KyKurmudgeon

Outta here

I'm taking some vacation, sandwiched around attending the East Kentucky Leadership Conference April 24-25. I may post some from the conference. But I won't be back in the office until April 30. See you then.

How did it all go wrong for D's?

Sunday's column:

FRANKFORT — With March Madness still semi-fresh in the memory, think of the 2008 General Assembly from a basketball perspective.

This session should have played out as a two-on-one break, with a Democratic governor and a Democratic House majority taking the offense to the Republican-controlled Senate.

Of course, teamwork remains a foreign concept for many Democrats, and particularly so for the Kentucky variety. As Gov. Steve Beshear – quoting the late Will Rogers – noted in a mid-session interview with the Herald-Leader, “I’m not a member of any organized political party; I’m a Democrat.”

Never have the homespun humorist’s words been put to more appropriate use than in Beshear’s reference to the Democratic disarray during this session.

As a result of that disarray, what should have been a two-on-one break became something a one-on-one-on-one-on-one game, with Beshear and a split House Democratic leadership doing the individual freelance thing not only against Senate Republicans but against each other as well.

The lack of teamwork by D’s made it easy for Senate President David Williams and his fellow Republicans to play effective defense against the Democrats’ agenda and even take the offensive on such issues as the budget.

So, where did it all go wrong for Democrats? How did a D governor coming off a landslide defeat of an R incumbent fail so miserably in his first legislative session?

Beshear himself must accept a big share of the blame. His ill-considered decision to take an active role in a no-win special election to fill Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo’s former Senate seat wound up stripping him of all the political capital he accumulated with his own election victory. The loss he suffered in the 30th District was a body blow that weakened him so badly he never recovered.

But that was hardly Beshear’s only mistake. For instance, he mishandled the whole casino gambling issue from the get-go.

As a gubernatorial candidate who made casino gambling the centerpiece of his platform, Beshear should have had a proposed constitutional amendment – preferably stating the issue as simply as possible – ready to introduce as House Bill 1 on the first day of the session.

Instead, he dilly-dallied for weeks before introducing an overly detailed amendment that immediately became the subject of derision.

Meanwhile, a special subcommittee created by House Speaker Jody Richards was draining any momentum from casino gambling by talking it to death in ways that confused the issue and took the focus away from a key arguments on its behalf: keeping Kentucky’s thoroughbred racing industry competitive.

Beshear made another mistake by proposing enabling legislation at the same time he proposed his amendment. Because that legislation included fairly specific locations for the proposed casinos, it generated opposition both from communities designated to get casinos and from communities that were left out of the picture.

While Beshear’s mishandling of the gambling issue was the most prominent example of his own contribution to his rocky relationship with the legislature, it wasn’t the only one. There were other instances, such as catching House Democratic leaders by surprise with a mid-session proposal for a 70-cent increase in the cigarette tax, when he hurt his own cause.

Still, not all of the blame goes to Beshear. The five members of House Democratic leaders deserve their share as well. On gambling in particular, they did few favors for their party’s governor. Their differences on the subject broke along lines reflecting a much deeper rift that had nothing to do with casino gambling. In that sense, casino gambling may have been a victim of their infighting over other issues.

More important, fallout from their feuding permeated the session, making it even less likely that a mistake-prone governor could be successful.

Voices from the legislative session

Each year, I collect particularly pithy quotes from the General Assembly session. These are some of the remarks that grabbed my attention this year. Read more voices from the General Assembly in this Sunday's Opinion/Ideas section of the Herald-Leader.

“There are no good choices. There are bad choices, and there are worse choices.”
– Gov. Steve Beshear, discussing the state's financial condition.

“Frankly, the state of this commonwealth is not acceptable.”
– Beshear, in his State of the Commonwealth Address.

“The status quo is not an option, and it is not one my administration will tolerate.”
– Beshear, in his State of the Commonwealth Address.

“If you’ve got somebody who loves to roll the bones, that’s as addictive as alcoholism.”
– Larry Forgy, testifying against expanded gambling.

“This is the mother of all transparency bills. It’s the mother of all accountability bills.”
– Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, speaking about House Bill 3, which would move the filing deadline from late January to late April, after the General Assembly sessions are over. Legislators now avoid any controversial issues until after the filing deadline passes.

