Kentucky’s Sen. Ford Won’t Seek Fifth Term Outgoing Democrat Has Stern Warning: Election Costs Put Politicians Up For Sale

Assistant Senate Minority Leader Wendell H. Ford, D-Ky., a crusty congressional insider whose causes have ranged from defending tobacco to promoting easier voter registration rules, announced Monday he will not seek a fifth term next year.

Ford, 72, is the second veteran Democratic senator to decide against running again, raising Republicans’ hopes of expanding on gains they made in the last two elections. Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, announced last month he will retire.

In an emotional statement to supporters and family members at the state capitol in Frankfort, Ky., where Ford served as governor in the early 1970s, he was blunt as his 32-year political career draws to a close.

Noting that the average cost of a Senate race rose from less than $450,000 to $4.5 million since he was elected to the Senate in 1974, Ford said “the job of being a U.S. senator today has unfortunately become a job of raising money to be re-elected instead of a job (of) doing the people’s business.”

In a swipe at President Clinton’s use of the Lincoln Bedroom to reward big Democratic givers, Ford said he would have had to start raising $100,000 a week if he ran again and “Mrs. Ford won’t let me bring anyone home to sleep in our spare bedroom.”

While many other senators have alluded to their distaste for fund raising in their retirement statements, few have done so with more force. “I do not relish, in fact I detest, the idea of having to raise $5 million for a job that pays $133,000 a year,” Ford said. “Because of the political money chase, Washington, D.C., is fast becoming the center of our lives, not our people back home.”

“Democracy as we know it will be lost if we continue to allow government to become one bought by the highest bidder, for the highest bidder,” he added.

While Ford is one of the Senate’s top leaders, serving since 1991 as Democratic whip, he has operated largely out of the limelight, preferring the role of insider and defender of Kentucky interests, including tobacco, bourbon and coal.

Ford was also instrumental in passage of “motor-voter” legislation.