You have found an item located in the Kentuckiana Digital Library.

Interview with Terry L. Mann, June 20, 2006

2006-06-20 Interview with Terry L. Mann, June 20, 2006 Leg001:2006OH082 Leg 104 1:23:08 Kentucky Legislature Oral History Project Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, University of Kentucky Libraries Legislators -- Kentucky -- Interviews. Political campaigns -- United States. Political campaigns -- Kentucky Equal rights amendments -- Kentucky. Abortion -- Law and legislation -- Kentucky. Kennedy, Robert F., 1925-1968. Kentucky. Governor (1971-1974 : Ford) Kentucky. Governor (1974-1979 : Carroll) Carroll, Julian M. (Julian Morton), 1931- Ford, Wendell H., 1924- Kentucky, Northern Kennedy, Robert F., 1925-1968 Martin, Dean, 1917-1995 Sinatra, Frank, 1915-1998 Equal rights amendments -- Kentucky Abortion Equality before the law Capital punishment Local transit Lobbyists Newport (Ky.) Covington (Ky.) Cincinnati (Ohio) Donnermeyer, Bill Kentucky Equal Rights Amendment Flynn’s Restaurant and Statesman Lounge campaigning equal rights court reform state constitutional amendment Northern Kentucky caucus camaraderie wedge issues BOPTROT Senator candidacy lottery casino gambling political philosophy Kentucky Equal Rights Amendment lottery bill charitable gaming statute Term/District: House (1972-1986), 67th district Counties in District: Campbell County (Ky.) -- Kenton County (Ky.) Terry L. Mann; interviewee Christy Bohl; interviewer 2006OH082_LEG104_Mann 1:|17(3)|32(2)|49(9)|61(7)|81(12)|98(10)|109(11)|126(5)|137(5)|148(7)|164(6)|174(16)|189(8)|204(4)|215(3)|228(5)|241(3)|257(1)|266(12)|277(3)|292(11)|308(13)|323(2)|336(1)|347(2)|358(8)|375(7)|386(2)|400(6)|416(4)|426(14)|438(1)|449(3)|461(6)|472(3)|485(1)|495(9)|510(9)|523(14)|539(8)|554(7)|570(9)|583(2)|596(9)|609(7)|624(3)|641(1)|659(2)|670(10)|680(12)|691(3)|702(4)|719(4)|736(13)|752(4)|766(12)|781(5)|793(5)|803(14)|817(2)|833(12)|846(11)|858(10)|874(12)|885(15)|903(1)|914(4)|927(11)|942(6)|954(15)|973(5)|992(6)|1002(4)|1020(11)|1035(7)|1048(4)|1059(11)|1069(3)|1084(3)|1099(9)|1113(11)|1128(3)|1138(2) audiotrans Legit interview BOHL: The following is an unrehearsed interview with former State Representative Terry L. Mann who represented Campbell and Kenton counties in the Sixty-Seventh District from 1972 to 1986. The interview was conducted by Christy Bohl for the University of Kentucky Library, Kentucky Legislative Oral History Project, on Tuesday, June 20, 2006, in the office of Terry Mann, in Newport, Kentucky, at one o'clock PM. I'm here this afternoon with Terry Mann. Mr. Mann, could you please tell me where and when you were born? MANN: Sure. I was born in Covington on May 15, 1948. BOHL: And did you grow up here? MANN: I grew up here in Northern Kentucky and I have stayed here in Northern Kentucky. BOHL: Okay, could you tell me little bit about your parents? MANN: My mother is from Covington. She's still alive, doing well. Maiden name Johnson. She was born and raised in Covington, Kentucky. My father was born and raised in Fort Thomas. He died when I was very young. I was six-years old when my father passed away. So, my stepfather, who I generally refer to as my father--my mother remarried when I was eight-years-old--was born and raised here in Newport and was fire chief, for a while, and then became a fire marshal here in the seventies and early eighties. BOHL: Okay. Do you have any memories of your grandparents, or great- grandparents? MANN: I do. My grandparent, not my great-parents--but, again, my grandmother was raised in an orphanage here in Campbell County in Saint Joseph's Orphanage. My grandfather was a calligrapher from Ohio. And they both lived to be elderly. I knew them both. My grandmother, especially, grew up in the house with the way were when my father passed away, and then when my mother remarried, we grew up in a two family house with my grandmother, my aunt, my grandfather upstairs and my parents downstairs. So, it was one of those "Brady Bunch" kind of houses, but oh yeah, I knew them well. BOHL: Did you have any siblings, or were you-- MANN: I do. I have two sisters and two stepbrothers. We all grew up from very young together. BOHL: Okay, how important was education in your household? MANN: It was always important although I didn't have any--there was no one else in my family with college degrees until I went on, but. There really wasn't any doubt left with me that I was, you know, not obviously going to just complete elementary school and high school but was going to college. I was going to go to college and get a degree and that's what happened. So I was encouraged quite a bit. My mother especially was very encouraging, as was my grandma. And my teachers and coaches were extremely important in that process, too, as I grew up. I went to Catholic elementary school, Newport Catholic High School, and then I went on to Hanover College in Indiana. But I was fortunate enough to have some excellent teachers, excellent coaches, and there wasn't any question on that. High school was just a, you know, was just the middle-of-the-road, so it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that I was going on to higher education. And I did. BOHL: Go ahead. MANN: And I did. I went on to Hanover College and then my master's degree is from Northern Kentucky University. BOHL: Were you active in a lot of activities when you were in high school and college? MANN: Oh, yeah. Well, especially high school, not so much college because I was playing football and that took up about as much time as I wanted to spend on an extracurricular activity. So, but yeah, in high school it was everything. It was a very good experience. Both of them were excellent experiences. I was fortunate, very fortunate in the schools that I went to had just excellent teachers at Newport Catholic, and then Hanover and I can't say enough about Hanover. Obviously a small liberal arts college but--in fact, my son Matt, who is now a secret service agent, graduated from Hanover. So, good school. BOHL: You went to Hanover at an interesting time in the nation to be a college student. MANN: Yeah, it was, wasn't it, the late sixties. (both laugh) All hell was breaking loose, everywhere. It was a great time to be on a college campus. It was a great time. Everybody was questioning everything. And I think it was a time when we felt, my generation, those of us our age, that we controlled it, you know; we were going to change the world. We had--and weren't bashful about telling anybody that wanted to listen. So, exciting times. Times that, I think they made for, you know, or at least I'd like to believe that they made people--stop and think about stepping up and not being afraid to challenge authority or question authority. BOHL: When did you first develop your interest in politics? MANN: Probably when I was at Hanover. I was a sophomore at Hanover in '68 and Robert Kennedy was running for, in the Presidential primaries in Indiana. I was not sure whether I was going to be for he or Gene McCarthy and I was--he was to speak at the courthouse in Madison on a particular day. So I wandered down, went into their campaign headquarters just to pick up some material. And while I was in there, he came in with a rather large entourage, walked up to me, and said, "Are you interested in getting involved in politics?" And I said, "Yes, Senator, I am." He said, "See that fellow over there. He's got plenty for you to do." So I saw the fellow and he said, "Well, what do you want to do?" I wound up for the last two weeks of that campaign, every- -working everyday in that campaign but not in that Madison office. They would give me a city to go to and a location to go to, which would be the next city on his itinerary. And I would go to a particular place that they had arranged, an attorney's office or somebody. And then they would call me from where they were and they would say, "Okay, we're running forty-five minutes late. We're running an hour late. It's gonna be two hours late." And then I had a list of people to call at that stop and say, "The senator's going to be an hour late. They're going to an hour"--they were always real late--"An hour and a half late, two hours late." Then after I made those calls, I'd go on to the next stop, and then they would--then we would repeat the same thing, and then they would catch up to me at night. So, I did that for two weeks and I was hooked on politics. Of course, he was dead two or three weeks after that, but. But yeah, that's where I got the bug. BOHL: How did you determine that you were going to be a candidate yourself? MANN: Well, I came back after graduating from college and I wandered in--it wasn't too far from here actually--I wandered in, I looked in the paper--and I had a friend of mine. The two of us were interested in politics, and I saw in the paper that there was a Democratic club meeting at a VFW hall. So, friend of mine and I, we walked in--(laughs)--we walked into there, and we had to be by twenty-five