“We want to cooperate with the governor. And the governor ran on a pledge of no taxes, and he hasn’t proposed any new taxes. We’re with the governor.”
– Williams, responding to questions about a possible cigarette tax increase.

“The 2020 (higher education) goals have just become 2028 goals.”
– Michael McCall, president of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System, talking about education funding in testimony to a legislative committee.

“I dislike knee-jerk reactions, including from me.”
– Rep. Kathy Stein, D-Lexington, responding to Senate passage of an anti-abortion bill.

“In some ways, he’s like Rip Van Winkle. He’s been gone 20 years.”
– Rep. Jim Wayne, D-Louisville, referring to Gov. Steve Beshear.

“We don’t have the rabbit yet. Why go on with the process of making the stew until we get the rabbit?”
– Rep. Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, arguing that lawmakers should wait until voters approve casino gambling before passing enabling legislation.

“If you don’t vote the way they want you to vote, they push you out. There’s a lot of division in here. The leadership is in disarray. They are split.”
– Rep. Dottie Sims, D-Horse Cave, after she got booted from a committee for failing to vote the way House Speaker Jody Richards wanter her to vote on expanded gambling.

“I wouldn’t engage in useless activities.”
– House Appropriations and Revenue Chairman Harry Moberly, D-Richmond, responding to questions about whether he had discussed a “stream saver” bill  on mountaintop removal mining with Natural Resources and Environmental Committee Chairman Jim Gooch. Moberly attached the “stream saver” bill, which has died in Gooch’s committee annually for years, to another piece of legislation that was before the A & R Committee.

“We need some support from our own representatives in Eastern Kentucky that we’re not getting. Our heroes are Central Kentucky guys, and that’s sad.”
– Ricky Handshoe, of Floyd County, discussing mountaintop removal mining.

“We cannot win a pissing contest with (Senate President) David Williams on that.”
– Rep. Stein, speaking about different versions of child booster seat legislation.

“I think it’s a stupid bill, and you can quote me. With this one, the Senate can say it passed a booster seat bill without actually doing anything. This bill basically says, ‘Oh. please, please, please put your child in a booster seat.’”
– Rep. Tom Burch, D-Louisville, on the Senate version of the booster seat bill.

“Your attitude is not helpful to the process.”
– Rep. Moberly, to Senate President Williams in a budget conference committee meeting.

“Mr. Speaker, we haven’t made any personal statements against any of your members, and I wish that you could get your chairman under control and talk to him and have him take a couple of deep breaths.”
– Williams, to House Speaker Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green, immediately after Moberly’s remark.

“I don’t appreciate that, that I need to take a deep breath. You need to take it just as much as I do.”
– Moberly, responding to Williams.

“I haven’t made any personal comments about you.”
– Williams, to Moberly.

“That’s not true. You’ve made several smart(slight pause)-aleck comments.”
– Moberly, to Williams.

“That’s what this is all about, selling out education and human services for water and sewer projects. And when you vote for this budget tonight ... that’s what your doing. You’re selling out the children of this state and the teachers of this state for water and sewer projects.”
– Moberly, during floor debate on the budget, which he voted against for the first time in his career.

“I’m voting no against this budget for the state employees. I’m voting no against this budget for the teachers. But more importantly, Mr. Speaker, I’m voting no against this budget because it hurts the children of the commonwealth and it hurts the economic well-being of the people of this commonwealth.”
– Rep. Derrick Graham, D-Frankfort, during floor debate on the budget.

“It was a big spread, lots of food. Oh yeah, there was free liquor. ... I don’t think it was a cash bar.”
– Sen. Tom Buford, R-Nicholasville, recalling a gala party prominent lobbyists threw for members of the Senate at Thunder Over Louisville just a few days before lawmakers returned to Frankfort for the veto days of the 2007 General Assembly. The event was repeated this year.

“After about 15 minutes, I didn’t see the entertainment value.”
– Buford, explaining why he woudn’t attend the event this year, adding that “about this time of year, I’ve seen enough lobbyists for a while.”

Plenty of blame to go around

Today's column:

FRANKFORT — What a fitting end to the 2008 General Assembly.

Total chaos. Utter confusion. An indifference toward legal niceties that led to a resurrection of the good old days of stopped clocks and floor sessions that ran beyond the constitutional midnight witching hour into the wee hours of the morning. (Darn those computerized time stamps.)

