Editing Marlow Cook

{{Short description|American politician (1926–2016)}}
{{redirect|Senator Cook}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2020}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name                = Marlow Cook
| image               = Marlow Cook.jpg
| jr/sr1              = United States Senator
| state1              = [[Kentucky]]
| term_start1         = December 17, 1968
| term_end1           = December 27, 1974
| predecessor1        = [[Thruston Ballard Morton]]
| successor1          = [[Wendell Ford]]
| office2             = [[County Judge/Executive|County Judge]] of [[Jefferson County, Kentucky|Jefferson County]]
| term_start2         = January 1, 1962
| term_end2           = December 16, 1968
| predecessor2        = B. C. Van Arsdale
| successor2          = E. P. Sawyer
| state_house3        = Kentucky
| district3           = 34th
| term_start3         = January 1, 1958
| term_end3           = January 1, 1962
| predecessor3        = Henry R. Heyburn
| successor3          = Charles E. Gaines
| birth_name          = Marlow Webster Cook
| birth_date          = {{birth date|1926|7|27}}
| birth_place         = [[Akron, New York]], U.S.
| death_date          = {{death date and age|2016|2|4|1926|7|27}}
| death_place         = [[Sarasota, Florida]], U.S.
| party               = [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]]
| spouse              = {{marriage|Nancy Elizabeth Remmers|1947}}
| children            = 5
| education           = [[University of Louisville]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]], [[Bachelor of Laws|LLB]])
| allegiance          = {{flag|United States|1912}}
| branch              = {{flag|United States Navy}}
| battles             = [[World War II]]
}}
'''Marlow Webster Cook''' (July 27, 1926 – February 4, 2016) was an American politician from [[Kentucky]] who served as a member of the [[United States Senate]] from his appointment in December 1968 to his resignation in December 1974.<ref name="congbio">{{CongBio|C000721}}</ref> He was a [[Rockefeller Republican|moderate Republican]].

He also ran the lobbying firm Cook and Henderson with former Democratic [[United States House of Representatives]] member [[David N. Henderson]] from [[North Carolina]], and the two were the primary political lobbyists for the [[Tobacco Institute]] in the early 1980s.<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/lwd88d00/pdf |title = Industry Documents Library}}</ref>

==Early life==
Cook was born in [[Akron, New York]], a town in [[Erie County, New York]]. He moved to [[Louisville, Kentucky]] at 17. Also at that age, he joined the [[United States Navy]] and served on submarines in both the [[European Theater of Operations, United States Army]] and Theaters of Operations in the [[Pacific War]] during [[World War II]]. After the war, he enrolled at the [[University of Louisville]] and earned a [[Bachelor of Arts]] degree in 1948 and a law degree in 1950. He practiced law in Louisville until 1957.<ref name="enc">{{cite book|title=The Encyclopedia of Louisville|year=2002|editor=Kleber, John E.|publisher=[[University Press of Kentucky]]|page=219}}</ref>

==Political career==
===Kentucky House of Representatives===
Cook was elected to the [[Kentucky House of Representatives]] in 1957 and again in 1959. He served on a special committee analyzing education in the state and also on a planning committee.<ref name="enc" />

Cook was elected to two terms as Jefferson County Judge, the equivalent of a [[mayor]]al or [[county executive]] position administering populous [[Jefferson County, Kentucky|Jefferson County]], which, by the 1960s, was mostly suburbs of Louisville. He was elected in 1961 and, along with fellow Republican [[William Cowger]], who became the new mayor of Louisville, Cook unseated the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]], which had held both offices for 28 years.<ref name="enc" />

In 1962, Cook was primarily responsible for the county's $34,000 purchase of the decrepit steamboat ''Avalon'' at [[government auction]] in [[Cincinnati]]. Auctioned as little more than scrap material, upon refurbishment the boat was now called the ''[[Belle of Louisville]]'', and, {{As of|2024|lc=yes}}, it still carried passengers yearly and was one of the most recognizable symbols of the city. At the time, [[Interstate 64]] was being constructed along the city's waterfront, and Cook's purchase of the steamboat was intended as a measure to bring attention to the city's historic [[cobblestone]] [[wharf]].