or thirty years younger than anybody else in the room. And it was like when we walked in, they were just shocked and welcomed us. And then I met two or three very, very wise political operatives and elected officials here in Campbell County. Lambert Hehl, who at that time was a county commissioner, he had been a state senator, county commissioner, went on to be county judge, and then district judge, and then circuit judge, but. He and a fellow by the name of Jim Posten (??) who was the Democratic Party chairman, and fellow by the name of Lefty Phillips who was very active, they kind of took me under their wing. And when they saw the interest, they pulled me into the process. An opening occurred very soon after that. I mean, I was only two years out of college and I was elected to the legislature. I made the age limit by eight days. Still may be the youngest. I don't know that anybody's ever got that close to the wire. When an opening occurred, they encouraged me to run. Helped, obviously helped me. By that, Lambert was a county commissioner at the time and I think Lefty was chairman, so they could help me, you know. And it was a special election to fill the seat. The fellow who had the state legislative seat had resigned to take a judgeship here in Newport. So it was middle of the term. The Governor was going to call a special session. So they had to have a special election to fill the seat, and I guess it was May or June of '72 and that's how I wound up being a candidate. And won easily. I won all those races. It was only when I started running for Congress that I had ----------(??) -- (both laugh) BOHL: When you first started campaigning, what kind of a campaign did you run? Were you knocking door-to-door? MANN: Oh, yeah, knocking on doors and handwriting letters to people. A lot of knocking on doors. And I'm afraid that doesn't carry the weight it used to. Everybody's still, I think, contends that going door-to-door is the best way to campaign and I'm beginning to wonder if that's true anymore. I'm beginning to have my doubts about that. I'm beginning to have my doubts about that. It seems to me that--for the most part, it's the only way somebody without a large amount of money can get their message to people but I don't know, I'm just--some of the more recent local campaigns I've seen that people who have been most aggressive at going door-to-door have not been successful. Those who stayed at kind of under the radar, and sent out a few mailings, and maybe framed their campaign a little more precisely have been a little more successful. I don't know, I think maybe people are becoming jaded to politicians knocking on their doors. I'm just not sure about that. I haven't run in such a long time that I can't but I do stay involved with it. I was the party chairman for eight years here until just about a year and a half, two years ago. So, I'm beginning to think that door-to-door doesn't have the positive impact that it used to. Doesn't mean that you shouldn't do it or that sometimes it's not the only way but. I think more candidates do it now and people have become accustomed to it and a little bit jaded by it. So, I don't know. BOHL: Was your family involved in this campaign? MANN: Oh, yeah. I mean--(laughs)--that's that's your family and few friends, everybody's campaigns are like that. You know this idea that all of a sudden you just have this huge cadre of people that are going to run out and sacrifice a lot of time and effort on your part, when you first get into politics, that's just not the case. It's you, a couple of friends, and your family. And that's what it was. That's what it was, a few friends and family. But, you know when you're talking about running for a state legislative seat, for example, you can do it, or you could then, you could in the seventies and in the eighties. Nineties, it started to get a little funky. But then you could do it. With your family, and a few friends, and not a whole lot of money, you could get elected. The "not a whole lot of money part" is changing now, I think, even for legislative, state legislative seats. You have to--you have to be ready to spend some money. You can't just do it on shoe leather alone. BOHL: So you end up in Frankfort, the youngest one of the entire bunch. MANN: Oh, yeah, very young. The sergeant in arms wouldn't let me in the first day. (Bohl laughs) He thought I was a page. He had to get somebody to identify me that I belonged there. (both laugh) He wanted to know why I didn't have my page badge on. But, in any case, yeah, and I'm trying--at that special session was interesting because it had a what at the time--hold on; we're going to get--but anyway, that special session was interesting in that Wendell Ford had placed on the call for the special session the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. For Kentucky to be one of states to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, which we did. Kentucky did. The Governor was for it. I was for it. But I mean, right away, it was a controversial issue. And even then, the right-to-life movement was kind of just getting going, and I was getting information from the anti-abortion people about the fact that the Equal Rights Amendment would somehow impact that, blah, blah, blah. But it was very simple to me. I mean the language was very simple. 'No one's rights in this state or any state shall be abridged on account of sex.' That, I think that was the whole thing. And, you know, I kept reading that and I kept saying, "How the hell can be against those words? How can you be against that," you know. And it was controversial, and there was a lot of debate, and it went on for a couple of days, and I was getting--in those days you still got the telegrams, you know. You didn't have email or anything like that. So people would still, you get letters and telegrams. And I remember I got this telegram, and it was a long telegram. I thought, Jiminy Christmas, somebody spent a lot of money on this telegram because it was numerous pages. And I'm reading it. And it's this woman saying that she was very young. She was a widow. She had to go to work, went to work at the telephone company, and went on to say that she was getting paid one thing and the man doing the exact same job next to her was being paid almost twice as much. She went into her boss, and her boss said, "Well, he's a man, you know. He needs to sp--he has a family to support." And I'm reading this thing, and I'm thinking, Yeah, this is why I'm for this. Blah, blah, blah. I get through the whole damn thing and it's signed, "Mom." (laughs) It's my mother! It's my mother! (both laugh) So, I mean, the telegram, and I read the whole damn thing and don't realize who it is. So, in any case, that was, you know, maybe the first, or one of the first votes I ever made as a legislator. I think there were a couple other things on that call in the special session of '72, but the major part of it was to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. Now, of course, enough states did not, so it never--the Constitution wasn't amended, but Kentucky did and that was the first, I think that was the first important vote I ever made. And with my mother's assistance. (laughs) BOHL: Were there any legislators who helped shepherd you around, getting you used to how? MANN: Yeah, there were, there were. Bill Donnermeyer, of course, from up here was just--we are still very, very close friends. We shared apartments together for what, eighteen years, and--sixteen years, however many years we were there. And so, Bill Donnermeyer was extremely important but he had only been there a session before me. And he was older. There were a couple of other guys who were closer to my generation, closer to my age that were very, very helpful. Vic Hellard was not the director of LRC then; he was a state representative from Woodford--I guess maybe it was Woodford County. Woodford, yeah. Joe Barrows's old district, that's what Vick had. So, Vic Hellard and David Karem was in the House at that time and Bob Benson from Louisville. But those three guys were a little bit closer to me, age wise. And were and were more in line with my way of thinking. Obviously, they were liberal guys and liberal Democrats. [telephone rings] So, oh, there were three. Those--those fellows were liberal Democrats. They were younger. They clearly were bright guys that had, had a reason for being there that was more than just wanting to be a politician or wanting to be a somebody in the community that was a, had some authority. And I think what you saw with those kind of personalities--and I like to throw myself in there because I was part- -I think you saw the breeding ground or the infancy of a legislature that was brighter, a little bit more aggressive, and a little less intimidated by authority than historically you'd seen. Now, in 1972, that wasn't the majority. The Bob Benson's, the Vic Hellard's, the David Karem's, the Terry Mann's, but you looked around, and