Janet Stumbo

Stumbo made her first bid for elective office in 1989 as a candidate in the special election to fill one of the 7th Appellate District's seats on the Kentucky Court of Appeals, which was vacated when Dan Jack Combs was elected to the Kentucky Supreme Court.[4] Her opponents in the non-partisan primary election were Richard L. Elswick, who had been appointed by Governor Wallace Wilkinson to fill the vacancy on an interim basis; and Barkley J. Sturgill, chair of the Kentucky Public Service Commission.[4] In the primary, Stumbo received 31,906 votes to Sturgill's 27,065 and Elswick's 19,388.[7] That set up a general election in November between Stumbo and Sturgill.[7]

In September, Grady Stumbo appeared in an ad endorsing Sturgill, saying, "It's getting the message out that not all Stumbos are for [Janet Stumbo]," a reference to himself and then-State Representative Greg Stumbo.[1] Sturgill suggested that Stumbo won the primary, in part, because voters confused her with Grady Stumbo's wife, whose name is Jan.[2] Sturgill said Stumbo should use her husband's last name, "We believe you ought to use your man's name. People ought to know that legally she's not a Stumbo. She's Ned Pillersdorf's wife."[1] Janet Stumbo called Sturgill's suggestion, "just the craziest thing I've ever heard", adding, "This is the 1980s. As a modern woman with a separate identity from my husband, I see no reason to change my name simply because my marital status has changed."[1]

In the general election, Stumbo garnered 46,895 to Sturgill's 41,973.[7] As a result of her win, Stumbo became the second woman to serve on the court, and the first to be elected to the court without first having been appointed.[5] She took the oath of office on December 1, 1989.[8] The partial term to which she was elected expired at the end of 1991.[7] She was unopposed for election to a full, eight-year term.[9] The Lexington Herald-Leader wrote that Stumbo generally sided with consumers and workers against businesses and with defendants in criminal law cases, but noted that there were exceptions.[10] In what the paper called "her most criticized ruling", she found that, under a literal reading of Kentucky law, a litigant who had been injured in an automobile accident could not collect damages unless there was a court ruling that found the other driver in the accident to be negligent.[10] The Kentucky Supreme Court reversed this decision, saying Stumbo should have considered the legislature's intent.[10] Stumbo also halted refund payments ordered by a lower court in a finding against Louisville Gas & Electric (LG&E) in a rate dispute, saying the court had no power to set utility rates.[10] She returned the case to the Public Service Commission, but also scolded two of the commissioners for secretly meeting with LG&E about the settlement terms.[10]

When Dan Jack Combs announced in mid-1993 that he would retire from the Kentucky Supreme Court for health reasons, Stumbo declared her candidacy for the November special election to succeed him.[11] She announced she would not seek the interim appointment to the seat from Governor Brereton Jones because she would have to resign her seat on the Court of Appeals and could subsequently lose the November election for the remainder of Combs' term.[11] The appointment went to Sara W. Combs, the widow of former Governor Bert T. Combs but no relation to the retiring justice, making her the first woman to sit on the Kentucky Supreme Court.[12][13] Combs also filed as a candidate in the November special election, as did former Ashland mayor David Welch.[12]

In August, state Democratic Party chair Grady Stumbo endorsed Janet Stumbo's candidacy, and in October, she won the endorsement of the United Mine Workers of America.[12][14] State Treasurer Francis Jones Mills recorded an ad endorsing Combs in October.[15] Both Janet Stumbo and Welch complained that the endorsement was an illegal partisan activity into a non-partisan election.[15] Combs pulled the ad from the radio, but responded that, "I don't think there could be anything more partisan and political than Grady Stumbo's conduct," referring to his earlier endorsement of his distant cousin.[15] Janet Stumbo maintained that the two situations were different because she had neither sought nor publicized Grady Stumbo's endorsement.[15]

Stumbo won the special election, capturing 46,152 votes to Combs' 39,234 and Welch's 20,755.[13] Combs raised and spent almost twice as much money as Stumbo in the race but said Stumbo's superior political organization, still in place from her 1989 campaign, made the difference.[13] The Kentucky Post also noted that Stumbo carried Floyd and Pike counties, two of the most populous in the district, and both places Stumbo had lived.[13] With the win, Stumbo became the second woman to serve on the court and the first to be elected to it without being appointed first.[5] She was officially sworn in at a private ceremony on November 19, 1993, but held a larger, public ceremony December 4 at the Floyd County Courthouse.[16] Governor Jones subsequently appointed Combs to the seat Stumbo had vacated on the Court of Appeals.[17]

