Ray Thornton of Congress, court dies at 87

He made career of public service

Ray Thornton, who served in a wide range of roles in Arkansas, holds up a pad of notes at an organizational meeting of the Arkansas Lottery Commission on May 5, 2009, when he was interim commissioner.
Ray Thornton, who served in a wide range of roles in Arkansas, holds up a pad of notes at an organizational meeting of the Arkansas Lottery Commission on May 5, 2009, when he was interim commissioner.

Ray Thornton, a former state attorney general, six-term congressman, university president and Arkansas Supreme Court justice, died early Wednesday in Little Rock.

photo

Democrat-Gazette file photo

Ray Thornton strums along with then-Gov. Bill Clinton in December 1987. Later, when Thornton was in Congress and Clinton was president, the music soured when Thornton refused to vote for Clinton’s 1993 budget overhaul, which passed by one vote. “My job is to protect my district,” Thornton said, citing a gas-tax increase he opposed.

photo

After his retirement as an Arkansas Supreme Court justice, Ray Thornton (left) congratulates retired Chief Justice W.H. “Dub” Arnold at an event at the Supreme Court on April 11, 2005, as their portraits are officially retired and turned over to the Arkansas Supreme Court Historical Society. Thornton served on the court from 1997 to 2004.

photo

Democrat-Gazette file photo

New state Attorney General Ray Thornton speaks at the Capitol in this photo taken Feb. 4, 1971. It was his first race for statewide office.

Thornton, 87, was hospitalized earlier in the month at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock after falling ill. He was moved to Arkansas Hospice on Tuesday and died during the night.

Former U.S. Sen. David Pryor, a longtime friend, saw Thornton on Tuesday for a final time.

"In his public and private life, Ray Thornton was, in every sense of the word, a true gentleman. He brought kindness, understanding and tolerance into every discussion, and he daily lived a life of serving others. He was a scholar, historian, author, educator and political leader. He honored our state with his many years of service," Pryor said. "I feel very privileged to have known this unique individual for some 60 years."

Interviewed Wednesday and in recent weeks, Arkansas leaders said Thornton, a lifelong Democrat, made important contributions in each of the cities where he served, including Washington, D.C., Little Rock, Fayetteville and Jonesboro.

John DiPippa, dean emeritus of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock W.H. Bowen School of Law, described Thornton as "maybe the last renaissance politician in Arkansas."

"You can just look at every point where he was involved in public service, and he always ended up leaving things better than he found them. You don't find people with that kind of breadth of knowledge and experience and dedication today," he said.

The son of Raymond Thornton Sr. and Wilma Elizabeth Stephens Thornton, Raymond Hoyt Thornton Jr. was born at his grandmother's Conway home on Ash Street in a two-bedroom house that lacked electricity or indoor plumbing.

He was the oldest of two children and entered the world on July 16, 1928, the year before the start of the Great Depression.

In a Sept. 20, 2011, interview for the David and Barbara Pryor Center for Oral and Visual History at the University of Arkansas, Thornton stressed the role that his family played in shaping his life, saying he'd had "a remarkable set of parents and loved ones who have steered me and guided me."

His mother was the sister of Wilton R. "Witt" Stephens and Jackson Thomas "Jack" Stephens, who became two of the state's wealthiest, well-connected businessmen. Her father, A.J. Stephens, was a farmer who also served for a time in the state House of Representatives.

Wilma Thornton was a schoolteacher, and Raymond Thornton Sr. was the Grant County school superintendent. The young Thornton was reading by age 3, about the time his sister, Betty Lou, was born. When he got older, he read through the entire Encyclopedia Junior Britannica, starting with A and finishing with Z, he said.

He attended public schools in two Grant County communities -- Leola and Sheridan -- and completed high school when he was 16 years old.

He then enrolled at UA. At age 18, he won a Navy Holloway Scholarship, enabling him to attend college elsewhere. He chose Yale University.

During the three years it took him to graduate, he joined the debate team, facing off against William F. Buckley Jr., among others.

Although he was a nephew of two successful entrepreneurs, he didn't have the kind of resources that many of his Ivy League classmates enjoyed. He found part-time jobs to help make ends meet. During one Thanksgiving break, when classes ceased and the cafeteria closed, he hocked his clarinet so he'd have money to eat.

"I didn't like it, but I preferred it to going without food," he said years later.

After graduating from Yale in 1950, he studied law at the University of Texas and later at UA.

In Fayetteville, he ran for student body president, with the help of rockabilly artist Ronnie Hawkins. "I did so as Cowboy Ray Thornton, picking and singing on the steps of the library to get a crowd to appear, then I'd turn the singing over to my friend, Ronnie Hawkins, and he would keep the crowd and enlarge it when I went around and shook hands with everybody and asked for their votes. Ronnie and I made a good team," he said in the oral history.

In a three-way race, he captured 60 percent of the vote, Thornton recalled years later.