you saw people that were intelligent, well educated, and not schooled in the old style of politics. And I think that's where the, that's where you got the--that was the embryonic stages of a legislature that was showing a personality beyond the Governor. Even though in '72, Wendell Ford and then after that Julian, certainly got done what they wanted to get done and had their way. All of a sudden the General Assembly had people in it that, that were more inquisitive, more ready to challenge- -not in the ugly kind of way you see happening now--but clearly raised intelligent questions to the things that might, that the administration might have been doing. And it was all Democrats then, so it wasn't like you had the party problems. And it was, that allowed issues to take forefront, not politics. If there were a group of legislators questioning an administration's position, it wasn't politics because everybody was Democrat. BOHL: Um-hm. MANN: And I think therefore the issue had a little more creditability or the debate had more creditability because there was less reason to say, 'This is all just politics.' Because everybody was Democrats. And it didn't benefit anyone to hurt the Governor, or, you know, try to make him less popular or anything else. But, you did have folks in, you know, Joe Clarke was just, was a younger, new legislator then, clearly bright, clearly knew where--well, you just had a lot of bright, well-educated people who were not, who weren't going to roll over for authority. They had come out of schools in the sixties. So, you know, that's what was happening. BOHL: How much interaction did you have as just a representative with the Governor? MANN: Oh, a lot, you know, there--it was easy. I mean it was easy, especially--now that first special session, and then was Wendell Ford was Governor, and Wendell went on to the Senate, I got to know him a lot better after he was a senator than Governor. But my goodness, when Julian Carroll was Governor, I had a lot, a lot of access to the Governor's office. A lot of access. I had access to all the Governors that I served. I mean, I was in and out of the Governor's office. They would, you know, they came to me to sponsor or to promote legislation that they had. I was never shut out or denied meetings. You know, if I needed to talk to the Governor, I called, and within, if he was in the office, within fifteen or twenty minutes, they were, you know, I was able to see them. So I always got along very well with Governors. Very well. Had a good relationship with them. And I think my district benefited for that. But, see Gov--but again, you had a case where Governors wanted--it got to the point where they had to make their case in the General Assembly. Maybe in the fifties and sixties, forties, fifties, and sixties, they never really even had to make a case. They just had to send a list out and say, "Vote for this." By the mid-seventies, the administration had to make a case for them. They were going to get it but they had to make their case. And so, I think they recognized they had to use legislators who could make the case for their bills, for their stuff, and so. And they didn't want to dump it all on the floor leader. I mean you had to spread it around a little bit. So, depending on the issue, the Governor would use this guy--as they do now. I mean, you know, you use different legislators to promote different administrative pieces of legislation. But they, you know, you clearly saw what was happening in the early seventies, in the mid-seventies, and then after John Y. Brown got elected, Ralph Ed Graves who had been in the General Assembly and was another one of those guys who wasn't afraid to challenge authority. Brown picked Ralph Ed to be his legislative liaison. And boy, that's when things really did change. I mean they changed. Then dramatically because Ralph Ed, I think, made the case to the Governor that, you know, 'We really do have to have a real, tri-branched government here. We need a legislative branch of government. It's important. These guys aren't going to roll over for you, Governor. There's a lot of bright guys out there. Let's just do it right,' and Brown says, 'Okay, we're going, we'll do it.' And Brown just let it roll. I mean, he didn't--he really didn't make any attempt to try to manipulate. And once that happened, then once those flood gates opened up, then it was never going to go back the other way. But I think the whole reason that occurred and what made that possible was this group of new, younger legislators who found their way into the General Assembly in the early seventies. Early and mid-seventies. And Greg Stumbo came and Roger Noe and Joe Meyer and Joe Barrows and Harry Moberly--all these guys were coming in '72, '74, '76. Boom, boom, boom. And these aren't people that are just going to say, 'Oh, I'm just here to do what the Governor tells me.' And that's--so, the time was right. And it was driven by younger legislators who I think, who I think were schooled in the sixties, in the late sixties. And they weren't necessarily awed by authority. So, I think that's what turned the General. That's what made the change and caused the General Assembly to be a much more effective and much more closer to an equal branch of government in Kentucky. And at the same time, if you look, we put the judicial article on the ballot in-- '76? You know what I'm talking about? BOHL: ----------(??) MANN: Okay, well, it's extremely important because it's our judiciary now. Before, I want to say '76--you'll have to go back and-- BOHL:--right (??)-- MANN:--get the dates. I could be wrong. But we completely restructured the judiciary in this state by virtue of constitutional amendment in the mid-late seventies. You know, the rule used to be you had two successive General Assemblies. Had to vote to put a constitutional change on the ballot, and then it went to the ballot. Well, we did and we completely changed the way the judiciary is structure in Kentucky. Before that, there was no Kentucky Supreme Court. There were no district courts. There were the circuit courts but it was police courts. Little police courts issued fines--still in many other states- -but Newport had a judge, Bellevue had a judge, Covington had a judge, Southgate had a court; everybody had their own little court. And there were really no cond--qualification placed on being a judge, I mean, you just got elected. Or, in some cases, appointed by the mayor or the city council. There was no supreme court; the highest court was the court of appeals. Obviously, there was no district court. So, we did in those years, you know, two sessions in a row, vote to place a judicial change in the constitution on the ballot for folks of Kentucky to ratify. And they did. And that's why you have the judiciary you have now. You know, you'd still have the old police courts that they have in some states, if we hadn't have done that. You know, it's funny because people don't talk much about that. But it was a dramatic, just a dramatic change. And it brought the judiciary into the twentieth, twenty-first century. I think for a while, Kentucky was probably a show place state for the judiciary, the way it was structured. Now other states have since caught up. But, you know, I consider that one of the very important things that we did when I was in the General Assembly, and then was there was some not so nice things we did too, so. (Bohl laughs) You know, we instituted the death penalty, while I was there. Disgusting vote. To this day, that bothers me when I think about that. Now there weren't many of us who voted against it. It was very unpopular to vote against it. I don't know; there might have been ten of us, twelve of us that voted. But that list of people, those guys that I've mentioned that was just about the group that--(both laugh)--voted against it. So, I think if you'd gone through, you would have found Benson voted against it, Clarke voted against it, Mann voted against it, and I don't know if Roger Noe was there at that time or not. But other than ten or twelve of us, you know, it was. But I couldn't help but think that that vote someday, somebody was going to die because we made that vote. And took a while but then it eventually occurred. But that was certainly an issue of note in those years. So, you have some questions you wanted to ask me. I'm doing all the talking here, you-- BOHL: Well, you're kind of straying too, but that's okay. During the 1970's, there was also a change the mindset of a lot of the legislators from this area, forming the Northern Kentucky caucus. MANN: Oh, it was very strong, and it was very good, and it--yes, yes. There were a couple of issues that really cried out for that. That were peculiar to here. One major issue was public transit. In the earlier midseventies, the private bus company that had operated the public transit in this area forever since everybody can remember, got out of business. So we were going to have no public transit if we