Mere Politics

Some people just like to complain

The supporters of domestic partner benefits at taxpayer-funded universities are complaining that the State Senate moved so quickly in passing Senate Bill 112, which would ban such benefits. 

But I'm wondering why they are complaining about the legislation moving so quickly.  Last session, far from complaining that the legislation moved so quickly, lawmakers opposed to the bill complained that we were spending so much time talking about a domestic partner benefits ban, since there were "so many other important issues to deal with".

You just can't please some people.

Beshear's Big Mistake: Why the governor's scorched earth policy toward Republicans will doom his legislative agenda

Passing legislation in a bipartisan legislature requires building alliances, not burning bridges.  The Beshear administration's recent cancellation of a road project in David William's senate district was an attempt by the Governor to put Williams in his place.  It was Beshear's first big mistake.

It's one thing to jerk the chain of someone you can beat; it's quite another to do it to someone who can beat you.  Senate President David Williams has about as strong a lock on power in the Senate as anyone since John "Eck" Rose.  If he wants a bill passed out of the Senate, it passes; if he doesn't want it, it doesn't pass.

Williams has been criticized for his imperious manner.  And indeed, whatever room he happens to be in, there no doubt that he thinks he is the smartest and most articulate person there.  There are two things to be said about this: First of all, he is.  Second, although it puts some people off, it is usually the same bunch of people who didn't like him in the first place.

Despite sometimes being contary and condescending, William's leadership in the Republican Senate caucus is solid and uncontested. His manner may grate on those outside the caucus, but he is admired and trusted inside his own caucus.  His members know their fate is secure in his politically capable hands, and he knows how to push the caucus in the right direction while respecting his members.  The members of the caucus like success, and they know Williams will deliver it.

Those who work with him know Williams likes his position respected.  He is the Senate leader and he likes to be treated accordingly.  This is where Beshear has gone seriously astray in his strategy for success in his first legislative session.

The first casualty of Beshear's gaffe will be his casino legislation--if indeed it had a chance in the first place.

As I have pointed out elsewhere, David Williams already had every political incentive to stop the Governor's expanded gambling effort.  If it does anything, Beshear's clumsy move puts the nail in the coffin of the effort to bring casinos to the state.

As Jill Johnson Keeney correctly observed in her Courier-Journal article last Sunday, the move was the political equivalent of saying, ""I, Steve Beshear, am the most powerful office holder in Kentucky. You, David Williams, will suffer if you don't cooperate with my agenda."

Bad move.

This strategy only works if you can do something to David Williams and he can't do something to you.  Unfortunately for Beshear, there's plenty Williams can do.

Look for him to do it.

Unbridled Greed: The developing story of how casino money is distorting Kentucky politics

The Beshear administration came to office on the wings of a promise that it was going to avoid what it considered the ethical lapses of the previous administration.  Does it seem strange to anyone that, in the wake this exalted rhetoric, his first act as governor has been to ally himself with an industry far-famed for corruption?

Of course, Beshear never hid his intention of pushing for casino gambling during his campaign for the state's highest office.  But what he didn't say was how it was going to be done.

Beshear and other casino advocates say that opening the floodgates to casino interests will benefit average Kentuckians.  But if this is true, then why is it not average Kentuckians, but big gambling interests, who are now in the process of doing what they do best: maximizing their profits by minimizing good government?

Before elected leaders turned away the gambling industry two years ago, a pro-casino group attempted to influence a special State Senate election by pouring tens of thousands of dollars into the campaign of the pro-casino candidate.  The candidate won, but the strategy thankfully backfired when attention to the potentially harmful impact of big gambling money on state government was exposed.

This year, the gambling industry has turned on the financial spigots once again.  According the Lexington Herald-Leader, gambling interests poured almost half a million dollars into a little-known Democratic campaign fund with the obvious intent of buying influence in the debate over inviting casinos into the state.  "Nearly 40 people connected with those interests," said the report, "accounted for about 28 percent of the money raised by the Kentucky Victory 2007 Committee."

It is a strange historical irony that attempts by gambling interests to influence government should be directed at changing constitutional language that was placed there for the very purpose of preventing attempts to influence government by gambling interests.

Kentucky's constitution prohibits casino gambling for a very good reason: because it can distort and disfigure the political landscape of a state. Anti-gambling language was included in Kentucky's constitution in 1891 because of numerous scandals involving corruption and influence peddling by the gambling industry.

Yes, that was a long time ago. But gambling-related scandals haven’t ceased in recent times, as the public familiarity with names like Edwin Edwards and Jack Abramoff testify.

The casino industry will argue that it isn't like it used to be.  They will say that, unlike their institutional forbears, they are not bribing public officials for their votes.  No, they're not.  No one is putting a wad of cash into anyone's pocket: that's the old way of doing things, and it's illegal.  Instead, they are putting a wad of cash into political campaign funds: that's the new way of doing things, and it's perfectly legal.

