[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 189 (Thursday, December 19, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7224-S7226]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
REMEMBERING BOB GABLE
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on November 29, 2024, the Commonwealth
of Kentucky lost a towering figure in my home State's Republican Party
with the passing of my dear friend Bob Gable. Today, it is my privilege
to honor his extraordinary life and legacy.
A proud member of our Greatest Generation, Bob served his country as
an officer in the Navy shortly after earning a degree from Stanford in
industrial engineering. Bob had a deep sense
[[Page S7225]]
of patriotism and an instinct to lead early in life. Soon after his
service, he and his beloved wife Emily settled in Stearns, KY, where
Bob joined the family business, the Stearns Lumber and Coal Company.
Known as the ``last company town'' in the Commonwealth, the business
supported thousands in Kentucky's coal country and was an anchor of the
region.
Bob's interest in politics began during these early years, working on
the first Senate campaign of former U.S. Senate Republican Leader
Howard Baker. Under Baker's wing, Bob made his political bones and
discovered what would become a lifelong passion: serving the people and
advancing conservative values. Eventually, Bob and Emily moved to
Frankfort, where he served as an appointee of Kentucky Governor Louie
Nunn, the Commonwealth's only Republican Governor for over half a
century.
Though Republicans in the Commonwealth faced steep odds, Bob stepped
up to lead, launching spirited bids for Senate in 1972 and for Governor
in 1975. Never one to take himself too seriously, he became an early
sensation on his first campaign for Governor with his now infamous
truth bell, which he rang each time his opponent told a lie. Bob lost
his bid for Governor, but his candidacy brought energy and dynamism
Republicans in the Commonwealth desperately needed. Most of all, he was
an optimistic champion of Republican values when the polls, voter
rolls, and election results gave Republicans every reason to feel
otherwise.
In 1986, Bob became the chair of the Republican Party of Kentucky,
inheriting a party that held only one statewide seat and reportedly had
only $300 in the bank. As chairman, he planted seeds wherever and
whenever, convincing budding Republicans across the State to get
involved in races at every level. Slowly, brick by brick, his quiet,
diligent work transformed our party from a super minority to a
competitive minority to a majority. Bob would also serve our party on
the Republican National Committee, where he became the longest serving
State chairman of any State in the country.
Needless to say, much in our party and the Commonwealth has changed
since Bob's entrance onto Kentucky's political scene, largely thanks to
his unflappable focus and the groundwork Bob laid during his decades of
service. While we remember Bob's trailblazing runs for higher office
fondly, his true legacy lies in his relentless commitment to building
our party and advancing the Republican cause in Kentucky. Whether it
was a local race for county judge-executive or a statewide bid for U.S.
Senate, Bob cast a wide net when it came to supporting his fellow
Republicans. For so many distinguished leaders in Kentucky, Bob was the
first call in a budding career, the early endorsement on a new
campaign, or the quiet, steady voice encouraging them to run and serve.
For Bob, politics was truly a labor of love, but none of this work
would have been possible without Bob's greatest love, his family. We
owe Bob's late wife Emily and their three children James, Elizabeth,
and John our gratitude for the time Bob gave to serving others. Anyone
who was lucky enough to know Bob could see the immense pride he had in
his family, his faith, and his country. On behalf of the Senate, I send
sincere condolences to Bob's many friends and loved ones. We are
grateful they shared him with us for so many years. Kentucky was made
better as a result.
Mr. President, the ``Kentucky Lantern'' recently published an article
on Bob's life and service. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the
article be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Bob Gable, a Stanford-Educated Patron of the Arts and Navy Veteran,
Never Won Elective Office but Helped Lead the Republican Party of
Kentucky Out of the Political Wilderness
Gable, 90, died Nov. 29 at Baptist Health in Lexington.
A rare Republican supporter of abortion rights, Gable is
being praised by Republicans, including U.S. Senate GOP
Leader Mitch McConnell who called him a ``titanic figure.''
In a statement, McConnell said Gable's ``unflappable focus
and the groundwork he laid during his decades of service''
were critical to the emergence of a competitive state GOP and
Kentucky's transformation into a Republican stronghold.
Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who served as
Republican National Committee chair, said in a statement that
Gable was ``a leader and a driving force for the Republican
Party in Kentucky and beyond. As state party chair, where I
first knew him, he played a key role in advancing
conservative principles and supporting the Reagan
Revolution.''
Gable, in his last of three runs for public office, teamed
up in 1995 with an unlikely partner, the American Civil
Liberties Union, to challenge a new (and short-lived) state
law aimed at reducing money's influence on elections by
publicly financing candidates for governor who agreed to
abide by campaign spending limits. (The ACLU did not object
to public financing but to other restrictions in the Kentucky
law.)
Gable, who denounced public financing as ``welfare for
politicians,'' also said, ``Money in politics is freedom of
speech,'' presaging the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark
Citizens United ruling in 2010 which obliterated restrictions
on political money that had been in place for a century.
Robert Elledy Gable was born in New York City and grew up
in Port Orford, Oregon, and later Tucson, Arizona, after his
father's death, spending summers with family in Michigan and
Minnesota and being educated at Deerfield Academy in
Massachusetts, according to his obituary.
