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Al Cross: Republican legislature grabs wheel from Democratic governor; voters will have a say in 2022


When Kentuckians elected Andy Beshear in 2019, they created a recipe for partisan conflict between a legislature with a recent, ultra-Republican majority and a governor from a greatly diminished Democratic Party. In the recently completed legislative session, the governorship itself was diminished.

Legislators took some powers from the governor, gave a few to Republicans who hold other statewide offices, and put on the 2022 ballot a constitutional amendment to let the legislature call itself into session for 12 extra days a year and extend its 30- and 60-day sessions past the current deadlines of March 30 and April 15.

Reacting to Beshear’s anti-pandemic orders, legislators also tried to rein in the governor’s emergency powers. Franklin Circuit Court blocked that legislation, much as the state Supreme Court had rejected legal challenges to the orders. But legislators also reduced the authority of the Frankfort court, allowing constitutional challenges to be filed anywhere in the state, and declared that they could keep citizens from seeing legislative records without being subject to appeal to the court.

More significantly, legislators abolished the governor’s power to reorganize the executive branch between sessions, required him to fill any U.S. Senate vacancy from the party of the departed senator, and gave a legislative committee broad powers to investigate, issue subpoenas and work in secret. Its first target may be the pandemic-caused debacle of delayed unemployment benefits, sure to be an issue when Beshear seeks re-election in 2023.


Al Cross (Twitter @ruralj) is a professor in the University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Media and director of its Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues. His opinions are his own, not UK’s. He was the longest-serving political writer for the Louisville Courier Journal (1989-2004) and national president of the Society of Professional Journalists in 2001-02. He joined the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame in 2010.

NKyTribune and KyForward are the anchor home for Al Cross’ column. We offer it to other publications throughout the Commonwealth, with appropriate attribution.

One of his potential foes, Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles, got control of tobacco-settlement money earmarked for agriculture, and of most appointments to the state Fair Board. Treasurer Allison Ball got the power to block personal-service contracts nixed by a legislative committee, and Attorney General Daniel Cameron also got more authority.

Beshear vetoed all these bills and dozens of others, to no avail; it only takes majorities of the House and Senate to override him. The exercise became so routine that the eyes of Frankfort’s depleted press corps seemed to glaze over, but as a whole, the session saw the greatest shift in the legislative-executive balance of power since 1979-80, when the legislature’s then-Democratic majorities asserted their independence from Democratic governors.

As House Majority Floor Leader Steven Rudy said on KET’s “Kentucky Tonight” Monday, the General Assembly reasserted its role as the chief policy-maker in state government. It was a largely partisan exercise, but there were examples of bipartisanship, such as the bill to expand voting, legalize “instant racing” slot machines, and appropriate federal relief money at the end of the session.

At that point, Beshear and legislative leaders were making joint appearances, complimenting each other and talking about resuming cooperation to allocate the remaining relief money.

Is that a harbinger for other forms of cooperation? “I hope so,” House Speaker David Osborne told me in an interview. “I think it’s how government should work. . . . We felt like it was important to re-establish the legislative independence,” but “Any time we can find agreement, I think you’re gonna find us anxious to do so.”

Agreement on using funds from the American Rescue Plan Act was an example, Osborne said: “There was an understanding that there was a give-and-take relationship on these ARPA dollars, in particular, and we needed a lot of voices in the room. . . . We owe it to ourselves and the people of Kentucky to be thoughtful about it.”

But politics will prevail. Beshear remains popular, and Donald Trump won’t be on the 2022 ballot, so Democrats are already forming up campaigns for legislative seats. Osborne said his majority isn’t at risk, but “We clearly see a very divisive political environment right now,” due mainly to national politics being “at a fever pitch . . . I would envision this being a very interesting and competitive election cycle.”

For the first time, Republicans will get to draw House district lines, and the expectation has been that they will be as partisan as Democrats have been, but Osborne said Reps. Jerry Miller and Kevin Bratcher, R-Louisville, are planning “community-type meetings” around the state on redistricting, something never done before.

The 2022 ballot will also have the constitutional amendment on legislative sessions. Voters have been reluctant to give the legislature more authority and time, and Osborne, the proposal’s main advocate, acknowledged that it faces an uphill battle. But he said the pandemic proved the need for a more flexible legislative schedule, and “There will be some things fresh on the minds of the voters.”

And many of those voters are likely to be opponents of abortion, since the legislature put on the ballot another amendment, saying the constitution doesn’t secure or protect a right to abortion or funding of abortion (in case Roe v. Wade is overturned). In policy and in politics, the legislature has grabbed the wheel.


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