One of the students who stopped to listen was Pryor. They became lifelong friends -- and rivals in one election.

From 1951-54, Thornton put his legal studies on hold. He served three years in the Navy, including time on the USS Philippine Sea, an aircraft carrier that saw heavy action during the Korean War. Thornton was the ship's top-secret control officer; Lt. Thornton completed two combat tours.

On Jan. 27, 1956, he married Betty Jo Mann of Sheridan. They later had three daughters: Nancy, Mary Jo and Stephanie.

That same year, he graduated with a juris doctorate from UA. Early on, he served as a deputy prosecuting attorney in Perry and Pulaski counties.

Thornton also worked for Arkansas Louisiana Gas Co., a business that his uncle Witt Stephens acquired in 1954. In addition, he represented Allied Telephone (later known as Alltel) in a hard-fought antitrust lawsuit against AT&T.

He ran for Arkansas attorney general in 1970, winning his first race for statewide office. He did so, in part, by promising to devote himself full time to the job and not to engage in private legal practice while serving.

Two years later, he ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in the 4th Congressional District, winning the first of three terms. The victory came the same year as the Watergate burglaries. As a member of the House Judiciary Committee, Thornton helped draft the articles of impeachment against then-President Richard Nixon.

The 4th District covered all of south Arkansas and was solidly Democratic. Thornton ran unopposed in the general election all three times.

The man with an Ivy League education, and rich and powerful relatives made his way to Washington but remained humble and down to earth, former Gov. Mike Beebe said.

He was "a consummate Southern gentleman. In all my dealings with him, both personally and observing him with others, he was always very polite, very kind, a good listener. He was someone who went out of his way to make you feel comfortable," Beebe said.

During his first stint in Congress, Thornton was part of a bloc of white Southern Democratic lawmakers.

"They were the ones who more or less were the difference-makers, the swing voter, so to speak, back in the Congress of that day," Ouachita Baptist University political science professor Hal Bass said. Thornton was a centrist politician, Bass said.

During Watergate, Nixon viewed Thornton as a potential ally, one of a handful of Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee he hoped would back him.

But Thornton, convinced that the president was guilty of "high crimes and misdemeanors," voted for all three articles of impeachment.

During the nationally televised Watergate proceedings, as the clerk was calling the roll on the first article of impeachment, he closed his eyes and voted "aye."

Years later, Thornton told the Arkansas Gazette that he'd been saying a prayer as the moment neared.

"It was not a prayer that the vote would be right," Thornton said. "I was convinced of the correctness of the vote, based on the evidence we had heard. But I was still concerned as to the effect the vote would have on our governmental system. No one knew at that point what would happen, what events would transpire as the result of the committee's action. My prayer was that our system would come through this ordeal intact."

Although 69 percent of Arkansans had voted for Nixon in 1972, there wasn't a backlash against Thornton because of his vote. He was re-elected in 1974 and 1976.

In 1978, Thornton ran for the U.S. Senate, finishing third in one of the closest Democratic primary races the state has seen. Pryor, then the state's governor, finished first with 34.3 percent of the vote. U.S. Rep. Jim Guy Tucker followed with 32.5 percent. Thornton carried 22 of the state's 75 counties, receiving 31.9 percent of the vote. Pryor won the runoff, and Thornton returned to Arkansas.

It was the only time he sought high office and lost.

"At midnight I was running ahead," he recalled years later. "By about 4 a.m. it was David and I. Then Jim Guy sneaked in in front of me."

It was a spirited but civil contest, Pryor recalled. "We never exchanged a bad word in that campaign."

Thornton found a new career as an educator. From 1979-80, he was director of the Ouachita Baptist University-Henderson State University Joint Educational Consortium.

In 1980, he became president of Arkansas State University in Jonesboro. Four years later, he left Jonesboro to become president of the University of Arkansas System, a post he held for six years.

At ASU, he seemed to enjoy being on campus.

"I find it interesting that he never brought up his time in Congress in terms of what he had accomplished or who he knew, but rather what he had learned that could be applied to his campus leadership. He always said that when he was involved with the Watergate hearings, many people came before the Judiciary Committee who had outstanding educations from stellar universities. Yet somewhere along the way they had lost their moral compasses," said Ruth Hawkins, who was special assistant to the president, and the school's director of development and public relations.

"Because of that experience, he wanted students to leave Arkansas State University with the ability to think and make choices that were guided by a strong sense of values and ethical principles."

As president of the UA System, he worked to strengthen ties among the various campuses. He also moved the president's office from Northwest Arkansas to Little Rock.

In Fayetteville, he worked to preserve Old Main. The oldest building still on campus, it dated to the 1870s and by the early 1980s, it had deteriorated to the point where it was no longer safe to occupy.

"It was boarded up. I mean, nobody even got to go in there," said Julie Baldridge, who was project director for the "Save Old Main" campaign.