Stumbo was re-elected without opposition to a full, eight-year term in 1996.[5][18] While on the court, Chief Justice Robert F. Stephens appointed her chair of the Family Court Consortium, which carried out a successful family court pilot project.[5] As a result of the pilot, the Kentucky Constitution was amended to create a statewide family court system.[5] Stumbo also chaired the Civil Rules Committee during her time on the court.[5] The Lexington Herald-Leader noted that early in Stumbo's career, she shared some of the "libertarian" views as Dan Jack Combs, the justice she replaced on the court.[18] In her last five years on the court, however, she voted to overturn convictions 62% of the time, and became known as the court's most liberal justice.[19]

In 2004, Stumbo faced a re-election challenge from Will T. Scott.[20] Scott revived complaints about Stumbo's use of her well-known maiden name in her political races: "She signs documents, deeds and mortgages as Janet Stumbo Pillersdorf, but I have to run against her as Justice Janet Stumbo."[20] Scott said he had previously been defeated in political races by candidates who benefited from their famous name associations – Chris Perkins, son of longtime U.S. Representative Carl D. Perkins; and Ben Chandler, grandson of two-time former Governor and U.S. Senator A. B. "Happy" Chandler.[20]

Scott also aired commercials criticizing many of Stumbo's decisions on the Supreme Court, including upholding legislation to end workers' compensation payments when the payee reached 65 years old, overturning a murder conviction that was eventually confirmed, and absolving from criminal liability a drunken driver who killed an unborn child in an automobile accident and a mother whose child was abused by her boyfriend.[21] Stumbo countered that, not only did the ads misrepresent her rulings, but they violated the state judicial code of conduct by indicating how Scott might rule on a case before it comes before him on the bench.[21] A federal district court ruling struck down that portion of the code of conduct before the election.[21] Scott won the election with 80,057 votes to Stumbo's 77,631.[22]

After leaving the court, Stumbo taught courses for the University of Kentucky College of Law and the Appalachian School of Law.[5] She also taught a mock trial class at a summer camp for high school students at Western Kentucky University.[5]

In 2006, Stumbo filed as a candidate for the Kentucky Court of Appeals against incumbent Justice David A. Barber.[23] During the campaign, Barber's name was among those published by The Floyd County Times as being delinquent on their property taxes.[24] Stumbo called on Barber to cease fundraising for his campaign until his tax debt was paid.[24] Barber expressed surprise at the delinquency, saying his taxes were handled by a third party, and the Floyd County Attorney's Office confirmed that Barber had contacted them after the story broke to arrange payment.[24] Stumbo also demanded that Barber reimburse Prestonsburg High School for $6,630 in fines levied against the school by the Kentucky High School Athletic Association for allegations that Barber had helped the school recruit two football players to transfer to Prestonsburg from their previous schools for athletic reasons.[24] Barber admitted helping the students transfer, but denied that athletics were the reason.[24]

The Kentucky Judicial Campaign Conduct Committee admonished both candidates during the campaign. The Committee said Stumbo had not updated her campaign website in a timely manner to reflect the fact that Barber had paid his delinquent property taxes.[25] They also said that Barber's campaign ads misrepresented Stumbo's opinions in two child abuse and fetal homicide cases that had also been central to Scott's previous campaign against her.[25] Stumbo won the general election by 30,000.[26]

In November 2011, Stumbo announced she would challenge Scott for his seat on the Kentucky Supreme Court when his term expired in 2012.[27] Both Stumbo and Scott signed a pledge authored by the Kentucky Judicial Campaign Committee to run a dignified campaign, and both agreed on the need to reinstate funding for statewide adult and juvenile drug courts that had been recently reduced.[19][28] By October, the Committee had again criticized the campaign tactics of both candidates.[19] They said an ad by Scott referencing Stumbo's vote to overturn convictions of two black men accused of murdering a pregnant white woman was misleading because the women depicted in the ad were not related to the case, and the juxtaposition of black defendants with white victims carried racial overtones.[19] Stumbo's ad claimed Scott had voted against the conviction of a man who had confined his three children to a locked room without food, water, or bathrooms while he slept; the Committee said the ad exaggerated some of the facts in the case.[19]

Again, Scott raised the issue of Stumbo's use of her maiden name, citing a marketing firm's estimate using the Stumbo name "gives [Janet Stumbo] an artificial advantage that benefits her by approximately 4.9 percent of the vote".[6] Scott said Stumbo had the prerogative to run under her maiden name, but he raised the issue only to clarify it for voters.[6] Scott won re-election with a vote of 86,725 to 62,416.[29]

With her term set to expire in 2014, Stumbo filed for re-election and drew a challenger in Pikeville attorney Kent Varney.[30] Stumbo turned back Varney's challenge by a margin of almost 2-to-1.[31] Stumbo retired from the court in January 2018.