Partial term (1950–51) On Nov. 27, 1950, Clements was sworn in as senator for the remainder of an unexpired term, vacating the office of governor and filling it with Wetherby. One of his first actions was to call a special legislative session for March 6, 1951, for the purpose of allocating the state's $10 million budget surplus. Wetherby's popularity soared as a result of this session, and he seriously considered running for the Senate seat vacated by the death of
Virgil Chapman in 1951 but his wife and children vetoed the idea. With the support of Beauchamp, who slated with him for lieutenant governor, he ran for his own term as governor.
1951 gubernatorial election Among the potential candidates for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1951 was former governor
A. B. "Happy" Chandler, who was about to be released as
baseball commissioner. Chandler and Clements were factional foes, and the possibility of a Chandler candidacy provided the Clements faction with the impetus to unite behind Wetherby to prevent Chandler from gaining the nomination. Wetherby had little trouble defeating Howell Vincent and Jesse Cecil in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, polling the largest majority ever in a Kentucky primary race. Siler was a
fundamentalist Christian who claimed that the state government was full of corruption, and only he could stop it. He deployed the newly organized
Kentucky State Police to counter
organized crime in
Campbell and
Henderson counties. Wetherby won
Re-election by 58,331 votes. Having adopted a
pay-as-you-go program for the state, he was forced to raise additional revenue after the war ended. Using revenue from a 2-cent-per-gallon gasoline tax passed under the Clements administration, Wetherby authorized the building, re-building, or re-surfacing of nearly of roads during his administration. He encouraged
President Dwight D. Eisenhower to construct a federal toll road connecting the
Great Lakes and the
Gulf of Mexico. Wetherby also brought national attention to Kentucky as prime hunting and fishing land by conducting his own personal sporting excursions in the state. He expanded the Agricultural and Industrial Development Board and charged it with conducting land surveys to identify potential industrial sites. In 1954, he used the state police to quash labor unrest in
Central City and other parts of the Western Kentucky Coalfield. He called for the creation of an educational television network and initiated the state's first publicly funded
bookmobile program. He supported the 1954 Minimum Foundation Program, an amendment to the
state constitution that allowed funding to be allocated to school districts based upon need rather than number of pupils. In Kentucky, he appointed an advisory council of both
white and
black citizens to oversee public school integration, which was accomplished with little acrimony compared to other states. He constructed new state prisons, modernized the
probation and
parole systems, and established a more orderly system of selecting
grand and
petit juries. Wetherby had named Combs to the
Kentucky Court of Appeals in 1951 to fill a vacancy created by the death of Judge Roy Helm. Chandler ran his campaign not just against Combs, but against Clements and Wetherby, painting Combs as a pawn of "Clementine" and "Wetherbine." He charged both Clements and Wetherby with extravagant spending in their administrations. Chandler's charges may have been inaccurate, but he defeated Combs in the primary and went on to win the general election. ==1956 U.S. Senate bid==