The following year, Kentucky's other senator, Marvel Mills Logan, died in office, and Chandler resigned as governor so his successor could appoint him to the vacant seat.

[26] In retaliation, Laffoon's allies in the Kentucky General Assembly stripped Chandler of some of his statutory power as lieutenant governor, and they were then able to pass the tax by a single vote in each house of the legislature.

When Laffoon traveled to meet with President Franklin Roosevelt in Washington, DC, on February 6, 1935, Chandler used his authority to call the legislature into session to consider a bill that required each party's gubernatorial candidates to be chosen by a primary, rather than a nominating convention.

[28] Laffoon knew that the primary bill would be widely supported in the General Assembly since both the legislators and their constituents had grown to distrust party nominating conventions.

[24] Journalist John Ed Pearce, however, contends that Beckham had already declined to become a candidate, citing his own ill health and that of his son, before the special session convened.

[24] Knowing that he would need to raise revenue to offset the repeal of the sales tax and bring the state's expenditures in line with its income, Chandler appointed a commission headed by ex-Governor Beckham to draft suggested budgetary legislation.

Instead, he held an event of his own at Louisville's exclusive Pendennis Club and alluded to his intentions of challenging Barkley during the upcoming Democratic senatorial primary.

Because Roosevelt was very popular in Kentucky, Chandler was put in the awkward position of expressing personal support of the president and opposing his handpicked leader in the Senate and his New Deal legislation.

[58] As a result of his votes on the anti-lynching bill and the poll tax repeal, the Louisville chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People worked against his re-election effort.

[39] During the campaign, Brown accused Chandler of abusing his power, including of having a swimming pool installed at his home, in violation of the federal rationing provisions that had been implemented during World War II.

[12] Other candidates being considered included National League President Ford Frick (who would succeed Chandler as commissioner in 1951), Democratic National Committee Chairman Robert E. Hannegan, former Postmaster General James Farley, US senator John W. Bricker, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, former federal Judge Fred M. Vinson, Ohio Governor Frank Lausche, and Undersecretary of War Robert P.

[61] After Cincinnati Reds president Warren Giles and Chicago Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley raised strong opposition to Frick, who had been the frontrunner, New York Yankees co-owner Larry MacPhail began to advocate for Chandler.

[60] When the owners met in Cleveland, Ohio, on April 24, 1945, to vote for a new commissioner, Chandler's name was not on the shortlist, which had Frick, Farley, Hannegan, Vinson, Lausche, and Patterson.

[62] Chandler remained in the Senate for several months after his election as commissioner because he wanted to cast his vote on the Bretton Woods Monetary Agreement and the Charter of the United Nations.

[66] Shortly after the Mexican league incident, Robert Murphy, a former negotiator for the National Labor Relations Board, attempted to organize the Pittsburgh Pirates into a guild for purposes of collective bargaining.

[69] The defections to the Mexican league and the threat of a strike by the Pirates prompted owners to form an advisory committee, chaired by Larry MacPhail, to suggest needed changes that would calm the discontent among the players.

[7] In a speech at Wilberforce University in February 1948, Rickey recounted a secret meeting that had allegedly been held by baseball officials at the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago on August 28, 1946.

[72] At the meeting, Rickey claimed that Ford Frick disseminated a report that stated, "However well-intentioned, the use of Negro players would hazard all physical properties of baseball.

[72] Baseball historian Bill Marshall later wrote that the document and subsequent vote to which Rickey was referring was the advisory committee's initial draft of recommended reforms.

[69] Marshall further recorded that Rickey identified the meeting and the report shortly after his speech at Wilberforce and retracted his claim of 15–1 opposition to Robinson's entry into Major League Baseball.

[75] Nevertheless, future baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn and Washington Post sportswriter Bob Addie maintained that Robinson would not have played without Chandler's intervention.

The move angered Dodgers owner Branch Rickey, who encouraged Chandler to begin an investigation into the gambling habits of Durocher and his associate, actor George Raft.

[78] Branch Rickey charged Chandler with maintaining a double standard, however, when the commissioner took no action after seeing MacPhail with two known gamblers at a Yankees–Dodgers preseason exhibition in Havana, Cuba.

[7] In an interview with The Sporting News in August 1951, Chandler cited his decision to void a trade between the New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox for outfielder Dick Wakefield as a major factor in his inability to secure a new contract.

His first campaign speech, which he dryly read verbatim from his notes, included the candid admission that it might be necessary to re-institute the state sales tax to balance the budget.

[88] (An invoice showing that carpeting for the entire first floor of the capitol had cost one tenth that amount did not stop Chandler from repeating the claim, which he said "didn't hurt anybody, and people liked to hear it".

[3] Although Democrats held a majority in both houses of the General Assembly, they were divided by factionalism, which made it difficult for Chandler to find sufficient support for his programs.

[88] Chandler refused to use his office to support Stevenson, Clements or Wetherby, and Republicans Dwight Eisenhower, John Sherman Cooper, and Thruston Ballard Morton won the presidential and the senatorial races in the state.

[15] In 1971, Chandler again entered the gubernatorial race, now as an independent, but he garnered only 39,493 votes, compared to 470,720 for eventual Democratic victor Wendell H. Ford, and 412,653 for Republican challenger Tom Emberton.

[116] In response to the controversy, Chandler's personal assistant said, "He used the word again in explaining that it was not intended by him to be a racial slur" and called the Kernel's story "a complete and total distortion".