The “Petticoat Mafia” Of Benham, Kentucky

The AP (via the Dallas Morning News) asks the question, “What happens when the garden club takes over the government of a Kentucky coal town?” The answer turns out to be a great story about a particularly different approach to government, one involving bake sales, concerts and a thrift shop instead of more usual, and blunter, instruments. These two paragraphs summarise the piece nicely, and the last sentence is certainly its best part:

“Beginning next month, [Mayor Betty] Howard will preside over a Town Council made up entirely of women from 54 to 80 who have worked their way to political power from the Benham Garden Club.”

“Over the past decade, the garden club brigade has built its power slowly, claiming the mayor’s office in 1994 and regularly occupying three to five seats on the Town Council. But in the November election, three men now serving on the council opted not to seek re-election to allow the club members to take all six council seats.”

Hat tip to Free-Market.Net’s Freedom News

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