Martha Layne Collins
Martha Layne Collins was an American businesswoman and politician from Kentucky; she served as the state's 56th governor from 1983 to 1987, the first woman to hold the office and the only one to date. Prior to that, she served as the 48th lieutenant governor of Kentucky, under John Y. Brown Jr. Her election as governor made her the highest-ranking woman in the Democratic Party. She was considered as a possible running mate for Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale in the 1984 presidential election, but Mondale chose Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro instead.
After graduating from the University of Kentucky, Collins worked as a school teacher while her husband finished a degree in dentistry. She became interested in politics, and worked on both Wendell Ford's gubernatorial campaign in 1971 and Walter Dee Huddleston's United States Senate campaign in 1972. In 1975, she was chosen secretary of the state's Democratic Party and was elected clerk of the Kentucky Court of Appeals. During her tenure as clerk, a constitutional amendment restructured the state's judicial system, and the Court of Appeals became the Kentucky Supreme Court. Collins continued as clerk of the renamed court and worked to educate citizens about the court's new role.
Collins was elected lieutenant governor in 1979, under Governor John Y. Brown Jr. Brown was frequently out of the state, leaving Collins as acting governor for more than 500 days of her four-year term as lieutenant governor. In 1983, she defeated Republican Jim Bunning to become Kentucky's first woman governor. Her administration had two primary focuses: education and economic development. After failing to secure increased funding for education in the 1984 legislative session, she conducted a statewide public awareness campaign in advance of a special legislative session the following year; the modified program was passed in that session. She successfully used economic incentives to bring a Toyota manufacturing plant to Georgetown, Kentucky, in 1986. Legal challenges to the incentives – which would have cost the state the plant and its related economic benefits – were eventually dismissed by the Kentucky Supreme Court. The Toyota Georgetown plant, which led to more automakers settling in Kentucky, is regarded as Collins's biggest accomplishment during her time as Governor. The state experienced record economic growth under Collins's leadership. Despite failing to achieve a major overhaul in the state's vocational education system, Collins would find greater success in improving the state's general education system; a lawsuit which had been filed in 1985 under her leadership also led to a landmark Kentucky Supreme Court ruling which resulted in the eventual passage of the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 which, among other things, overhauled the state's K-12 education system and created a state funded preschool system.
At the time, Kentucky governors were not eligible for reelection. Collins taught at several universities after her four-year term as governor. From 1990 to 1996, she was the president of St. Catharine College near Springfield, Kentucky. The 1993 conviction of Collins's husband, Dr. Bill Collins, in an influence-peddling scandal, damaged her hopes for a return to political life. Prior to her husband's conviction it had been rumored that she would be a candidate for the U.S. Senate, or would take a position in the administration of President Bill Clinton. From 1998 to 2012, Collins served as an executive scholar-in-residence at Georgetown College.
Early life
Martha Layne Hall was born December 7, 1936, in Bagdad, Kentucky, the only child of Everett and Mary Hall. When she was in the sixth grade, her family moved to Shelbyville, Kentucky, and opened the Hall-Taylor Funeral Home, with her father serving as the funeral director. Martha was involved in numerous extracurricular activities both in school and at the local Baptist church. Her parents were active in local politics, working for the campaigns of several Democratic candidates, and Hall frequently joined them, stuffing envelopes and delivering pamphlets door-to-door.Hall attended Shelbyville High School, where she was a good student and a cheerleader. She frequently competed in beauty pageants and won the title of Shelby County Tobacco Festival Queen in 1954. After high school, Hall enrolled at Lindenwood College, then an all-woman college in Saint Charles, Missouri. After one year at Lindenwood, she transferred to the University of Kentucky in Lexington. She was active in many clubs, including the Chi Omega social sorority, the Baptist Student Union, and the home economics club, and was also the president of her dormitory and vice president of the house presidents council.
In 1957, Hall met Billy Louis Collins while attending a Baptist camp in Shelby County. He was a student at Georgetown College in Georgetown, Kentucky, about 13 miles from Lexington; he and Hall dated while finishing their degrees. Hall earned a Bachelor of Science degree in home economics in 1959. Having won the title of Kentucky Derby Festival Queen earlier that year, she briefly considered a career in modeling. Instead, she and Collins married shortly after her graduation. While Billy Collins pursued a degree in dentistry at the University of Louisville, Martha taught at Seneca and Fairdale high schools, both located in Louisville. While living in Louisville, the couple had two children, Steve and Marla.
In 1966, the Collinses moved to Versailles, Kentucky, where Martha taught at Woodford County Junior High School. The couple became active in several civic organizations, including the United States Junior Chamber and the Young Democratic Couples Club. Through the club, they worked on behalf of Henry Ward's unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in 1967.