didn't do something. And I can remember the Governor saying, "We'll do what you want but you guys have to figure out what you want." And it was difficult getting three counties together. If we hadn't had a caucus, if we hadn't had the group acting as one, we wouldn't have mass transit in Northern Kentucky right now because it was a very difficult proposition. It was going to be a major tax issue no matter how you structured it. And Boone County was very reluctant. At that time, Boone County was not what it is today. It was much more rural than it is today, and there wasn't a lot of bus service out there. But, of course, Kenton and Campbell, the river cities, it pitted sort of the city parts of the counties, you know, against the southern parts of Campbell County and Boone County, which were a little more rural, and you didn't have as many buses running out that way. But clearly, in my opinion, and I think most of the members of the caucus at that time, we formed that caucus just about that time. The area wasn't going to develop without mass transit. You can't have a major urban area and not have transit and expect you're going to have any kind of serious development. So, I think that the legislators, that the caucus members were convinced that we had to do something. It was just, oh, a heck of an argument over exactly how or what we were going to do. One faction said, "It's got to go to vote. But we have to put it on the ballot, and we have to let everybody vote for it." I thought we were just going to have a ticket for failure, you know, with that thing because it just--most people drove. Most people didn't take the bus anymore than they do now, but you still needed them. And if everybody just voted their own selfish interests, 'I don't use the buses; I'm not going to pay a tax,' I feared it wouldn't pass. I wanted to pass a piece of legislation that allowed the three fiscal courts to vote and place the tax on. Well, of course, the county commissioners, they didn't want that. (both laugh) And I was friends with all of the county commissioners. It was like everybody wanted it but nobody wanted to take the heat over the tax that was going to be issued. So, we, I mean we struggled with it. Had some really acrimonious meetings over it. I mean, where guys were shouting at one another. People who were friends were shouting at one another. It got to be a very difficult issue. We finally settled on turning it over to the counties and letting the counties, letting the counties decide whether they wanted to put it on the ballot or impose the tax without putting it on the ballot. So we gave them the option. And what the counties did, I do believe the counties did put it on the ballot and it passed, surprising to me. But that was an issue that the Northern Kentucky legislative delegation had to come to grips with. It wasn't good enough for you to go in and vote your way, and me to go to vote my way. The Governor simply said, "Nothing's going to happen until you guys agree. Because the rest of this state doesn't have a stake in that thing. It's up to you, you figure it out." And we did. And after that, other issues, Northern Kentucky going from a community college to a university was a major issue that the caucus had a lot to do with. And some of a--and then we got, we realized we could flex our muscle by voting as a block on a lot of things. And once that happened--truthfully, I think we were the first caucus. I don't think anybody, I don't think anybody called themselves a caucus until we did. I maybe wrong about that but I think it was only after we announced, and we had a session or two where it was the Northern Kentucky caucus, then Louisville decided they were going to call themselves a caucus, but I think we were the first in the General Assembly to do that. I think, and again, I maybe wrong, but I think we were. And now, it's just a disaster. It's a nat--they don't get along with each other. They fight. And Republicans, Democrats, we all got along with each other. We all liked each other. We all would have dinner with each other. We might not vote the same way, you know, on a lot of issues, and at election time, we, you know, maybe take, going different paths but nobody was acrimonious. Nobody disliked anybody. No one, there wasn't any animosity among the members of the Northern Kentucky caucus, or to the best of my knowledge, there was no animosity among legislators. You know, all the years I was there, you know, if you walked into a restaurant and there were some Republican legislators and you were by yourself, you'd sit down and eat with them. Everybody was friendly with each other. You might have not been bosom-buddies but everybody was genuinely friendly with each other. I don't remember any, any angry--oh, a lot of heated debate on the floor where. Yes, but it was truly left there, and you'd find guys drinking beer at Flynn's or where ever, all sitting at the same table laughing about the debate of the day. Republicans and Democrats, I don't ever remember any kind of serious, dark animosity and the kind of hatred that seems to pervade the politics of the day in Frankfort now. It's really unattractive today I think. It's just, it's just unattractive. People of Kentucky deserve better behavior. And I don't know that they deserve better legislation or not, but they deserve better behavior out of their people. They deserve a more civil relationship among their members of the General Assembly and they're not getting that now, I don't think. BOHL: What do you think might be responsible for this? MANN: Oh, I don't know. You know, I've been away from it but it's- -yeah, I do have my feeling but it's going to sound purely partisan and all it does is contribute to the partisan stuff. (Bohl laughs) It seems to me that, that the Republican's political plan calls for division. It requires division. It requires driving a wedge. They're the ones that came up with this thing called wedge issues. And that's what they, that's what they rely on. Wedge issues drive wedges between people and in between groups. I think their strategy is in fact based on division: rally on our side, rail against the other side. The other side, you have to be with us because the other side is evil. They're mean. They're going to take us all to hell. And that's what I think has caused it. I mean, I think it's planned, it's the way they want it. BOHL: Um-hm. MANN: Now, that's partisan, and I really won't get into much of that here, but it clearly wasn't that way when I was there, and I think we were better for it. We were--the experience certainly was better. You talk to guys now that are down there. I was talking to Dennis Keene at coffee this morning. And he said, "This is," he said, "It's like a war down there, Terry. It's just like a war." He said, "I mean, it's hateful." I said, "That's too bad. That's too bad because I made a lot of good, good friends and many of them were and are Republicans in that process." And he said, "Can't happen today." He said, "It cannot happen." (laughs) It's too bad, too bad. BOHL: You mentioned Flynn's and several of our legislators have talk about that before. Have you spent a lot of there, with? MANN: Well, it was a watering hole, I mean. You know, you're tired, you been there all day, you go someplace to eat and have a drink, and that was the place. That was the place. And everybody then would kick back. And in those days, you really didn't have to worry about reporters trying to quote you after you'd had a couple of drinks-- (laughs)--or something like that. You could be relaxed and not worry that you were going to get held accountable for something you said at Flynn's the next day in the Courier, or in the Lexington Herald, or in the Post, or the Enquirer. The reporters would more likely be there, and they would be knocking down a couple of drinks with you, and they would be kind of responding the same way. Once they got their stories filed, they'd show up there. And, you know, it was kind of like a free zone where, you know, this is off limits for business, and it was healthy I think. It was healthy. Again, I don't even know that they have a place where you, where there's a generally a gathering of people after the session. Ever they all kind of go hide their own little way and nobody wants to be seen with the other side. (laughs) That's too bad, that's too bad. Kentucky deserves better. Deserves better behavior than that. Better behavior. BOHL: What about the role of lobbyists, when you were there? MANN: You know, yeah, the lobbyists were certainly active and involved while I was there. I never really saw any--I never really encountered anything I thought was out of line with lobbyist behavior. (pause) Well, I guess it would be considered such now. You go in and let's say you were at Flynn's and Bill Donnermeyer and I, and four legislators were sitting eating, and came time to pay the bill, the waitress might say, "Oh, you know, so and so picked up the check." I don't think-- today, now