A politically motivated taxpayer suit was brought by local lawyer Daniel Boone because of the county's expenditure of such an "outrageous sum" for a dilapidated "throwback to the Dark Ages of transportation," in Alan Bates' memorable phrase. According to Cook, the expenditure worked out to roughly six cents per taxpayer, a negligible sum, even at that time, and when individual citizens complained, he would simply pay them off with pennies from a jar that he kept in his office desk for the purpose. In a 1989 interview, Cook said that some people insisted on checks, and he wrote several such six-cent checks, but none of them was ever cashed.

Cook was reelected county judge in 1965 by a wide margin, 121,481 votes to Democrat [[William B. Stansbury]]'s 71,280.<ref name="enc" />

In [[1967 Kentucky gubernatorial election|1967]], Cook ran at the top of a slate of statewide office holders as a candidate for [[governor of Kentucky]] in the Republican [[Partisan primary|primary election]]. He was narrowly defeated by more [[Conservatism|conservative]] [[Barren County, Kentucky|Barren County]] Judge [[Louie Nunn]], who went on to be elected the first Republican governor in Kentucky since 1943. Nunn had also been the party's unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate in 1963 but had narrowly lost to Democrat [[Ned Breathitt]]. At the time, Kentucky governors could not succeed themselves in office.

===U.S. Senator===
In [[1968 United States Senate election in Kentucky|1968]], Cook ran for the U.S. Senate to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of another moderate Republican, [[Thruston Ballard Morton]], a former chairman of the [[Republican National Committee]]. In the [[1968 United States presidential election in Kentucky|general election]] in which [[Richard Nixon]] carried Kentucky over [[Hubert Humphrey]] and [[George Wallace]], Cook defeated former state Commerce Commissioner Katherine Peden. He was the first [[Catholic Church|Roman Catholic]] to hold statewide office in Kentucky. He was subsequently one of the first Republican senators to call for Nixon to resign during the [[Watergate scandal]].<ref name="enc" />

Cook was defeated in his 1974 bid for re-election by Governor [[Wendell Ford]], a popular Democrat. Cook's repeated plea that Ford debate him was seen as highly unusual.<ref>{{cite news|last1=King|first1=Wayne|title=Democrat Leads in Kentucky Senate Race; Controversy Over Ads Short on Funds|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9E01EEDF1F3DE13ABC4F51DFB667838F669EDE|access-date=October 8, 2014|newspaper=New York Times|date=October 27, 1974}}</ref> Following the election, Cook resigned his seat early, in December, so that Ford could resign and be appointed senator by his successor, [[Julian Carroll]], thus having greater seniority in assuming the office. (Morton had done the same for Cook, in 1968.)

==Later career==
Following his political career, Cook practiced law in [[Washington, D.C.]] until 1989, when he retired to [[Sarasota, Florida]].<ref name="congbio" /> In a fiery op-ed, he announced his support for Democrat [[John Kerry]] of [[Massachusetts]] in the [[2004 United States presidential election]]: "I have been, and will continue to be, a Republican. But when we as a party send the wrong person to the White House [[George W. Bush]], then it is our responsibility to send him home if our nation suffers as a result of his actions."<ref>{{Cite web|url = http://www.courierjournal.com/cjextra/editorials/2004/10/20/oped-marlow1020-8060.html|title = A former Republican senator for Kerry|author = Cook, Marlow|work = Louisville Courier-Journal|date = October 20, 2004|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20041223035021/http://www.courierjournal.com/cjextra/editorials/2004/10/20/oped-marlow1020-8060.html|archive-date = December 23, 2004}}</ref>

