[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 176 (Wednesday, November 8, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H11923-H11924]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        NEW GOVERNOR OF KENTUCKY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Ward] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WARD. Mr. Speaker, I do not think I will be using the entire 5 
minutes this evening, but I wanted to stand up to congratulate the new 
Governor of Kentucky, Gov. Paul Patton. He has been Lieutenant Governor 
for 4 years. Prior to that he was county judge of Pike County deep in 
Appalachia where he really turned things around. He really made things 
run differently from the way they were run before. So we are very proud 
in Kentucky that at this time of political upheaval, at this time of 
uncertainty and a negative feeling about anyone who is in office, that 
the Democrats, even though we have been in office for 24 years in 
Kentucky, have had the opportunity to send a new Governor to the 
Governor's mansion.
  I mention this because we, in the last couple of weeks of the 
campaign, ended up talking about a number of national issues, issues 
which relate to what we are doing here. I think it is important to make 
note of the fact that these issues seemed to show us, the way the 
voters reacted to these issues, seemed to show us that the voters are 
very concerned about the changes that are being made here to the 
Medicare Program.
  These changes to the Medicare Program really do seem to cut at the 
heart of the commitment that we have made 

[[Page H 11924]]
to our seniors in this country, and seems to be fashioned in such a way 
as not only to provide some needed changes to the Medicare Program over 
the next 7 years, but to leave some money left over for a $245 billion 
tax break, over half of which goes to the top 12 percent of income 
earners in America.
  These messages were put forward in this Governor's race in Kentucky, 
and the voters reacted. The voters responded. In fact, just this 
weekend, the Republican National Committee chairman and other folks 
over there who tend to talk about how elections are going to come out 
were saying that this was a definite pickup for the Republicans. What, 
in fact, turned out to be a win for the Democratic nominee.
  I rise to first of all congratulate our newly elected Governor, but 
also to point out that in a State that actually has had some problems 
with an FBI sting in the legislature that left 15 members, either 
present or former members at the time they were indicted, indicted and 
pled guilty or convicted of felonies, 15 members.
  Now, the Democrats have been in control in Kentucky of the Governor's 
office, in both branches of the legislature for years and years, 24 
years for the Governor, and many people blame the Democrats, even 
though, in fact, of the 15, 7 were Republicans. It was a very evenly 
split situation.
  But, being the party that was in, it was natural to take that out on 
the Democrats. What we found was that in spite of that, in spite of 
that, because of the national issues that came into play toward the end 
of the election, the Democratic Party was successful.
  Again, I rise to congratulate our newly elected Governor, Paul 
Patton, and yield back the balance of my time.

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