And most fitting for this session, the really good stuff was left twisting in the wind — a wind generated by excessive amounts of hot air — when the gavels finally fell.

Shoot, when sine die was uttered, even the roads portion of the projects package that was put together to buy House votes for an ugly budget was left hanging with the really good stuff.

If there is a telling vignette about the anarchy and disarray that marked this session’s final hours, it is the fact that lawmakers left projects on the table when they went home. The last time that happened, hell froze over, pigs flew, the sun came up in the west and earthlings carved up the moon for a feast of green cheese.

Of course, the blame game started immediately. Senate President David Williams said the House needs some backbone, apparently a reference to that chamber’s reluctance, in the face of intense lobbying by labor groups, to pass a compromise pension-reform bill that actually gave the House much of what it wanted.

House Speaker Jody Richards accused Senate Republicans of orchestrating a “contrived, calculated move” to delay key decisions until the session’s closing hours, in an attempt to force the House into agreeing with Senate proposals if it wanted to get anything done.

Gov. Steve Beshear, as he has often done in the past, talked about a “dysfunctional” legislative process in which “partisanship trumps good government.”

Amen to each assessment.

Dysfunctional is an apt description for this General Assembly session, but its dysfunction exceeded that of other recent sessions only by a matter of degree. And there is more than enough blame to go around.

Williams is right about the lack of backbone among the Democrats who control the House. They often are so afraid of their own shadows they can’t even decide which vehicle should lead off a one-car funeral procession.

Richards is right about Senate Republicans’ fascination with (addiction to?) playing brinkmanship games in hopes House Democrats’ timidity will cause them to buy into the belief that bad bills are better than no bills at all.

But the Senate couldn’t play those games without the complicity of the House. Decisions on key pieces of legislation get pushed back to the final hours because both sides engage in delaying tactics that waste the limited number of days in a session.

And let’s not ignore Beshear’s contribution to the debacle.

As governor, he has a bully pulpit that enables him to go over the heads of lawmakers and appeal directly to voters. It can be particularly useful when a governor confronts legislative reluctance to buy into such ideas as pension reform, ethics reform, casino gambling or cigarette-tax hikes.

Much has been made of the fact that Beshear squandered his political capital and his post-election momentum with a foolish foray into the special election for the Senate’s 30th District seat. And such analysis is dead on.

But there is another fact that must be considered: Having squandered his momentum in the 30th District, Beshear did little to regain momentum by asserting himself as governor, by using his bully pulpit to take his message directly to the people and put pressure on lawmakers to deal with important issues rather than play games with them.

Beshear might not have been able to save this session by making more use of his pulpit, but he at least would have looked more gubernatorial as his agenda went down in flames around him.

Political legacies rely on Energizer taxpayers

When politicians seek to embellish their legacies by leaving personal monuments that serve as a continuing reminder that they once passed through and had some impact on the local, state or national political scene, taxpayers sometimes find themselves transformed into the Energizer Bunny in the sense that they keep paying and paying and paying for what can only be described as political ego trips. Consider a couple of expenditures authorized by House Bill 410, the initial package of projects that bought enough House votes to assure passage of a god-awful biennial budget.

In Floyd County, a total of $600,000 ($200,000 for the current budget year and $200,000 each for the next two years) was approved for "Mountain Top Recreational - Repair - Upkeep - Maintenance." The money will cover a variety of costs at the Stone Crest Golf Course and its surrounding residential community, a strip-mine reclamation project that will always be linked to the political legacy of Rep. (and former House Majority Floor Leader) Greg Stumbo, who championed its development and who owns a home there.

Over in Pike County, the East Kentucky Exposition Center, a legacy of former Gov. Paul Patton that he helped reach fruition by directing some contingency fund money its way after his career-ending scandal, will receive a total of $275,000 over the next two years to help cover operations and maintenance costs.

Yes, the personal monument legacies have a way of not paying for themselves after they're built. But that's OK, because politicians can always find a way to make those Energizer Bunny taxpayers keep paying and paying and paying.

One-day delay

Due to the General Assembly stretching its work into the wee hours of Wednesday morning, my mid-week column - normally published on Wednesdays - will be pushed back to Thursday this week.

