial gain.
51.
However, state Republicans maintained that Wendell Ford took the Fifth Amendment while on the stand, invoking his right against self-incrimination.
52.
Wendell Ford entered the Senate in 1974 and was reelected in 1980,1986 and 1992.
53.
Wendell Ford was unopposed in the 1986 and 1992 Democratic primaries.
54.
Against Republican Jackson Andrews IV in 1986, Wendell Ford shattered that record, securing 74 percent of the votes cast and carrying all 120 Kentucky counties.
55.
Wendell Ford seriously considered leaving the Senate and running for governor again in 1983 and 1991, but decided against it both times.
56.
In 1991, Wendell Ford cited his seniority in the Senate and desire to become Democratic Senate whip as factors in his decision not to run for governor.
57.
Early in his career, Wendell Ford supported a constitutional amendment against desegregation busing.
58.
Wendell Ford floated a proposal to put the federal budget on a two-year cycle, believing too much time was spent annually on budget wrangling.
59.
From 1977 to 1983, Wendell Ford was a member of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
60.
Wendell Ford first sought the post of Democratic whip in 1988, but lost to California's Alan Cranston, who had held the post since 1977.
61.
Wendell Ford got a late start in the race, and a New York Times writer opined that he overestimated his chances of unseating Cranston.
62.
Wendell Ford again faced Cranston in the election, but Cranston withdrew from the race due to a battle with prostate cancer.
63.
Wendell Ford maintained that he had enough commitments of support in the Democratic caucus to have won without Cranston's withdrawal.
64.
When majority leader George J Mitchell retired from the Senate in 1994, Ford showed some interest in the Democratic floor leader post.
65.
Wendell Ford said he was motivated to form the caucus after seeing the work done by Mississippi Representative Sonny Montgomery with the National Guard Association and the National Guard Bureau.
66.
Wendell Ford co-chaired the caucus with Bond until Wendell Ford's retirement from the Senate in 1999.
67.
Wendell Ford sat on the Commerce Committee, influencing legislation affecting the manufacturing end of the tobacco industry, while Huddleston sat on the Agriculture Committee and protected programs that benefited tobacco farmers.
68.
Wendell Ford got tobacco exempted from the Consumer Product Safety Act and was a consistent opponent of cigarette tax increases.
69.
Wendell Ford sponsored an amendment to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade that limited the amount of foreign tobacco that could be imported by the United States.
70.
Wendell Ford favored the package as presented to Congress, which would have protected the price support program, while McConnell favored a smaller aid package to tobacco farmers and an end to the price support program.
71.
Wendell Ford sponsored an amendment to the Family Medical Leave Act of 1993 exempting businesses with fewer than fifty employees.
72.
Wendell Ford was a key player in securing passage of the motor voter law in 1993.
73.
Wendell Ford supported increases to the federal minimum wage and a 1996 welfare reform bill.
74.
Never known as a major player on international issues, Wendell Ford favored continued economic sanctions against Iraq as an alternative to the Gulf War.
75.
Wendell Ford voted against the Panama Canal Treaty, which he perceived to be unpopular with Kentucky voters.
76.
Warner did not return to his chairmanship of the Joint Committee on Printing in the next congress, Wendell Ford retired from the Senate, and the bill was not re-introduced.
77.
Wendell Ford chose not to seek a fifth term in 1998, and retired to Owensboro.
78.
At the time of his retirement, Wendell Ford was the longest-serving senator in Kentucky history.
79.
In 2009, Wendell Ford was inducted into the Kentucky Transportation Hall of Fame.
80.
Later in life, Wendell Ford taught politics to the youth of Owensboro from the Owensboro Museum of Science and History, which houses a replica of his Senate office.
81.
On July 19,2014, the Messenger-Inquirer reported that Wendell Ford had been diagnosed with lung cancer.
82.
Wendell Ford died from lung cancer at his home on January 22,2015, at age 90.