Bertram Thomas Combs

Bertram Thomas Combs was a United States circuit judge who served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit from 1967 to 1970. Born in rural Kentucky in 1911, he rose from modest circumstances to become a prominent jurist and public servant in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Before his federal appointment, Combs served as a judge on the Kentucky Court of Appeals and as the 50th governor of Kentucky from 1959 to 1963. President Lyndon B. Johnson, a Democrat, appointed him to the Sixth Circuit in 1967, where he served for three years before resigning to pursue other endeavors. His career spanned multiple branches of government and included significant contributions to Kentucky's legal and educational systems. He died in December 1991 following a flash flood accident.

Early life and legal career

Bertram Thomas Combs was born on August 13, 1911, in the Town Branch section of Manchester, Kentucky, located in Clay County. He was one of seven children born to Stephen Gibson Combs and Martha Jones Combs. His father worked as a part-time logger and farmer while maintaining involvement in local Democratic politics, despite the Republican majority in their county. His mother worked as a teacher and emphasized to her children the critical importance of obtaining a quality education, a value that would shape the trajectory of Combs's life.

Combs began his education at the two-room Beech Creek grade school. When he reached seventh grade, his parents arranged for him and his sister to attend Oneida Baptist Institute in nearby Oneida, primarily because the school offered significantly longer academic terms of eight to nine months compared to the five to six months available at Beech Creek. Subsequently, Combs and his sister commuted daily to Clay County High School, traveling by donkey. He demonstrated exceptional academic ability, advancing through some grades ahead of schedule, and graduated as valedictorian of his class in 1927 at the age of fifteen.

Financial constraints prevented Combs from immediately pursuing higher education. He worked at a local drug store and performed various odd jobs for community members to earn money. In 1929, his mother helped arrange what was supposed to be employment at a coal company in Williamsburg, which would have enabled him to attend Cumberland College, then operating as a junior college. Although the coal company position did not materialize, Combs managed to afford three semesters at Cumberland by working as a janitor, sweeping floors and maintaining furnaces in campus buildings.

In mid-1930, Combs secured a position as a clerk with the state highway department. This role was typically a patronage appointment made by the governor, but the Democratic-controlled state legislature had removed Republican Governor Flem D. Sampson's statutory appointment authority, transferring it instead to a three-member highway commission. This commission consisted of Democratic Lieutenant Governor James Breathitt, Democratic Highway Commissioner Ben Johnson, and Dan Talbott. The political arrangement enabled Combs, as a Democrat, to obtain the position.

Combs worked for the highway department for three years, saving sufficient funds to attend the University of Kentucky College of Law in Lexington. During his time at the university, he served as managing editor of the Kentucky Law Journal, gaining valuable editorial and legal writing experience. In 1937, he graduated second in his class with a Bachelor of Laws degree and qualified for membership in the Order of the Coif, a prestigious national honor society recognizing the top ten percent of graduating law students. After admission to the bar that same year, he returned to Manchester to establish his law practice. Also in 1937, Combs married Mabel Hall, and the couple would have two children: a daughter, Lois Ann Combs, and a son, Thomas "Tommy" George Combs.

Combs later reflected that his Manchester practice presented challenges, noting that he had numerous relatives and friends in the area who expected legal services as favors and were offended when billed for his work. He found himself accepting many cases but collecting few fees. In 1938, he accepted an invitation from a law school classmate named LeRoy Combs, who was not a relation, to join a law firm in Prestonsburg operated by LeRoy's father and uncle. The move to Prestonsburg brought him closer to his wife's home in Knott County. His son Tommy had sustained a birth injury resulting in intellectual disability, and after relocating to Prestonsburg, Combs established a class for individuals with intellectual disabilities, demonstrating an early commitment to community service beyond his legal practice.

Following World War II, Combs received recognition for his role in prosecuting Japanese war criminals before military tribunals. This service earned him military decorations and established his credentials as a prosecutor in significant international legal proceedings. After completing this work, he returned to Kentucky and resumed his law practice in Prestonsburg.

In 1951, Kentucky Governor Lawrence Wetherby appointed Combs to fill a vacancy on the Kentucky Court of Appeals, the state's highest court at that time. Later that same year, he stood for election to a full term on the court and defeated former governor and judge Simeon S. Willis, securing his position through the electoral process rather than appointment alone. His service on the state appellate court provided him with substantial judicial experience and raised his profile within Kentucky's legal and political communities.

By 1955, Kentucky's Democratic Party had fractured into competing factions. Earle C. Clements, who led one faction, selected Combs to challenge former governor and United States Senator A. B. "Happy" Chandler, who headed the opposing faction, in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. Chandler prevailed in that contest and went on to reclaim the governorship. During his term, Chandler had promised not to raise taxes to meet state financial obligations but ultimately found it necessary to do so, creating political vulnerability.