But the fact that the gambling industry is now legally peddling influence on a large scale, and not illegally doing it on a small scale, will come as cold comfort to Kentuckians concerned about the potential for political corruption in the Commonwealth.

The arguments offered by the casino industry are not themselves very compelling.  But the casino industry does not need logic to further its cause.  Unlike the rest of us, the casino industry is not limited by the strength of its case.  It is limited only by the size of its bank accounts. Arguments are not its greatest asset: assets are its greatest asset.

Why try to convince policymakers, when you can simply purchase them?

And there is another irony.  Relatively speaking, Kentucky is a poor state.  It is also a state that has a history of allowing itself to be exploited.  Its land, its people, and its institutions have all been victimized in various ways of those who care too little for the state's common good, and too much for their own personal benefit.

Kentucky, of all states, can ill afford for its leaders to open it up once again to those who are interested in little more than taking the "common" out of Commonwealth.

Did Fletcher do Williams a favor? Not likely.

There have been various reports that, on it's way out the door, the Fletcher administration awarded a fat road contract in Senate President David Williams home district. 

I'm not going to argue that this didn't happen.  This is the way Frankfort has worked for years, and let's just speculate on why the state's major papers have never questioned the Democratic road deals that have been going on from time immemorial.

But something doesn't compute here.

Why would the Fletcher administration want to do David Williams any favors?  Anyone who knows anything about the relations between the Governor's office and the Senate over the last for years knows that they were cold at best.  Icy might be a better description.

Why would the Fletcher administration want to act favorably toward someone who was so little favored by Fletcher and his staff?  And consider also the fact that the last week or two of an administration is a time when everyone is on their own and last guy turns out the lights.

My theory?  This was the act of a lone ranger.  And if that's correct, you can't necessarily lay it at the feet of Fletcher and his top staff.

It's Miller Time

When even the Democratic state blogs started talking about a sex scandal in the Beshear administration, I thought perhaps one of the Governor's people had been outed as a heterosexual.  But it was not to be.

What the buzz is about is a Jonathan Miller aide who, since she was hired out of college by Miller, has seen her salary increase from $21,000 to $78,981 a year. $25,000 of the increase came over the last three years.  Now such extravagance is not totally unprecedented in government.  But I guess I'm thinking of the Louis IV administration here.

Questions are also being raised about a trip in May to Las Vegas, on which the young woman apparently accompanied Miller, although one report said that Miller couldn't remember whether she went on that trip or not--right before he remembered again.

"We had business meetings," the Herald Leader reports Miller said. "On trips where I'm trying to look to my future and to develop my future business contacts, yeah, she would have been involved in that kind of activity."

Miller was appointed by Beshear as his Administration and Finance Cabinet Secretary.  The Herald-Leader reports today that the young lady was appointed to the post of executive director of inter-governmental affairs.

Yes, I know.  Don't laugh.

The story is significant for a couple of reasons: First, Beshear has raised the ethics bar very high.  A scandal like this in the first days of his administration could be deadly.  There is only one mortal sin left in politics: hypocrisy. Being caught in bed with a dead women no longer counts.  Not even a live boy raises eyebrows.

Second, Miller is the Democrats golden boy with a sterling reputation (one of the reasons the Democrats themselves are so upset about this).  Who was it that said that the corruption of the best is the worst?

Feminist group offers to help Governor meet girls

Uh oh.  It turns out that Steve Beshear has a woman problem (No, not that kind).  The feminists are after him.  As it turns out, men outnumber women two to one in the Governor's cabinet choices  For shame, Governor, for shame.  The Kentucky Women website is after the Guv.  Here's what they have to say:

WCF Foundation Calls on Governors to Appoint More Women and Announces Pilot Program to Connect Governors with Qualified Female Candidates.

All those liberals out there thought all their problems would be solved--and now this.

I'm trying to figure out how to feel about this.  I think I'll try bemusement.

Stop the Paving!

In an editorial today, the Lexington Herald-Leader reminds the Beshear administration on the importance of cleaning up the Transportation Cabinet.  The problem their worried about is making sure that road contracts are given to people fairly.  Has anyone asked the question of whether we just spending too much on road construction period?

I have seen it happen again and again: Someone in Frankfort decides that a road needs to be "improved" or "straightened out".  There will be little public notice of it, and all of a sudden some beautiful scenic road has had all the trees cut down.  Road equipment appears and a new road--sometimes a little wider than the old one, sometimes not--is presented to the public. But the only thing that is really improved is someone's pocket book.

The the taxpaying drivers, however.  The only thing they get is an ugly new route to work.

Then there is the road widening in places that have absolutely no need for it.  I've seen this one is Eastern Kentucky a couple of times.  Do we really need to pave the whole state and ruin its scenic beauty in the process?

I'm thinking of printing up bumper stickers that say, "Stop the paving!"