New Lunsford spin doesn't spin true

Saturday was too dreary and cool for comfort on the golf course. So, I wandered into downtown Frankfort to see what kind of response Democratic senatorial candidate Bruce Lunsford got at a meet-and-greet scheduled to coincide with the Franklin County Democrats' county convention. The turnout was decent, but the more interesting thing to me was a new spin the Lunsford camp was putting on his endorsement of Republican Ernie Fletcher in his 2003 gubernatorial against Democrat Ben Chandler.

This spin holds that the endorsement can be a positive force for Lunsford in the U.S. Senate race by virtue of appealing to Republicans who hold a grudge against incumbent Minority Floor Leader Mitch McConnell for his abandonment of Fletcher during the BlackBerry Jam hiring scandal that resulted in Fletcher's indictment. This spin goes on to hold that Lunsford's ability to exploit R disenchantment with McConnell will be particularly important in Western Kentucky, where the Lunsford folks expect the race to be decided.

Hello! Let me count the ways this spin fails the reason test, starting with the fact that Lunsford still has to win the Democratic primary before he can exploit any issue against McConnell. Sure, he's the prohibitive primary favorite. But there is much to be said about not tempting karma by counting the eggs before the chicks emerge.

But assuming Lunsford does meet McConnell in the fall, there is still a couple of problems with this positive spin on the Fletcher endorsement. First, the R's remain in the minority in Kentucky. So, exploiting the antipathy a minority of R's feel toward McConnell probably won't offset the antipathy a minority (or even a majority) of D's remain pissed at Lunsford for dissing his party's candidate in 2003.

Second, appealing to disenchanted R's isn't going to win Western Kentucky, where all R's (disenchanted or otherwise) are outnumbered by about a 2-1 margin by D's. And conservative Western Kentucky D's, who will determine the outcome of the Senate race in that region, aren't likely to be Fletcher fanatics who will take their wrath out on McConnell. On the contrary, their reason for crossing party lines to vote R has far more to do with the policy positions they share with McConnell than with any allegiance to Ernie Fletcher.

CPE flips the bird; Beshear must respond

If Gov. Steve Beshear ever hopes to shed the wimp image that has plagued his administration since his disastrous attempt to influence the outcome of the special election in the Senate's 30th District, he cannot stand idly by after the Council on Postsecondary Education flipped him the bird in response to his request that the panel follow statutory requirements in picking a new CPE president. In selecting interim President Brad Cowgill for the permanent job, council members ignored at least the intent of the law that requires a national search and a president who is a professional educator with a national reputation in postsecondary education.

Since the council seems to have little regard for abiding by these statutory requirements, Beshear's course of action seems clear. He should request the immediate resignation of all members of the council, and he should fully explore any and all legal options he has for undoing their decision so a new president can be chose in accordance with the law.

Even if some members of the council refuse to honor his request by resigning, they will have been put on public notice that their performance of their duties has not been acceptable. More important for Beshear, a request for the resignation of all council members sends a signal that his patience has limits and that he is not averse to using a little gubernatorial muscle when it's appropriate.

How good is David Williams' word?

Sunday's column:

FRANKFORT — Two days to go, two days for state lawmakers to try to redeem themselves for blowing nearly $60,000 a day on a legislative session in which their main accomplishment has been a regressive budget that mistreats education, human services and other crucial programs such as legal aid so badly it ought to be indicted for assault in the first degree.

Full redemption is impossible for lawmakers. Two days gives them too little time to undo all the harm they have done or to resurrect all the good stuff they’ve ignored in the first 58 working days of the 2008 session. But token redemption can be obtained if a handful of worthy measures that have reached the final stages of the legislative process win approval before the session adjourns Tuesday night.

Chief among these are House Bill 250, which would strengthen executive branch ethics rules, and House Bill 600, a proposed comprehensive reform of the state’s public pension plans. Both now are stalled in free conference committees.

One of the bigger issues in regard to the ethics bill is a provision added by the Senate that would bar candidates for statewide office from soliciting or accepting campaign contributions from lobbyists and people seeking or holding state contracts or grants.

Gov. Steve Beshear has said he’s fine with such restrictions, as long as lawmakers apply the same rules to legislative candidates. Sounds reasonable. What’s good for the executive branch ought to be good for the legislative branch as well.

