'Our greatest citizen leader': Gov. Bert Combs shone during, after political career

This from Kevin Hable in the Courier-Journal:

This weekend marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Bert Combs, who was born on Aug. 13, 1911, in Clay County. Although he spent much of his professional life in Frankfort, Louisville and Lexington, he was an Eastern Kentuckian his whole life. Many people believe he was one of Kentucky's great governors. I know he was the most outstanding governor in my lifetime. I think we should remember him not only for what he accomplished as governor from 1959 through 1963 but for what he did for Kentucky as a citizen after his political career.

In addition to being governor, Combs spent many years as a judge. Before he became governor he was on the Kentucky Court of Appeals, which at the time was the state's highest court. After Combs' term as governor, President Lyndon Johnson appointed him to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where he served from 1967 to 1970. I believe he was more proud of having been a judge than of having been governor. He preferred to be called Judge Combs instead of Governor Combs. (His wife, Sara, a former partner at Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs, was the first woman to serve on the Kentucky Supreme Court. She is currently a judge on the Kentucky Court of Appeals. So, even though Bert Combs is gone, there is still a Judge Combs.)

In 1955 Bert Combs ran for governor but lost to Happy Chandler in the Democratic primary. During that campaign, Combs, who had never run for statewide office, tried to explain to voters that Kentucky needed more revenue to become a modern, competitive society. He and his plans were rejected in 1955, but by his second campaign for governor in 1959, the public recognized that Combs had been right in 1955 about Kentucky needing more revenue to become modern. Combs was elected and vindicated. Wilson Wyatt, the former mayor of Louisville, was elected lieutenant governor.

Combs, as governor, succeeded in preparing Kentucky to be a modern society. The Combs administration accomplished more in one four-year term than most U.S. governors get done in eight years. (The Kentucky Constitution did not then allow a governor to succeed himself and serve two consecutive terms.). To get the revenue to begin to make Kentucky a modern society, Kentucky enacted a 3-cent sales tax. One cent of that tax was committed to a bonus for military veterans, leaving two-thirds of the new revenue for education and the modernization of Kentucky society.

Bert Combs, as governor, made sure that Kentucky increased its investment in education significantly. During his term, funding for education increased 50 percent and the community college system began. Although KET did not become a reality until after his term, Combs was, I believe, one of the first to suggest that we have a statewide educational TV network.

Other significant steps occurred during the Combs administration. His administration undertook a major expansion and renovation project in the state park system and began a road construction project that resulted in modern highways that connected all parts of Kentucky.

Combs proposed a merit employment system for state employees that protected career public servants from political threats. In my view, the merit system made it easier to attract and keep qualified people as public servants.

Combs realized that a modern society could not tolerate racial discrimination; he ordered in 1963 the desegregation of all public accommodations in Kentucky, a year before Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Combs knew that the big increase he obtained for education spending could result in money being wasted or improperly spent. He ordered an audit of a county school system and its superintendent in my part of Eastern Kentucky. The audit showed misuse of funds. The state school board removed the county school board members. Their replacements, the new county school board, then fired the county superintendent. Combs believed it was important to show the education community that the increased state spending be well-managed and spent solely on education.

Kentucky was prepared to be a modern 20th century society after Combs' term. The only other political leader I can think of who presided over such big, permanent changes in society was Franklin Roosevelt.

After his governorship, Combs became a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals. I believe this was a high honor; that court is one level below the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 1971, Combs ran for the Democratic nomination for governor. He was defeated by Wendell Ford. I believe that serving on the 6th Circuit kept Combs from preparing adequately to run in 1971.

Combs never ran for office again. If the story of his contribution to Kentucky society ended there, we would view his record as having been outstanding. But I believe his most important contributions to Kentucky society came when he was a private citizen after 1971.

His later contributions came in the areas of education and the law. These areas were not a surprise to anyone who knew him. I was a child when Combs was governor. I got to know him after joining his law firm and becoming his law partner. He spent a lot of time with me I guess because I was, for a time, in public life. His quiet passion for educational excellence and educational equality was clear to me. I have always given his mother some credit for his commitment to education; she was a schoolteacher in Clay County. For Combs, learning was a lamp that could light the way to a larger life.

