serve on the Education and Transportation committees in 1985. He sought the position of Speaker of the House following the 1986 elections and wrote to other members of the state house asking for support to become Assistant Majority Leader. He was ranked as the eighty-third best member of the 94th General Assembly by the Nashville Banner. In 1987, Ivy was appointed to serve on the Finance, Ways and Means, and Agriculture committees. During the 1988 presidential election he supported Senator Al Gore for the Democratic nomination. Tennessee Commissioner of Agriculture On October 27, 1988, Governor McWherter announced at a rally at Decatur County Riverside High School that he would appoint Ivy to succeed A.C. Clark as Tennessee's Commissioner of Agriculture. He was the fifth person appointed to the cabinet by McWherter. During his tenure he served as secretary-treasurer for the Southern Association of State Departments of Agriculture. A section of Highway 641 was named in his honor in 1994. Ivy served as Commissioner of Agriculture until Governor Don Sundquist selected Dan Wheeler to succeed him in 1995. Tommy Hooper, the chair of the Tennessee Republican Party, called for Ivy to resign after Ivy insulted Republicans during a forum in Chester County, Tennessee. Jim Kennedy, McWherter's chief of staff, wrote a letter to Hopper where he stated that no complaints were lodged against Ivy and that McWherter would not dismiss Ivy. Later life In 2000, Ivy and former state Senator Roy Herron co-wrote the book Tennessee Political Humor (Some of these Jokes You Voted For.). During the 2000 presidential election he served as master of ceremonies alongside Shirlene Mercer for a campaign event by Gore's presidential campaign. Ivy died in Decaturville, Tennessee, on May 25, 2021. Political positions In 1985, Ivy was given a petition containing 1,243 signatures which opposed legislation requiring people to wear a seat belt. He opposed legislation requiring seat belts to be worn, despite having been hospitalized after a car crash, stating that he understood "that seat belts are important" and that he wished that the "whole country would wear 'em", but that he had a phobia towards wearing a seat belt. The state house voted fifty-three to forty, with Ivy against, in favor of legislation requiring the mandatory usage of seat belts in 1986. Ivy offered an amendment to the legislation which would have excluded pickup trucks from the legislation, but it failed by a vote