Sure, lawmakers can argue that the executive branch awards most state contracts. But who really believes a state legislator, particularly a powerful one, can’t exert some influence in the contracting process?

Two issues dominate the standoff over pensions. Well, make that three issues, the most important of which is the value of Senate President David Williams’ word.

After the Senate approved a revised version of HB 600 in mid-March, Williams told the Herald-Leader that “we will pass the House version” if the House cannot accept the changes made by the Senate.

At the time, Williams did not hedge his statement with ifs, ands, buts, maybes or other qualifiers. The hedging came later, after the House agreed to several improvements the Senate made to the bill but balked at two key provisions.

One involves classified school employees, who now fall under the County Employees Retirement System. The Senate wants to create a new retirement system that separates county and city workers from the classifieds. The House wants to study the classifieds issue (which was not addressed in detail by the blue ribbon panel that looked at pension plans in general last year) before deciding where they belong.

Initially, the Senate proposed to split up CERS on July 1. Subsequently, the Senate offered to make the effective date July 1, 2010, which ostensibly would allow time to revisit the matter if a study finds problems with the Senate solution.

Only a sucker would accept this compromise because it is no compromise at all. Once the Senate gets the CERS split in the statute books, even with a delayed effective date, Williams’ retreat from his pledge to “pass the House version” suggests the Senate would never agree to revisit the issue.

The other hang-up is the Senate’s insistence on a “hybrid” plan that combines defined benefits with defined contributions. It’s a much more reasonable hybrid than the Draconian one the Senate offered last year, but it’s still a hybrid.

And employee groups, which feel a certain obligation to protect the interests of the future hires who would be affected by the new rules in this bill, feel they have sacrificed enough in the name of bringing financial stability to systems plagued by huge unfunded liabilities.

Under the provisions of HB 600, future hires will work longer, retire later, use a lower “multiplier” to figure their benefits, contribute more of their salaries for health care costs and have their retirement cost-of-living allowance capped at 1 percent, barring an act of the legislature to increase it for any given year.

Under the circumstances, employee groups are loathe to give up any part of the existing defined benefits plan for a hybrid. They have agreed to reduced benefits for future hires. Their supporters in the House have compromised by accepting certain provisions of the Senate version. But the Senate has refused to budge on major points of contention.

That’s why the fate of pension reform hinges on the value of Williams’ word. “(W)e will pass the House version,” he said in mid-March. Over the next two days, Kentuckians will learn whether he will honor his word or renege on it.

Quickies, legislative and otherwise

1. After losing to challenger Brandon Smith in the 2000 84th District House race, former Rep. Scott Alexander tried three times to get back to the General Assembly. On the third try, he succeeded (if only temporarily), winning back his old House seat in a March 18 special election to fill the vacancy created by Smith’s election to the Senate’s 30th District seat in an earlier special election. But a couple of days after being sworn in, Alexander took off on a trip to Costa Rica, acting as a chaperone for his daughter’s (and Smith’s son’s) high school Spanish, which caused him to miss most of this session’s closing days and crucial votes on such issues as the budget. This is the guy Gov. Steve Beshear chose to back in a losing cause in that 30th District Senate race. Geez, talk about throwing away all your momentum and political capital for nothing. (By the way, since both chambers of the General Assembly routinely excuse absent members, Alexander was drawing his normal legislative pay every day he was on the trip, including weekends. He was also receiving his normal expenses for legislative sessions.)

2. During this session, Senate Republicans proposed that the Kentucky Lottery Corp. return more of its profits to the General Fund and that the prison population be reduced by putting some non-violent in rehabilitation programs or on house arrest. That led some wags to opine that the Senate R’s wanted to balance the budget by relying on expanded gambling and putting convicts back on the street. The joke is a gross oversimplification, but there is a certain irony to this year’s proposals by a party that has long been tough on crime and opposed to expanded gambling.

3. We all know who’s behind the FBI investigation into Transportation Cabinet activities during former Gov. Ernie Fletcher’s administration. It has to be that partisan rogue Attorney General Greg Stumbo conducting another political witch hunt. But wait, Stumbo is back in his old House seat. And even if he were still AG, the FBI answers to the Justice Department, now run by appointees of a Republican president. So if this investigation turns up evidence of misdeeds, how are the Fletcher apologists going to explain it away?