today that's terrible. BOHL: Um-hm. MANN: In those days, that was pretty common, and nobody really paid any attention to it. There wasn't any quid pro [quo]. Nobody came over and said, 'Now, we picked up the check, so we want your vote on such and such, and such and such.' But it did, it did make for camaraderie among lobbyist and legislators that I think today would be seen as out of order but the only reason it would be seen today as out of order because of the excesses of what has occurred more recently. I mean, you didn't, lobbyists didn't take people on, you know, trips to Ireland or England, or, you know, grand golf outings anywhere, but you would find the lobbyists at the NCSL meetings or at the Southern Legislative Conference meetings. They'd go to those meetings. And maybe, although it wasn't necessary because legislators were on your expense account, but you couldn't put your wife's meal on your expense account. So if you were eating at an NCSL meeting, and everybody was with their wives, lobbyists may pick up the check for their wives. And nobody thought much of that. And it wasn't any, I don't think that--in today's circumstance that would be viewed as, I think, inappropriate or improper. I mean, if I were in office today, I wouldn't allow that to happen but then, it really wasn't viewed as inappropriate or improper, and I will tell you that there wasn't any, I never remember any quid pro quo. I mean I never had a lobbyist come up to me and say, 'Hey, I spent a lot of money on you in the last five years. All these meals we've paid for, you know.' That never occurred. And I often found myself pitted against lobbyist, especially when I was chairman, and they had a bill that they wanted out of committee, and I didn't. It could get real, you know. It could get, I mean they could get upset with you. (both laugh) But that never seemed to bother me. It never kept them from picking up the check for our dinner every now and then either. (laughs) So I don't know. I don't know. But the role of lobbyists, certainly, lobbyists were there. I always thought though--and I think most legislators would tell you--that the role of the lobbyist was to give you good information. And as soon as a lobbyist gave you bad information, he had no creditability with you anymore or she had no creditability with you anymore. There were a lot of women lobbyist, you know, when I was there. And maybe not as many as men but certainly it wasn't unusual to have women lobbying for particular organizations in the seventies and eighties. But once they gave you bad information, and you found out later that they gave you bologna, they lost creditability with you. And once a lobbyist loses creditability, he's done, she's done. The organization needs to get somebody else. So lobbyists were, you know, if they were good, they knew they had to give you good information, and if you asked, then sometimes lobbyists were the only place you could go. Industry representatives were only place you could go to get the kind of answers that you wanted. LRC didn't have 'em. Or if they wanted to get 'em, they had to go to the same place. Sometimes only industry had it. If you're dealing with utilities, if you wanted to know how many people under a certain income, you had to go to the utilities to get that information. So, the main role of the lobbyist, as I saw it, was to give you good information. Good information. And the minute they didn't, or the soon whenever you found out the lobbyist gave you bad stuff because they were trying to frame it more positive to their side, they lost creditability with you, and they were done. They were done as lobbyists then because you trusted nothing that they told you anymore. So, the good lobbyist always gave you the straight, good information because they knew their reputation and their future success depended on giving you good information. Now, they would tell you why they wanted a thing a certain way but they wouldn't give you bad numbers. They wouldn't give you, they wouldn't tell you something was that wasn't, or tell you something wasn't that was because when you found out that they gave you the bad information, they were done. [Tape 1, side 1 ends; side 2 begins.] MANN: Like anything else, I guess the excesses of the nineties and the late nineties have, you know, made a dramatic change--or the late eighties and nineties, I mean. They had a major scandal after I had left. You know, where lobbyists were involved and I couldn't imagine that because I just, I know--I knew people involved. I obviously knew Don Blandford very well and knew Bill McBee very well. I asked McBee one time, I said, "What were you thinking? What in God's name would make you think that after all the years we were in Frankfort, all of sudden, out of nowhere comes all this money being dumped all from a lobbyist into people's pockets and on the table, and it never happened before? Didn't you think there was something fishy about that, Bill?" you know. He never really answered me directly when I asked him that. But clearly, I mean, I think that changed that, that obviously changed the role of lobbyists in Frankfort. But I'm glad I wasn't around for that. (both laugh) I'm glad I wasn't around for that. BOHL: Okay, you have a bit of a reputation as a legislative activist. You sponsored over a hundred pieces of legislation that you were the primary sponsor. MANN: Yeah, yeah. BOHL: How did you determine what you were definitely going to sponsor? MANN: I had a feeling I was only going to be there for, you know, I knew that: A) You don't work forever, and B) I never looked at the legislature as a--I never looked at any political office as an office that was mine. Or, that, or it was my career maybe as a rep. You know, I knew I wasn't going to be a state representative for thirty years. I mean, I wouldn't have done it. I just wasn't going to do that. And I also believe that you have a certain amount of time that you can get things done and once you get beyond that you're--you know, if you haven't done everything, you know, in an elected office, if you haven't accomplished everything you wanted to accomplish in ten years, you're not going to do it. Get on with something else. And as I look back, I probably stayed a couple of terms longer than I should have. From a historic perspective, when I look back on it, I did everything I was going to really do. And the General Assembly was changing; it was getting much more conservative. And I could see that, you know. I really got tired of watching my philosophy take a beating all the time. It wears on you. But, yeah, I wanted to make things happen. I thought that's what I was there for. If I thought something had merit, you know, yeah, I'd run with it. I may have done--there was some sessions where I took on more than I could reasonably handle. And found myself, some of the bills died for lack of sponsor attention, I think. I just couldn't keep up with everything, so I would wind up--I would wind up, you know, banging after the stuff that I really, really thought was worthwhile, or important, or that there was a group who were really dedicated and stayed on my butt to keep pushing it, you know. But yeah, I felt like it, you know, you needed to make changes and people recognize that and you tend as a legislator--folks tend to know who thinks their way, and who will do something, and who will give them lip service. They knew I'd do something. And so, I think that I tended to attract folks who wanted things, who wanted change more than some other legislators because they knew, 'Oh, Terry will run with it.' You know, 'He won't just tell you, 'Yeah get it out there,' if it gets to the floor I'll vote for it.' And so, as the years went on, I got more and more input from more and more places. Generally, those kind of non-profit, liberal, oh, academic kind of socially conscience areas, that's where most of the stuff was coming from that I was promoting. And once you get the reputation of having an ear and being willing to carry water for people like that, they all come after you, you know. (both laugh) Like here it comes. So I think that's probably what happened with me. And in retrospect, I probably should have, I probably should have introduced, I should have run with less pieces of legislation and I would have been able to give them more attention than I did. Some good stuff didn't get where it should have gone because the sponsor just didn't have the time to devote to it. And I should have sent people to another legislator who had less stuff and would push it, and I didn't. And, you know, I had a problem with doing--I've always had a problem-saying no. (both laugh) And I hate saying no. That was it, in some of the cases. But there was a lot pieces of legislation, a lot of stuff that I'm proud that I was involved with. Some stuff passed, some stuff didn't. But there wasn't anything that I think I was ashamed of, that I ran with. It was all pretty good stuff. But if you're not