In 1959, Combs ran for governor again and won the Democratic primary, defeating Lieutenant Governor Harry Lee Waterfield, who was Chandler's preferred successor. Combs then won the general election and served as Kentucky's 50th governor. Early in his gubernatorial term, he secured legislative approval for a three-percent sales tax, which he publicly justified as necessary to fund a bonus for the state's military veterans. However, he knew that a one-percent tax would have been sufficient for that purpose alone. He strategically used the surplus revenue generated by the higher rate to implement an extensive program of reforms. These initiatives included significant expansion of the state's highway system and its state park system, both of which contributed to economic development and tourism. He also directed a substantial portion of the surplus funds toward education, reflecting the values instilled by his mother and his own difficult path to educational attainment.

Federal appellate service

Following the completion of his gubernatorial term, Combs was appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to serve as a United States circuit judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The Senate confirmed his appointment on April 5, 1967, and he assumed the position designated as seat CA60107. The Sixth Circuit has jurisdiction over federal appeals from district courts in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee, and Combs joined a court that addressed a wide range of federal legal questions during a period of significant social and legal change in the United States.

Combs served on the Sixth Circuit for three years, from 1967 to 1970. During this period, he participated in the court's work reviewing decisions from federal district courts and addressing questions of federal law. The late 1960s was a time of considerable legal development in areas including civil rights, criminal procedure, and administrative law, as federal courts grappled with implementing and interpreting landmark Supreme Court decisions and new federal legislation. As a circuit judge, Combs would have heard cases in three-judge panels, the standard practice for federal appellate courts, and contributed to the body of federal case law emerging from the Sixth Circuit during this era.

In 1970, Combs resigned from the federal bench. His departure from lifetime judicial tenure was motivated by his decision to seek the governorship of Kentucky once again in the 1971 election. He entered the Democratic primary but was defeated by Wendell Ford, who had previously served as his executive secretary during his gubernatorial term. Ford went on to win the general election and later served as a United States Senator from Kentucky. Combs's decision to leave the security and prestige of a federal appellate judgeship to return to electoral politics demonstrated his continued commitment to public service through elected office, though this particular campaign proved unsuccessful.

Jurisprudence and legacy

Following his unsuccessful 1971 gubernatorial campaign, Combs returned to private legal practice. His most significant post-judicial contribution to Kentucky came more than a decade later. In 1984, he agreed to represent sixty-six of Kentucky's economically disadvantaged school districts in litigation challenging the constitutionality of the state's system for financing public education. The case, known as Rose v. Council for Better Education, addressed fundamental questions about educational equity and the state's constitutional obligations to provide adequate schooling for all children.

The lawsuit argued that Kentucky's education financing system, which relied heavily on local property taxes, created severe disparities between wealthy and poor districts, depriving students in property-poor areas of adequate educational opportunities. Combs's representation of these districts drew on his personal experience growing up in rural poverty and his lifelong commitment to education as a vehicle for social mobility. The case proceeded through the Kentucky court system and ultimately reached the Kentucky Supreme Court.

The Kentucky Supreme Court's decision in the Rose case proved to be one of the most far-reaching state court rulings on education in American history. The court declared Kentucky's entire system of public schools unconstitutional, finding that the state had failed to meet its constitutional duty to provide an adequate education to all students. This sweeping ruling went beyond the financing system to encompass the structure and operation of public education throughout the Commonwealth. The decision mandated comprehensive reform rather than incremental adjustments.

In response to the court's ruling, the Kentucky General Assembly undertook the task of completely restructuring the state's educational system. The result was the Kentucky Education Reform Act, enacted in 1991. This legislation represented one of the most comprehensive state-level education reform efforts in the United States, addressing curriculum, governance, finance, and accountability. The reforms included equalized funding mechanisms, new academic standards, and restructured school governance. The Kentucky Education Reform Act became a model studied by other states considering education reform and represented the culmination of Combs's decades-long commitment to educational opportunity.

Combs did not live to see the full implementation of the reforms his legal work had made possible. On December 3, 1991, he was driving when he was caught in a flash flood. He died as a result of the accident at the age of eighty. His death came in the same year that the Kentucky Education Reform Act was enacted, bringing his life's work full circle from his own struggle to obtain an education to his role in ensuring educational opportunity for future generations of Kentucky children.

Combs's career encompassed service in multiple branches of government and demonstrated a consistent commitment to public service. His tenure on the Sixth Circuit, though relatively brief compared to many federal judges who serve for decades, represented an important chapter in a career dedicated to law and governance. His decision to leave the federal bench to return to state politics, while unusual, reflected his view that he could make greater contributions through other forms of service. His ultimate legacy rests significantly on his work in education reform, which transformed Kentucky's public school system and affected generations of students throughout the Commonwealth.