Some of his former aides went on to congressional careers. [[Mitch McConnell]], later the [[Party leaders of the United States Senate|Senate Minority Leader]], was Cook's chief legislative aide from 1968 to 1970,<ref>{{cite news|title=Senator in tough spot on Hill, in Ky.; McConnell faces pressure to act on war in Iraq|newspaper=[[USA Today]]|date=July 9, 2007|author=Kiely, Kathy|pages=7A}}</ref> and [[John Yarmuth]], then-chair of the [[United States House Committee on the Budget]], was an aide to Cook in the 1970s, later becoming a Democrat before running for office.<ref>{{cite news|title=John Yarmuth (D)|newspaper=[[Washington Post]]|pages=A41|date=November 9, 2006}}</ref>

Cook, however, opposed McConnell in the 1984 campaign. McConnell defeated the incumbent Democratic senator, [[Walter Dee Huddleston]].

In later years, Cook was uncertain about what he considered McConnell's turn to the right. McConnell had helped Cook to advance the unsuccessful [[Equal Rights Amendment]], but Cook opposed his former aide on several other pieces of legislation, particularly his opposition to the [[Affordable Care Act]].<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/keith-runyon/remembering-sen-marlow-co_b_9167644.html|title=Remembering Sen. Marlow Cook: One of Kentucky's last moderate Republicans|work=[[The Huffington Post]]|date=February 5, 2016|author=Keith Runyon|access-date=February 10, 2016}}</ref>

Cook died on February 4, 2016, in Sarasota, Florida from complications from a [[heart attack]], at age 89.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Gerth|first1=Joseph|title=Marlow Cook, former senator, county judge, dies|url=http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2016/02/04/marlow-cook-former-senator-county-judge-dies/79664182/|access-date=February 4, 2016|agency=Louisville Courier-Journal}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/marlow-cook-a-former-gop-senator-kentucky-dies-at-89/2016/02/04/272bcf50-cb76-11e5-a7b2-5a2f824b02c9_story.html|title=Marlow Cook, a former GOP Senator Kentucky, dies at 89|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|access-date=February 4, 2016}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
* [https://exploreuk.uky.edu/catalog/xt7d251fn188/guide Guide to the Marlow Cook moving image and audio recordings, 1969-1974, undated] housed at the University of Kentucky Libraries Special Collections Research Center
{{CongBio|C000721}}
*{{C-SPAN|9254647}}

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{{s-ttl|title=[[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] nominee for [[List of United States Senators from Kentucky|U.S. Senator from Kentucky]]<br />([[Classes of United States Senators|Class 3]])|years=[[1968 United States Senate election in Kentucky|1968]], [[1974 United States Senate election in Kentucky|1974]]}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Mary Louise Foust]]}}
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{{s-bef|before=[[Thruston Ballard Morton]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[List of United States Senators from Kentucky|United States Senator (Class 3) from Kentucky]]|years=1968–1974|alongside=[[John Sherman Cooper]], [[Walter Dee Huddleston]]}}
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{{s-end}}

{{USSenKY}}
{{USCongRep-start|congresses= 90th–93rd [[United States Congress]]es |state=[[Kentucky]]}}
{{USCongRep/KY/90}}
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{{Portal bar|Biography|United States|Politics|Law}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cook, Marlow}}
[[Category:1926 births]]
[[Category:2016 deaths]]
[[Category:United States Navy personnel of World War II]]
[[Category:County judges in Kentucky]]
[[Category:Kentucky lawyers]]
[[Category:People from Akron, New York]]
[[Category:Politicians from Sarasota, Florida]]
[[Category:Politicians from Louisville, Kentucky]]
[[Category:Republican Party United States senators from Kentucky]]
[[Category:20th-century members of the Kentucky General Assembly]]
[[Category:Republican Party members of the Kentucky House of Representatives]]
[[Category:United States Navy sailors]]
[[Category:University of Louisville School of Law alumni]]
[[Category:Lawyers from Washington, D.C.]]
[[Category:Catholics from New York (state)]]
[[Category:Catholics from Florida]]
[[Category:Catholics from Kentucky]]
[[Category:20th-century American lawyers]]
[[Category:20th-century Kentucky politicians]]
[[Category:20th-century United States senators]]