Marlow Cook, Kentucky senator and Louisville Law alum, passes away

Marlow W. Cook, a one-term Republican senator from Kentucky and 1950 graduate of the University of Louisville Law School, died on Feb. 4 at his home in Florida at the age of 89.

According to the New York Times, Cook gave Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell his start in Washington politics and also led a Republican resurgence in Jefferson County in the 1960s. He served two terms as county judge before his senate election in 1968.

Marlow Webster Cook was born on July 27, 1926, in Akron, New York. After a stint in the U.S. Navy, he enrolled at UofL, earning a bachelor's degree in 1948 and a law degree in 1950. He became the first Roman Catholic in Kentucky to hold a major statewide post.

After practicing law in Washington, Cook moved to Florida in 1989. He received the Grauman Award from the Brandeis School of Law in 2008.

More from the New York Times:

"... In Washington, Senator Cook earned a reputation as a liberal-leaning moderate with a natural charm that made him one of the most-liked members of the Senate.

He could be unpredictable. At the request of President Richard M. Nixon, he served as floor manager of the ultimately unsuccessful effort to confirm Clement F. Haynsworth Jr. to the Supreme Court, and then he cast one of the decisive votes against the president’s next candidate, G. Harrold Carswell.

In retirement, Mr. Cook raised eyebrows when, in 2004, he endorsed a Democrat, Senator John Kerry, for president, citing a long list of disagreements with President George W. Bush, chiefly his decision to invade Iraq."