Combs started his public involvement as a private citizen by being one of the founders of the Prichard Committee in 1983. Robert Sexton, the first and longtime executive director of the committee, gave the reasons for its founding: “They (the founders) did so because they were frustrated with elected officials' indifference to education and because they felt that Kentucky's historic educational deficits would not solve themselves. ... They wanted to create a compelling vision of a future with excellent schools.”

The Prichard Committee worked to convince the public that education reform was needed, that it needed to be comprehensive and that it needed to be accomplished soon. In my view, the Prichard Committee played a key role in creating the climate of acceptance for the Kentucky Education Reform Act. Since the adoption of KERA, the Prichard Committee has been the conscience of education reform in Kentucky. It has been used as a model by citizen groups in other states.

It is clear to me that Combs' greatest accomplishment in a life of accomplishments was his successful pro-bono representation of 66 poor school districts in their challenge to Kentucky's school financing system.

Those districts claimed the school financing system unfairly discriminated against poor districts. In 1989, the Kentucky Supreme Court declared the entire public school system unconstitutional. Chief Justice Stephens wrote the court's opinion in the case, Rose v. Council for Better Education. The court found that education is a fundamental right in Kentucky and that the school system must be adequately funded to achieve its goals and, further, that funding must be substantially uniform, so that every child is provided with an equal opportunity to have an adequate education.

In response to the ruling, the General Assembly adopted KERA in 1990. KERA provided for significant alterations in Kentucky's school system, established a procedure for equalizing financing among school districts and set up accountability standards that were, at the time, considered to be rigorous.

No governor or other political leader could have proposed anything as radical as the restructuring of the entire school system and been taken seriously. It took a citizen who had a quiet passion for educational excellence and educational equality who took a case for free because he knew its rightness. It took a committed citizen leader to convince the Kentucky Supreme Court that the operation of our school system was fundamentally wrong and unfair.

Many have said that in a democracy the highest office is the office of citizen. If that is true, then the highest form of leadership is effective citizen leadership. In my opinion, Combs was the greatest citizen leader in my life. We should remember and celebrate how he changed Kentucky society as a citizen. His leadership as a private citizen is an example for all of us to imitate.
I'm proud to have been his friend and his law partner.

Kevin Hable is the former managing partner of Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs and currently serves on the board of the Prichard Committee. He served as secretary of Gov. Brereton Jones' Cabinet in the 1990s.

Shameless Self-promotion

This from the Kentucky Historical Register:

NOW AVAILABLE!
Abraham Lincoln and Kentucky, a special issue of the Register, Volume 106, Numbers 3-4 (Summer/Autumn 2008). Learn more about obtaining your copy.

NOW AVAILABLE!
Kentucky and the Contested Legacy of Jefferson Davis, a special issue of the Register, Volume 107, Number 2 (Spring 2009). Learn more about obtaining your copy.

Coming Soon!
 

The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, 

Volume 109, Number one (Winter 2011)

Bert Combs and the Council for Better Education: Catalysts for School Reform by Richard E. Day
Given the reality of our ongoing concern about the state of public education in Kentucky, articles on this topic enjoy a kind of perennial relevance. Richard Day presents an instructive essay on the foundations of modern education reform. Committed reformers, including former governor Bert T. Combs, were able to end the scandal of unequal funding and make possible the passage of the Kentucky Education Reform Act in 1990.

“And Shall thy Flowers Cease to Bloom?” The Shakers’ Struggle to Preserve Pleasant Hill, 1862 -1910 by David Marsich
The Shakers enjoyed a vital presence in Kentucky in the period of religious ferment following the Second Great Awakening. Over time, particularly after the Civil War, their numbers dwindled. David Marsich’s compelling account of their later history, however, stresses their steady commitment to their mission and their creative adaptations to changing circumstances rather than the standard narratives of decline and defeat.