there to do something, you know, then get out of the way, and let somebody else take the position. And again, I think that was part of this philosophy that caused the General Assembly to break loose in the late seventies and in the eighties, which was, you had a number of people who thought like I did. Let's do something here. We're not, you know, we're not going to waste three months down here just because some guy that got elected Governor wants to tell us what to do. BOHL: Um-hm. MANN: And that's maybe a harsh way of saying it. It was not said in those terms because everybody was friendly with the Governor. BOHL: Um-hm. MANN: You know, for the most part. Oh, you had rocky relationships on and off among Democrats and people, you know, the Governor's office would get ticked somebody. But it was never anything horrendous. But I liked being an activist legislator. I enjoyed, I really enjoyed that part. I enjoyed the legislative part. I was good at the parliamentary part of it. I wasn't bashful about maneuvering bills. I had the ability to do that and I enjoyed every minute of it. Now, I didn't particularly care to run for office. You know, that got to be a real pain in the rear end. But I enjoyed the legislative process. I enjoyed it immensely. I think you enjoy things that you tend to be good at. I had an instinct for that. I could look at a piece of legislation without reading every page of it, and I just had this ability to see it and have a sense of who it was, what it was doing, who it was doing it to, and who it was doing it for, and probably who in the General Assembly was behind it, even though their name might not been on it. I just, I could look at a bill without studying it, and I had a sense of--I could see that and that made it easier to be pretty decent at the process. But I did enjoy it. I did enjoy it. It was a good experience. And I enjoyed it early enough that I still got out of it all and I was young enough to still watch my kids play high school football, basketball, and enjoy all those kind of things. So I didn't have to miss, I didn't have to miss a big part of that because I was, you know, off in the legislature. BOHL: When did you end up getting married? MANN: I got married--oh, I was married before I was in the legislature. I got married when I was a senior in college. Nineteen sixty-nine. And had my first child a year after I was in the legislature. Matt was born in '73; Erin was born in '77; and Megan, '81. So, I was out by '86. So Matt would have only been--'73, Matt was about thirteen years I guess. BOHL: So, when you were making the decision to run when you had your growing family, did your wife and your kids have anything to say about that? MANN: No, no, they didn't. My wife was for it, and the kids, of course, were, they weren't, you know. (both laugh) I mean, I first got elected I had no kids. I didn't have any children. It wasn't until a year later that we had our first child, so he is now a secret service agent but is a political junkie besides. Because I think he kind of grew up with it a little bit more than the others. Now my youngest son, the middle child, he's four years younger than Matt, so he got a little bit of it but not nearly what his older brother did, and my daughter, hardly any of it. You know, she was '81 and I was, you know, she doesn't have it but the oldest one is a political junkie, he really is. And he is in the right place for it. He can keep his mouth shut but he sees all that's going on. (both laugh) BOHL: Did your boys get any grief from classmates or anything? MANN: Yes, they did and that was a--they did. And I regretted that, although they handled it very well. I think I told you, I went to Newport Catholic High School, as did my kids. Well, you know, that abortion issue got to be a big deal in the eighties. The late seventies and eighties. And of course, I've got a son that's in high school, and I was clearly on the pro-choice side of things without a doubt. Not that I didn't understand and appreciate the other side. I just don't--my problem always was, I don't think, I had the right to force my spiritual religious beliefs on somebody else. You know, I may even agree that abortion is sinful. And you shouldn't do it. But everybody doesn't share the same religious background and beliefs, and I don't know that the government should be involved or endorsing one religious point of view over another. And that was always my position, and I didn't back away from it. By the time my oldest son got to high school, they're in a Catholic high school, that was obviously an issue, and he was reminded on more than one occasion that his father was on the wrong side of that thing. To the point that I, finally--they had a speaker from some place who somehow was told about that, and then, in a school wide assembly, the guy stopped to single me out--and not me, 'The father of one is, you know, in a position to do something and won't do it.' I mean and I got hot. I went up to the school, and just- -before I got there, the principal had called my office to apologize but I had already left my office. When I got back, there was a message that he'd called to say that, you know. So they, the administrators at the school handled it all right, but there was always that, you know, that group of dedicated and emotional proponents of the right-to-life cause that it got to the point that I couldn't go to church. I mean, I'd go to Saint Theresa, and I'm there on one Sunday, and the priest said, "Before you let him get out of church today, you see Terry Mann and you tell him." And 'Shit, fuck, God bless, don't do this.' Hell, I had to start going to mass over at Saint Peter in Chains in downtown Cincinnati where nobody knew me. (both laugh) So yeah, it had its effect on your family in that respect. And it always has its effect on your family because you get into campaigns and the nasty stuff gets said. And it's easier for the candidate. He's busy, he's doing stuff, and it's sort of all politics but your family, it's all personal. And a political career--if that's what you want to call it--does have an impact on your family, and you're kidding yourself if you don't think it does, or if you think it doesn't. You're just fooling yourself. It does. It does and it's generally not good. It's generally not good, so. BOHL: So, when did you make a decision that you were going to try for a higher office? MANN: Well, I don't know. I guess it was before 1984 when I made the race. (both laugh) People would encourage, you know, people coming to me saying, 'You ought to think about running for Congress. You should think about running. You should think about it, you ought to take a look at it.' The incumbent congressman was a Republican for a long time, but it was a harder district in those days. It went from here all the way down to Louisville, you know. And it took all of suburban Jefferson County in; outside of the actual city of Louisville, itself was all Jefferson County and then all the way up the river. But I was young. So I ran against Gene Snyder and did surprisingly well, you know. I think people were surprised. He was an incumbent, it was a Republican district, and I did better than people had anticipated, and that was a good race for me. That was a good, that was a smart thing for me to do because I didn't win but I came out of it better than I went in. I came out with a better reputation. I had been a kid going into that race, and I came out of it with the, and I had some real substantial political creditability. My problem always was, in those years, is that I was so damn young that sometimes it was hard to get people to take me seriously. So, that race was very good for me. Even though I didn't win, I came out of it better than I started it. Now the second one, the race against Bunning, if I had it to do over again, I would not have made that race. I was, you know, it was a terribly Republican district. Snyder had left. I was running against a guy who had just run for Governor and had all the name recognition in the world and had lots of money coming in from, it was just not a smart race for me to make. But by then, I had come to the point where I had realized I did everything that I was going to do in the General. I wasn't going to accomplish any more in the Kentucky House. What, you know, anything there was for me to do, if I hadn't done it in the fourteen years, or however many it was, I wasn't going to do it, and I realized that. And so I realized that for my, for me to be a good public servant, I needed to move on. Move on or move out. But that second race, that second race for Congress was not the smartest way for me to do that. I should have, if I had it to do over again, I would have rethought what my next political step would have been. Probably would have come back and run for county judge executive here. I would have, I would've of won that race fairly easily and moved into a different kind, moved out of the state government into local government, and