REMEMBERING BOB GABLE

On 2024-12-19, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered a floor speech titled "REMEMBERING BOB GABLE" in the Senate. The speech addressed abortion and also covered the economy, taxes. It referenced legislation including S7224, S7226, S7225.

REMEMBERING BOB GABLE

Congressional Record, Volume 170 Issue 189 (Thursday, December 19, 2024) [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 developm