Rather than tearing it down, Thornton and Chancellor Dan Ferritor helped come up with the funds to restore it, lobbying donors all across Arkansas.

Thornton stepped down in 1990, the year before Old Main reopened. He ran for Congress again, this time in the 2nd Congressional District. Central Arkansas voters returned him to Washington, re-electing him in 1992 and 1994.

While he was on Capitol Hill, a fellow Arkansan -- Hope native Bill Clinton -- was elected president.

Thornton generally got along well with whoever was in the White House, but he didn't always do their bidding.

In 1993, he refused to vote for Clinton's first budget overhaul, jeopardizing its passage.

The measure included tax increases combined with several spending cuts and was designed to rein in deficit spending.

Thornton opposed a 4.3-cent-per-gallon gas tax, saying it would hurt Arkansans.

The budget ended up passing by one vote. "It was not an easy moment, and it was not an easy decision for Ray Thornton or an easy decision for President Clinton and me and others in the White House to accept," said Mack McLarty, Clinton's first chief of staff and a former Arkla chairman and CEO.

Thornton knew he'd angered some allies, but he refused to backtrack, telling the Democrat-Gazette: "President Clinton understands the equation. His job is to run the nation. My job is to represent my district."

The vote became a national campaign issue. Every Republican in Congress opposed the legislation.

In 1994, Republicans won a majority in the House of Representatives. For the first and only time in his political career, Thornton was part of the minority party.

"He didn't isolate himself. He was very bipartisan. ... He got along with everybody," said former U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, who served with Thornton in the House for two terms. "You'd see him sitting on one side of the chamber visiting with Democrats, and then you'd look up and then he'd be over on the other side of the chamber visiting with Republicans."

The increasing political polarization frustrated Thornton and made Capitol Hill a less satisfying place to be, friends said.

In 1992, Arkansas voters overwhelmingly passed Amendment 73, which set term limits for various elected officials, including members of Congress. Critics said states lacked the power to place such limits on federal officeholders. Thornton agreed and, along with others, challenged Amendment 73 in court.

The case, U.S. Term Limits Inc. v. Thornton, went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and in 1995, the court struck down the state's congressional term limits.

Despite his legal victory, Thornton decided not to seek another term.

"People stopped being so civilized. They started calling each other names, and there was discourteousness on the floor of the House. Ray is such a courtly gentleman that it was hard for him," said Baldridge, Thornton's chief of staff at the time.

In 1996, Thornton was elected to the Arkansas Supreme Court. He served from 1997 to 2004.

Former Justice Bob Brown, who served with him, said Thornton didn't have any trouble making the transition from Congress to courtroom.

"You always fear somebody will be [elected] to the court and not do the job, but Ray hit the ground running and was a fully prepared justice from the get-go," Brown said.

Asked about Thornton's judicial philosophy, Brown said, "I never could really pinpoint Ray on particular issues, and that was a compliment to him. I mean, he came in and read the law and saw the facts, and then cast his vote."

While some justices could be intimidating, Thornton tried to put lawyers at ease.

"I always remember in oral arguments, he would throw softballs to the lawyers," said then fellow Justice Annabelle Imber Tuck. "He was a nice person. ... He didn't want to shame anybody."

After leaving the court, Thornton became the Bowen School of Law's first public service fellow. In 2009, he was appointed to the newly formed Arkansas Lottery Commission. His fellow commissioners elected him chairman.

Thornton wasn't a gambler, and didn't much like scratch-off tickets and Powerball jackpots.

Asked if Thornton ever played the lottery, Baldridge -- who later served on the Lottery Commission -- said: "Oh, no. Oh heavenly days, no. ... He was born into the Church of Christ and was not at all a fan of the lottery."

Despite voting against the ballot measure that created the lottery, he agreed to help get the lottery off the ground because voters had approved it. The lottery position was his last publicly visible post. He stepped down in May 2010.

In December 2012, he donated his personal and professional papers to the UA Libraries Special Collections Department. They were made available to the public last year.

The papers were organized with help -- roughly two decades ago -- from Tom Cotton, now a Republican U.S. senator from Dardanelle. A 19-year-old Cotton spent a hot summer "carrying heavy boxes of papers that went back decades, sorting them, getting them in some rough order to be archived. It was manual labor out in a storage unit in Mabelvale, but it was fascinating to see decades of Arkansas political history and Ray's interaction with icons of years gone by," Cotton said.

On Wednesday, Cotton stood on the floor of the U.S. Senate and eulogized Thornton, encouraging people to "celebrate his long, well-lived life in service of our country and Arkansas."

Thornton managed to connect with people rich and poor, liberal and conservative, urban and rural, according to Bass, the Ouachita Baptist professor.

"There was something in Thornton that allowed everybody to kind of identify with him. It's just hard to imagine a figure like that today in today's environment when we are so divided, particularly by ideology," Bass said.

A Section on 04/14/2016

Upcoming Events