got some flavor of for local government, as far as experience was concerned. And then decided if I was going to make another move after a few terms there to do that. But that second congressional race wasn't a smart one. BOHL: Okay, after your loss to Bunning in '86, you became a lobbyist for a while. MANN: I did. I did. That was dumb. (both laugh) I didn't like it. I didn't like it. It was for a good cause. It was for, I lobbied for, really, for the stuff that I had been promoting when I was in the legislature. Trying to get arthritis drugs on the Medicaid formulary, non-steroidals, the kind that you--aspirin eats away stomach lining and aspirin is still the number one prescription for arthritis, but it eats your stomach lining away. Non-steroidals are pain relievers that don't do that, and they weren't covered on the Medicaid formulary. So older people who were the people who most suffered from arthritis didn't have access to those drugs. And I did lobby after I left for that, and a couple of others. I'm trying to remember. I did some favors for some friends, the hearing aid dealers and the collection people. I didn't really do much for them but they wanted somebody to take, and I did stuff because they were, because people in those professions were friends and asked me to do stuff for them. But boy, I didn't like. I did not like it one damn bit. I was exceptionally uncomfortable in going back and asking people who had been my peers, my friends, to do this for me or that for me. You know, I was very uncomfortable with it. I was just very uncomfortable, so I did not continue with it and I did not continue with it intentionally. I had talked to my wife and I had made, I made money at that for two, for a term and a half, I guess. And quite frankly had made enough money to put the down payment on our, the house, on a house we were building. And once I did that I said, "I don't want to do this. I'm out of this. I don't like it." Didn't care for it, and that's what I did there, but boy, I was uncomfortable. I remember walking in to talk to Harry Moberly and I felt really uncomfortable. And I thought, Why the hell am I feeling uncomfortable talking to Harry? And it was because the roles had completely changed. And I didn't like that changing relationship. And I didn't want to continue that. And hell, if I was going to feel uncomfortable going up to these guys and talking to them, I wasn't going to do those people any good. But I felt very uncomfortable, very uncomfortable. BOHL: And then you (??) ran against Art Schmidt? MANN: Yeah, I did. I did and I let the local people talk me into that. I let the local Democratic Party. 'We need somebody to run, we need somebody to run, we need somebody to run.' I didn't need to go back to the legislature. And my heart wasn't in that race. It wasn't in that race at all. So. And I like Art. Art and I still like, we get along well together. But yeah, that was not a smart. See, that was just-- you throw all that--and that was a--the Bunning race was the key to what made all of that unnecessary, and that was a dumb, that was a dumb way to move. It was just a dumb way to move. And I don't, you know, I got into the race against Art, and then talked to him, and said, "You know, I don't--I'm just not into this. I'd let some people talk me into a race, I didn't want to make," so. Sometimes you do that. (both laugh) BOHL: You were once one of the main supporters of the state lottery. I know it went in after you left the state legislature, but how were you involved with that effort? MANN: Well, I was for the lottery from the beginning. I didn't do much with it after I was out of the legislature. I mean, I didn't lobby for anybody. I just thought it was a good--I just thought we were going to lose money to surrounding states. It just made sense as a revenue raising measure to do it. I had, if you'll look, you'll find that I had sponsored legislation allowing charitable gaming, charitable bingo, charitable gaming, and it was a quirky way I worded the statute that allowed the regulatory agencies to say, "Well, this is constitutional." And I actually got--(laughs)--who gave me that stuff? Somebody, I got credit for being very creative in the way that was worded, to give the courts the opportunity to rule it constitutional, and it was not. It wasn't my idea (??). I got it from somebody else, and I can't remember off the top of my head who gave me that wording now, but he did--it was Bob Sanders from Covington! An attorney from Covington who gave me that. It was a smart way to word it. But I had been involved in that kind of stuff for a while. It allowed all the churches up here to make money, and, of course, they loved it. (both laugh) So, I had sponsored the charitable gaming statutes. I had been on that, on that thing for a while. And it's just, you have to understand the culture here in Northern Kentucky. This city was rooted in--when I was a kid and I would go from home to school and I went to school right down the street here. At St. Stephens. I would walk from home past the place called Huck's Cafe. And the door would be opened. They had all the races and all the parks up on a big chalkboard. You could walk in. I could take--my mother would give a quarter, and I could walk in, and make a quarter bet on a horse at Huck's Cafe down here on Eighth Street. And the grocery stores had slot machines in them. You know, I was delivering papers as a kid, and I guess it was about 1959. And I was delivering papers on York Street outside of one of the casinos, and some guy comes walking out and hollers to me. I go over there, and he says, "How much for that?" And, you know--I don't know if you remember; you're too young. But the paperboys had these big canvas bags that held the papers, and you'd take the paper out, and you threw it in the yard. Well, I thought he wanted the paper, and I told him how much the paper, and he said, no, he wanted the canvas bag, and I didn't know. It was Dean Martin. He was drunk. (both laugh) And he had come out of one of the casinos in Newport, and he wanted to buy the whole bag. And so, he kept asking me, and I was, and I recognized who it was. I was obviously old enough to know who Dean Martin was, and it wasn't, it was less than five minutes later, and this limo pulls up going really slow up the street next to him. The window comes down, "Get in the car!" And it was Frank Sinatra. Telling him to get into the car, but I mean that was Newport. BOHL: Um-hm. MANN: That was Newport. They were making a movie in Madison, Indiana. Called Some Came Running. And they would, after the filming, they would have them bring them down to Newport. So the whole gambling and gaming stuff in this area, in this culture was not viewed as immoral, as it was in the rest of the state. So when I, you know, I came to Frankfort with that cultural background and that attitude, so I didn't see anything wrong with gaming. Now, if you were a Catholic, you went to those bingos were every Friday night, you know. Until all of a sudden, they started to crack down on it, and then they couldn't have bingo, but I did get that piece of legislation passed. And it's stood up until they actually passed the--it still maybe. I think maybe it was changed. It still maybe on the books as a charitable, as the way in which they allow charitable gaming to occur at the festivals and things like that, you know. Anyway, that's how I got into that whole lottery issue. BOHL: So you remember from your childhood the cleanup of Newport? MANN: Oh, yeah, I remember very well. I remember the whole thing. I was a, I think I was in the seventh or eighth grade, so I was quite capable of knowing what was going on. Church, right down the street, St. Stephens, you had--as most Catholic churches were--and you had the church. On one side of the church, you had the rectory where the priest, the pastor and the priest were, and on the other side of the church, you had the convent where the nuns who taught at the school lived. That's right down there. There was a big house next to it where the backyards backed up, and you could actually walk back to serve mass. And the nuns would be praying the rosary walking down the back, and then there was a chain linked fence between that and the property next, the big property next door was where all the strippers from the joints would stay, and they would be outside, you know, lying in the sun. Nearly naked. And it was, there you were as a kid, and you walked in, and there were the nuns praying the rosary and within twenty yards, there were the strippers laying out, getting a suntan. It was just a kind of place it was. (both laugh) You know, so. But that's true. And so, you couldn't grow up in this area and not have a somewhat different cultural experience than most of the rest of Kentucky. And the great education experience for me in the legislature was learning that. Was learning just how dramatically different most Kentuckians viewed things than people from