seven members. The other seven members of the board would serve staggered terms, would be appointed by the governor, and be confirmed by the Senate. The legislation also escrowed proceeds until the 1990 General Assembly and specified that the first expenditures from those proceeds would fund a one-time bonus to veterans of the Vietnam War. The vote on the legislation was 32–5 in the Senate and 92–6 in the House. Several Republican amendments, including one by Senator David L. Williams to implement a local option for counties to decide whether or not to sell lottery tickets, were defeated on party-line votes. While the legislation did not implement all of Wilkinson's proposals for the lottery, he nonetheless praised it as a "very good" bill. Education reform On May 31, 1988, Franklin County circuit court judge Ray Corns issued a ruling in the case of Council for Better Education v. Collins, et al. stating that Kentucky's system of school financing was unconstitutional. The suit was brought against Wilkinson's predecessor, Martha Layne Collins, and several members of the state government by a group of poor school districts as a means to equalize funding for all the state's school districts. An advocate for education, Wilkinson dropped the governor's office's defense in the suit and joined the plaintiffs when Corns' decision was appealed to the Kentucky Supreme Court. On appeal, the Supreme Court declared Kentucky's entire public school system unconstitutional and mandated that the legislature reform it. Although state legislators maintained that reforming the public school system was too large an issue to tackle during the 60-day legislative session of 1990 and requested that Wilkinson call a special legislative session in June 1990 to consider the issue, the governor insisted that the issue be resolved during the regular session and said that he would not allow consideration of tax increases to fund improvements in the system if he had to call a special session. Wilkinson presented a budget proposal to the General Assembly that contained measures increasing taxes on cigarettes and corporations and eliminating sales tax exemptions on legal, engineering, and advertising services. Legislators favored raising the sales tax to six percent instead. For much of the legislative session, Wilkinson remained steadfastly opposed to an increased sales tax, repeatedly calling it a "dead issue" and threatening to veto it. Then on March 9, 1990, Wilkinson announced that he would drop his opposition to the tax