Mystic Chords of Memory: Thoughts on the Impending Civil War Sesquicentennial by Glenn W. LaFantasie
The Civil War sesquicentennial is now upon us, and Glenn W. LaFantasie has provided a vivid introduction to it by discussing the profound impact of the conflict on Kentucky and the nation. He also points out the deep contrast between the terrible effect of the war on those who fought it and the degree to which it has been romanticized, both then and now.

The Courts' Opinion in Young v. Williams

by Richard Day

On February 13th, Franklin County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Wingate issued an order granting summary judgment to the legislative defendants in the school funding case, Young v. Williams. Summary judgment is the court’s equivalent to a blocked dunk shot; where the case is thrown out of court without a trial because “it appears impossible” for the Council for Better Education “to produce evidence at trial which would effect a favorable judgment.”

Swat; into the cheap seats.

Given the importance of this case to Kentucky’s children and our future economy, I was shocked by the decision. Certain inadequacies are so glaring that I assumed summary judgment wasn’t even a possibility. I spent a couple of weeks brooding before driving to Frankfort over spring break to review the case file; and it’s a big honker. It took the clerk three trips to deliver the arm loads of evidence, depositions and motions – and cost me $60 to photocopy a small fraction of the files. But the biggest shock was yet to come.

Judge Wingate was appointed to the Franklin County circuit bench by Governor Ernie Fletcher last June as former Judge William Graham was retiring. There has been more than a little speculation that certain executives at the state and federal level are making efforts to stack the courts with restrained jurists who may fail to act at times when they should redirect the other branches of government; and I’m just skeptical enough to believe it could be true. So, I was ready for a fight. But as I scoured the case file I came to a surprising conclusion. As much as I hate to say it, I think Wingate’s summary judgment was constitutionally correct. This is a big deal because the action effectively halted the Council for Better Education, a collection of 164 Kentucky school districts, in their effort to challenge the adequacy of the present school system to meet its legislated goals – a cause I fully support.

When former Governor and federal Judge Bert Combs argued Rose v. Council for Better Education before the Kentucky Supreme Court, he was very careful to tip-toe around any suggestion of a legislative remedy. The Council’s legal theory was that no district in the state was over-funded. As Co-counsel Debra Dawahare argued, “Possibly, as compared to Connecticut, we're all a mess.” But they stopped short of suggesting what should be done about it.

Combs wanted the court to direct the legislature to exercise their authority and proceed “as far as they can” to enact an efficient system of public schools. How far is that? Combs told the court, that they could say to the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate, “You can exercise your authority to propose legislation that is constitutional.” That would leave them knowing what the law is, and the governor would know, and the General Assembly would know. Combs noted that nowhere in the original circuit court ruling did Judge Raymond Corns’ direct the General Assembly to pass any particular laws, or derive school funding from any particular source, or to adopt any particular system. The circuit court went as far as it could go.

Apparently in the Young case, specific remedies were suggested that violated the “Constitutional bar” and would render the court powerless to enforce its own ruling. Expert witnesses and a handful of studies confirmed the present inadequacies. But when the Council asked the court to direct the legislature to use a “specific, systematic method to quantify the amount of money necessary to provide an adequate system of common schools” they went over the line. Judge Wingate responded with a swat; don’t bring that specific remedy into my house.

House Speaker Jody Richards told the Herald-Leader that Wingate’s ruling, “…vindicates our position that we have made an attempt to adequately fund education.” Of course, the ruling does no such thing. The constitution requires more than an attempt from the legislature. Wingate also rejected claims of sovereign immunity advanced by Richards and Senate President David Williams, and their request that the court “dismiss the legislative defendants” was flatly denied. Don’t bring that legislative immunity stuff into my house either.

Wingate’s rejection of the Council’s legal theory in Young was, consistent with Rose, a stark refusal to step “onto the slippery slope by stipulating the manner by which the General Assembly must carry out its responsibilities.” Because of this, it’s hard to see how a motion for reconsideration, or an appeal of the present case, can win. It looks like the only viable option for the Council for Better Education is the initiation of a new action - and I hope they get to work on that right away. Wingate’s ruling will only reinforce the legislature’s natural tendency maintain the status quo.