Northern Kentucky. It's changed now. There's less of that difference now. Certainly, it's still, there's still a rural urban attitude but outside of Louisville, which you, and you know, you talk to the guys from Louisville and the ones who grew up in Louisville and down, it was the same sort of atmosphere down there. But outside of those two locations, the rest of the state didn't have a clue as to that kind of thing. It would have been, you know, would have been viewed as terribly immoral and offensive, and, you know, wrong. It's not the way it was here. (both laugh) It's not the way it was here. I just, you know, so. BOHL: I know in those days that people tended to be much more locally minded in terms that Campbell County was separated than Kenton and certainly from Boone. MANN: Yeah, that's-- BOHL: Several people have mentioned that Cincinnati itself seemed like a completely different world even though it's just across the bridge. How much interaction was there? MANN: Not a lot between Ohio and Kentucky but certainly the Northern Kentucky caucus did a tremendous amount to bring the three counties a lot closer together, and redistricting did, too. The first chance I had at redistricting, I put precincts in Covington in my district, so that I was multi-county legislator. And besides that, I was principal of Holmes High School in Covington, and my in-laws were all from there. So I put my in-law's house and where I was a high school principal, I put that all--(both laugh)--I put it all in the district. But it also made--and then as we redistrict, now you see there's a lot of overlapping among the three counties, among legislators in the three counties, and that's healthy. That's healthy, I think. There wasn't. It was, 'No, no.' You didn't cross county lines. I mean, you just didn't do that, but then the one man, one vote, Supreme Court rule that required districts to in essence have almost equal population, it really then began to force legislators all over the country into getting away from that parochialism because you had to have the numbers. You couldn't say, 'Well, we have three state representatives in Campbell County, and they've got four or five in Kenton and one in Boone, and that's the way it's going to stay.' No, you had to start balancing the numbers out, and once you had that numbers game going on, it became almost essential to go find numbers here and there. And, you know, the lines had to be contiguous. So, that really did begin to force multi-county districts. And that then--not just that but other things began to force multi-county compacts and coordination up here. The sanitation district, you know, once you got to a point where it became, the cities couldn't take care of the sewer lines on their own and things like that. It became practical to band together for those essential services that were only going to be affordable in large numbers. So, the sanitation district, and the water district, and, you know, all of a sudden those things all began to pull the three counties together in one unit. And now there's so many multi- county, or there's so many of those kind of entities that we function practically as an urban unit up here. Now, they don't--there's still a lot of that. Nobody wants to hear that but that's really, what happens. The county judges, county judge executives appoint people to these boards, and these agencies really are the ones in charge of providing the essential services to the community, and they are a three-county agency. But we function as a--and that all, again, that stuff all started in the seventies and the eighties. You didn't have those things. But economics demanded that. Cincinnati was always, always I think, took a bit of a--I always felt that like the people in Cincinnati looked down on upon Northern Kentucky like--you know, geez, look, you know, they--I don't know. There was an attitude. It was an attitude that was noticeable because--there would be a lot of functions you'd be at. There would be, you know, the gas and electric company was in essence one, you know, giant gas and electric--well, they would have legislators to a Reds game every year. So, they had a huge box in Riverfront Stadium and that, and you would go, and you would see the Ohio legislators and the Kentucky legislators. And it was just, it was an attitude on the part of the Ohio people that was, 'What are you doing here?' I always had that feeling, you know, whenever we were at those kind of functions, they would, 'What are you doing here?' And they, 'You don't really belong here. This is the Cincinnati Reds. You know, what do you--what are you doing here?' You know, that kind of thing. And I think that's exists. I think that still exists. There's not really a close relationship between Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati on the Ohio side, although it is better now than it was then. I mean, they're doing these joint projects like the bridges. And now that Northern Kentucky has begun to take away a lot of the commercial business from downtown Cincinnati, it got their attention, you know. The levy stuff and that, what's going on riverfront in Covington has scarred them I think. And now they're paying a lot more attention to Northern Kentucky than they once did. But it's only because I think it's more out of fear than it is out of, you know, some desire to make things, to make it a better community. BOHL: So, if you were starting over now, do you think that you would run for the state legislature again? MANN: Yeah. Yes, I think so. I think, I don't know that I'd be successful. I don't know that my philosophy is such that--(laughs)- -that I could. I guess maybe in Newport you could. There's still, you know, it would depend on the district. But we're a much more conservative state. We're a much more, this is a much more conservative community, and we're a much more conservative state than we were in 1975. Plain and simple. And I'm not a conservative, so I don't know how successful I would I might be. BOHL: How would you classify your political philosophy? MANN: Not a flaming liberal but a liberal, you know. I do have limits as to how far I go to the Left. But a practical liberal; that's what I would describe myself, as a practical liberal. I'm not willing to just, you know, engage in a suicidal activity for the, just to make a point, but certainly I'm a liberal. But I'll vote for Democratic candidates who can win, not necessarily who say all of the right liberal things. I want somebody who could, I'm practical enough to recognize it doesn't make any difference what your philosophy is if you don't put yourself in a position to implement some of it. BOHL: (laughs) And what advice would you have for legislators starting out today? MANN: Be nice! You know, it doesn't hurt to be nice to each other. You can disagree with each other but be nice! Come on. Folks, be nice. You know, like each other. Buy each other a drink every once in a while. Tell a joke to one another. Be nice! People are tired of your ill-mannered behavior toward one another. That's it. BOHL: (laughs) Okay, is there something else that I should have asked about but I haven't? MANN: I don't think so, I mean, I don't know. I enjoyed being a legislator. You know, I enjoyed it. It was a valuable part of my experience. It's went a long way in shaping, I'm sure, who I am. And I think everyone in a democracy ought to at least have to take a shot at some public office, at least one time. And I'm not saying you have to serve but, they all, everybody ought to at least run for something once. You get elected and you serve it's even better. But I think after that experience, they would be much more forgiving and have a greater understanding of what it takes to make government work than the public does now. And they would be less likely to swing from one extreme to the other. And 'I love this guy,' this election, and, 'I hate him and I want to throw him out,' the next. You know, there's, people ought to have to experience that part of the democracy for themselves. It would make them a lot better citizens. That's what I think. BOHL: Okay. MANN: Okay. [Tape 1, side 2 ends.] [End of interview.] Mann (House 1972-1986, 67th district; Democrat) recalls growing up in Newport in an atmosphere different than that of most of the state, college experiences, and an early introduction to politics by way of campaigning for Robert Kennedy. He discusses his campaigning approach and how that has changed over the years, experiences as the youngest member of the legislature, legislation on the Equal Rights Amendment, abortion issues, ambitious sponsorship of legislation, the Northern Kentucky Caucus and how practical issues have forced a bond between the counties in that area. Mann laments some of the decisions he made in attempts to guide his career beyond the House, and expresses dismay at the loss of a collegial atmosphere in the current legislature. insert here

© 1999-2009 Kentucky Virtual Library

• xhtml 1.0 Strict