Early political career
By 1971, Collins was the president of the Jayceettes; through her work there, she came to the attention of Democratic Kentucky Senate member Dee Huddleston. Huddleston asked Collins to co-chair Wendell Ford's gubernatorial campaign in Kentucky's 6th congressional district. J. R. Miller, then-chairman of the state Democratic Party, commented that "She organized that district like you wouldn't believe." After Ford's victory, he named Collins as a Democratic National Committeewoman from Kentucky. She quit her teaching job and went to work full-time at the state Democratic Party headquarters, as secretary of the state Democratic party and as a delegate to the 1972 Democratic National Convention. The following year, she worked for Huddleston's campaign for the United States Senate.In 1975, Collins won the Democratic nomination for Clerk of the Kentucky Court of Appeals in a five-way primary. In the general election, she defeated Republican nominee and future chief justice of the Kentucky Supreme Court Joseph Lambert by a vote of 382,528 to 233,442. During her term, an amendment to the Constitution of Kentucky changed the name of the Court of Appeals to the Kentucky Supreme Court; Collins was the last person to hold the office of Clerk of the Court of Appeals and the first to hold the office of Clerk of the Supreme Court. As clerk, she compiled and distributed a brochure about the new role of the Supreme Court, and worked with the state department of education to create a teacher's manual for use in the public schools, detailing the changes effected in the court system as a result of the constitutional amendment. The Woodford County chapter of Business and Professional Women chose Collins as its 1976 Woman of Achievement, and in 1977, Governor Julian Carroll named her Kentucky Executive Director of the Friendship Force.
In a field that included six major candidates, Collins secured the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor in the 1979 primary, garnering 23 percent of the vote. She handily defeated Republican Hal Rogers in the general election 543,176 to 316,798. As lieutenant governor, she traveled the state, attending ceremonies in place of Democratic Governor John Y. Brown Jr., who disliked such formal events and often chose not to attend. By the end of her term, she declared that she had visited all 120 counties in Kentucky. Governor Brown was frequently out of the state, leaving Collins as acting governor for more than 500 days of her four-year term.
As lieutenant governor, Collins presided over the state Senate. Members of both major parties praised Collins for her impartiality and knowledge of parliamentary procedure in this role. She was twice called upon to break tie votes in the Senate, once on a bill allowing the state's teachers to engage in collective bargaining and another on a bill to allow branch banking across county lines within the state; in both instances she voted in the negative, killing the bill. During her tenure, she also chaired the National Lieutenant Governors Association, becoming the first woman to hold that position. In 1982, she was named to the board of regents of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville.
Gubernatorial election of 1983
Nearing the end of her term as lieutenant governor, Collins announced her intent to run for governor in 1983. Her opponents for the Democratic nomination included Louisville mayor Harvey I. Sloane and Grady Stumbo, the former secretary of the state's Department of Human Resources. Collins had the support of many leaders in the Democratic Party, but just before the primary, Governor Brown, who Collins served as lieutenant governor for, endorsed Stumbo, charging that both Sloane and Collins would use their gubernatorial appointment power to dispense party patronage. Although this was a common practice at the time, Brown notably shunned it during his term. With 223,692 votes, Collins edged out Sloane and Stumbo to secure the nomination. Sloane asked for a recanvass of the ballots, but ultimately decided it would not change the outcome and conceded defeat.In the general election, Collins faced Republican state senator Jim Bunning, who was later elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame for his achievements as a professional pitcher. The National Organization for Women, the National Women's Campaign Fund, and the Women's Political Caucus all refused to endorse Collins, citing her lukewarm support for the Equal Rights Amendment and her opposition to abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or when the mother's life was in danger. But Bunning was not personable on the campaign trail and had difficulty finding issues that would draw traditionally Democratic voters to him. His Catholicism was a political liability among the majority-Protestant voters. Collins won the election by a vote of 561,674 to 454,650, becoming the first, and to date only, woman to be elected governor of Kentucky.
Following her election, Collins donated the surplus $242,000 from her campaign coffers to the state Democratic Party. When Collins's husband was named state treasurer for the party – at an annual salary of $59,900 – the state press charged that the move was a plot to funnel Collins's campaign funds into her personal account. Following the media criticism, Dr. Collins resigned his post as treasurer. All of the involved individuals insisted that Governor Collins had not been briefed on the details of her husband's appointment. The media's criticism of Collins continued as many of the appointments to her executive cabinet went to what they characterized as inexperienced personnel who had held key positions in her past campaigns. When newly appointed Insurance Commissioner Gilbert McCarty approved a 17% rate increase requested by Blue Cross Blue Shield Association – a request that his predecessor had denied a few days earlier – Collins quickly countermanded the approval pending a public hearing on the matter.