Tuesday, 29 January 2008
Patronage Politics
Patronage is a funny sounding word. The dictionary defines it as the following.
4: (politics) granting favors or giving contracts or making appointments to office in return for political support
Patronage has a long history in Kentucky politics. It has been a main source of corruption that infected state government when Democrats ran everything in Frankfort. With the election of Fletcher four years ago, there was great hope that those dark days were long gone. It appears that hope was misguided.
It hasn't taken the Beshear administration long to bring back those practices. First we had Transportation Secretary Prather taking money road money from Senate Leader Williams district while building an unnecessary stop light in the his neighborhood. Now money is once again being taken from Williams district. In this instance, the money is being directed to the horse park.
Gov. Steve Beshear announced yesterday that he would take nearly $29 million intended for the state park system and use it instead for improvements at the Kentucky Horse Park, which is host of the 2010 World Equestrian Games.
More than half of that money, about $15 million, had been earmarked during the Fletcher administration for improvements at Dale Hollow Lake State Resort Park in the district of Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville.
So let me get this straight. We are taking money from the opposition Senate Leader and giving it to those in the horse industry. Could it just be a coincidence that the horse industry supports casinos and gave huge sums of money to the Beshear campaign? I tend to doubt it. Sounds a lot like patronage to me. Yup. I think it is fair to say that the days of patronage are back in Frankfort.