After graduating from Stanford University in 1956 with a
degree in industrial engineering and serving as a Navy
officer, Gable and his wife, Emily Brinton Thompson, moved to
Stearns in McCreary County, where he helped lead the family
business.
Gable's great grandfather, Michigan lumber baron Justus S.
Stearns, had founded the town as a company headquarters after
buying 30,000 acres of forest in Kentucky and Tennessee in
1902 where coal was soon discovered. Stearns also was a
prominent Republican in Michigan and a philanthropist. The
Stearns Lumber & Coal Co. built the Kentucky and Tennessee
Railroad and the first all-electric sawmill in the U.S. while
employing thousands of people living in 18 coal camps. It
eventually amassed 215,000 acres.
In Stearns, Bob and Emily Gable raised their three
children, and in 1964 Gable dipped his toe into politics in
Tennessee. He ran logistics and the campaign headquarters for
Republican Howard Baker's losing race for U.S. Senate. Two
years later, he worked in the campaign that made Baker the
first Republican since Reconstruction to win a U.S. Senate
seat from Tennessee.
In a 1995 interview with Joe Gerth of The Courier-Journal,
Baker recalled the 30-year-old Gable as ``overeducated and
underchallenged'' in his job at Stearns. ``He was a bright
young man. Politicians have a way of keeping an eye out for
bright young men and women,'' said Baker.
In 1967, Gable worked in the winning gubernatorial campaign
of Kentucky Republican Louie B. Nunn, who made Gable his
state parks commissioner; the Gables moved to Frankfort.
Eight years later, Gable was the underdog Republican
nominee for governor against Democratic incumbent Julian
Carroll, who had been lieutenant governor when Democratic
Gov. Wendell Ford was elected to the U.S. Senate.
Gable, who had run for U.S. Senate in 1972, criticized
Carroll for not opposing busing to integrate Louisville's
schools and blamed Democrats for then-high inflation.
In the first-ever KET gubernatorial debate, Gable secured a
lasting place in Kentucky political lore by bringing a bell--
he called it the ``truth bell''--on stage that he promised to
ring every time Carroll lied. The debate rules prohibited
props, and after the second clanging, moderator Al Smith said
the debate would end unless Gable pocketed the bell, which he
did.
Earlier in 1975 in a column published in his weekly
newspapers, Smith wrote that Gable ``grew up in an affluent
family, but he is a serious-minded and hard-working young man
who acts as if he feels compelled to devote part of his
talents and fortune to public stewardship. . . . He is bright
and articulate in advancing a fundamentally conservative
viewpoint about government and business.''
In 1986, Gable became chairman of the Republican Party of
Kentucky (RPK) and served on the Republican National
Committee, positions he held for seven years.
``When Bob first took the helm of our state party in 1986,
the electoral challenges Republicans faced in Kentucky were
daunting,'' said RPK chair Robert Benvenutti in a statement.
``At that time, Republicans held only one statewide office
and were in the extreme minority in the General Assembly. Yet
Bob's unwavering commitment to our party guided us as we
began laying the groundwork to reshape Kentucky's political
landscape.''
Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers praised Gable as
``a leader when there were few Kentucky Republicans'' and
said ``Bob gave me my first contribution when I decided to
get into politics.''
By then The Stearns Co., as it had been renamed, had moved
out of coal and timber and into real estate development,
selling its last coal mine in 1975 when coal prices were
high. The economic challenges of the 1980s led to the
company's eventual restructuring, says the obituary.
Part of Stearns' vast holdings had become the Big South
Fork National River and Recreation Area, thanks to efforts in
Congress by Tennessee's Baker and Sen. John
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Sherman Cooper of Kentucky. Stearns was paid $18 million for
60,000 acres which it sold to the federal government under
threat of condemnation.
Gable also waged a long-running but ultimately unsuccessful
legal battle against state and federal governments
challenging restrictions on mining and logging and seeking
compensation for mineral rights that the company had owned
inside federal lands.
In his quixotic run for governor in 1995, he lost in the
primary to the eventual Republican nominee Larry Forgy, who,
unlike Gable, supported public financing and spending limits.
Democrat Paul Patton won the general election and was
reelected with token Republican opposition. Before the 2003
race for governor, the legislature ended public financing and
spending limits.
Gable served on the boards of many businesses and
organizations. He also chaired the Kentucky Arts Council and
Kentucky Opera and served on the Kentucky Center for the
Performing Arts board. He served as the final board chair of
George Peabody College for Teachers and oversaw its merger
with Vanderbilt University, where he later served as a
trustee. Nationally, he was president of the National
Committee for the Performing Arts and a member of the
President's Committee for the Performing Arts at the Kennedy
Center in Washington, D.C.
Gable and his wife Emily, who died in 2017, were avid
travelers during their 58-year marriage. A member of the
Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Frankfort, Gable also
served on the Missions Board of the Episcopal Diocese of
Kentucky.
He is survived by his children, James (Lisa Guillermin),
Elizabeth Gable Hicks and John (Virginia Harris), as well as
grandchildren Helen-Anne and Robert ``Bo'' Gable.
In 2017, Kentucky Republicans gathered to honor Gable at a
tribute sponsored by the Republican Women's Club of Franklin
County. Writing about the event in The Courier-Journal,
political strategist and GOP commentator Scott Jennings
reported that Gable brought the truth bell.
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