Ross Bass

Background

Bass was the son of a circuit-riding Methodist minister in rural Giles County, attended the local public schools, and graduated from Martin Methodist Junior College, Pulaski, Tennessee in 1938.

He joined the Army Air Corps during World War II, becoming a bombardier and reaching the rank of captain. After his 1945 discharge Bass opened a flower shop in Pulaski, the county seat. He was named postmaster of Pulaski in 1946, serving until 1954.

Congressional service

In 1954, Bass was elected as a Democratic U.S. Congressman from Tennessee's 6th District, which included Pulaski. He was reelected four times. He was the only Representative from the rural South to vote for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The only other Southern Representatives to vote for the bill were from large cities—Richard Fulton from Nashville, Tennessee, Charles Weltner from Atlanta, Georgia, Claude Pepper from Miami, Florida and four Representatives from Texas.

In 1963, Senator Estes Kefauver died in office. Governor Frank G. Clement made no secret that he wanted to run in the special election due in 1964 for the final two years of Kefauver's term. However, rather than appoint himself to the seat, he appointed one of his cabinet members, Herbert S. Walters, to serve as a caretaker until the special election. However, Clement's plan backfired when Bass defeated him in the Democratic primary held in August.

In November, Bass defeated the Republican nominee, Howard Baker by only 4.7 percentage points—the closest that a Republican had come to winning election to the Senate from Tennessee at the time. Since the election was for an unexpired term, and in the Senate seniority is a very important consideration when being considered for committee assignments, office assignments, and the like, Bass was sworn in as soon as the election results could be certified in order to give him a slight seniority advantage over other freshmen Senators elected in 1964. Bass became Tennessee's junior Senator (the senior Senator at that time being Albert Gore, Sr.) and prepared to run for a full term in 1966.

However, this race proved problematic for Bass. Clement still desired the seat for himself, especially since he could not run for reelection as governor in 1966 (in those days, Tennessee governors were barred from immediately succeeding themselves). He wanted to avoid being forced out of politics, as he had once before when faced with term limits the first time in 1958. Bass lost the August 1966 Democratic primary to Clement, even though he received 10% more votes than in the previous election. Since Tennessee does not have registration by party, Bass' loss was widely attributed to a large Republican crossover vote.

Later political career

Bass subsequently made two attempts to re-enter politics. He ran for the 1974 Democratic nomination for governor, but finished fifth in a nine-candidate field—well behind the eventual winner, Ray Blanton. In 1976 he entered the Democratic primary for his former House seat and won the nomination.

The district, however, had been significantly redrawn since his previous service. Bass found himself running in a large amount of territory that he did not know and that did not know him. Much of this territory was heavily Republican, having been added by the state legislature after the 1970 census in an attempt to punish his successor in Congress, William Anderson, for his perceived liberalism. Bass lost badly — by over 30 points — to Republican Robin Beard.

Personal life

His first marriage to Avanell K Bass ended in divorce in 1967. He married Judy Bobo, of Nashville, in 1975; they divorced in 1979. He later married Jacqui Colter in 1992. After his 1976 loss, he moved to Florida, where he lived in Miami Shores until his death of lung cancer in 1993, aged 74, survived by his third wife.