This book is a memoir of his conquest to abolish the death penalty. One chapter of the book is devoted to the importance of committee chairs because the position of committee chairs can determine the fate of any bill that comes through the legislative process. When it was time for the abolition bill to be called up in the House Judiciary committee the chair kept putting it off. Mr. Wedekind would continue to ask the chair, Rep. Lindsay, to call up the bill for a vote since the committee had already heard the legislation in the interim session. Wedekind even went to the Speaker and the Majority leader to see if they could talk to the chair about calling up the bill. Finally after the session had come to a close Rep Lindsay was asked why he didn’t bring up the bill and his response was that he didn’t have to. This is an example of how it doesn’t matter about the principles, committee system or representation it only matters about the chairs opinion and his power.

Examples of committee chairs flexing their muscles during this session is when Chairman Gooch of the Natural Resources and Environment committee denied HB 164 be called up for a vote. The reason for this is because he is a strong disbeliever in global warming and an advocate for coal and the bill had regulations that would affect both of these areas. Another committee chair that showed his strength was Appropriations and Revenue Chairman Moberly. He brought in bills that other committees had denied and pushed for certain programs and agendas in the budget.

This book also showed how numbers are important. The Abolitionists did not have a lot of money for their organization but they had a lot of people and in order to be effective in Kentucky government you need one or the other. Because of this large number of people they could get more Congressmen to listen to what that had to say. In Kentucky the righteousness of a bill comes secondary and campaign issues come first. If a representative had a large number of constituents in favor of the bill then he would be more persuaded to vote for it rather than the how ideological it is.

For instance, the debate over gambling was a very difficult issue for some Republicans. There party stance was against it but some of the urban representatives said that they had a large number of constituents that saw no problem with casinos and they didn’t know how they would feel if they voted against it. I know when Representative DeWeese who I interned for found out he had a contender in the next election he tended to take more concern to what his constituents were saying rather than follow the strict party lines.