Happy Chandler - Early Political Career

Early Political Career

Chandler entered politics when he was named chairman of the Woodford County Democratic Committee. In 1928, he was appointed master commissioner of the Woodford County circuit court. The following year, he was elected as a Democrat to represent the Twenty-second district in the Kentucky Senate. As a member of the Senate, he was part of a Democratic coalition that passed legislation to strip Republican Governor Flem D. Sampson of many of his statutory powers.

As the 1931 gubernatorial election approached, Chandler and Prestonsburg native Jack Howard were mentioned as candidates for lieutenant governor. Congressman Fred M. Vinson backed Howard, a fellow Eastern Kentuckian, while political bosses Billy Klair, Johnson N. Camden, Jr., and Ben Johnson supported Chandler. The support of another political boss, Mickey Brennan, gave Chandler the edge at the party's nominating convention. Democratic gubernatorial nominee Ruby Laffoon also owed his selection to the machinations of the state's political bosses, notably his uncle, Congressman Polk Laffoon. Problematically, Chandler was an ally of former Governor J. C. W. Beckham, Louisville Courier-Journal publisher Robert Worth Bingham, and political boss Percy Haly, which put him at odds with Laffoon, a member of a Democratic faction headed by Russellville political boss Thomas Rhea and opposed to Beckham, Worth, and Haly. Despite disharmony within the ticket, the worsening of the Great Depression under Republican President Herbert Hoover and Governor Sampson ensured a Democratic victory. Chandler was elected over John C. Worsham by a vote of 426,247 to 353,573. In a break with precedent, Chandler set up an office on the executive floor of the state capitol and worked there full-time; previous lieutenant governors had stayed in Frankfort only during legislative sessions, when they were charged with presiding over the state senate.

Shortly after their election, the divide between Chandler and Laffoon widened over the issue of implementing a state sales tax. Laffoon favored the tax; Chandler opposed it. As presiding officer of the state senate, Chandler worked with Speaker of the House John Y. Brown, Sr. to block passage of the tax. In retaliation, Laffoon's allies in the General Assembly stripped Chandler of some of his statutory power as lieutenant governor, after which they were able to pass the tax by a single vote in each house of the legislature.

Free from any constitutional duties during the time between sessions, Chandler had begun laying the groundwork to succeed Laffoon as governor almost from the beginning of his term as lieutenant governor. Laffoon, however, had made it clear that he favored Thomas Rhea to be his successor. Rhea secured the services of rising political boss Earle C. Clements as his campaign manager. Hailing from Morganfield, only a short distance from Chandler's hometown of Corydon, Clements later said that if Chandler had asked him first, he might have managed Chandler's campaign instead of Rhea's. Instead, by virtue of managing the opposing campaign, Clements became the leader of a Democratic faction that opposed Chandler for the next three decades.

Chandler feared Laffoon, who controlled the State Democratic Central Committee, would attempt to hand-select the Democratic gubernatorial nominee by calling a nominating convention instead of holding a primary election, and he used a bold move to circumvent Laffoon's ability to carry out such an action. Under the Kentucky Constitution, Chandler became acting governor any time Laffoon left the state. When Laffoon traveled to meet with President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Washington, D. C. on February 6, 1935, Chandler used his authority to call the legislature into session to consider a bill requiring that each party's gubernatorial candidates be chosen by a primary rather than a nominating convention. Laffoon returned to the state the next day and challenged Chandler's authority to make the call, but Chandler's actions were validated by the Kentucky Court of Appeals on February 26.

Laffoon knew the primary bill would be widely supported in the General Assembly, since both legislators and their constituents had grown to distrust party nominating conventions. Accordingly, he proposed a bill enacting a mandatory two-stage primary in which a runoff election would be held between the top two candidates in the first round. Historian Lowell H. Harrison maintained that Laffoon expected his rival faction to nominate the aging Beckham to oppose Rhea, and that he hoped a two-stage primary would wear Beckham down. Journalist John Ed Pearce, however, contends that Beckham had already declined to become a candidate – citing his own ill health and that of his son – before the special session convened. Whatever the case, the legislature passed the bill that Laffoon proposed.