We are closing in on the half way point of the legislative session and let's review the last two months since Beshear came to office.
The beginning of his term was spent disseminating FUD about the budget. He spent a lot of time talking about our dire straights and the draconian cuts which will be necessary. First off, I doubt it will be as grim as he predicts. Even if it is, we have a rainy day fund to deal with the natural fluctuations of revenue. What is down this year could easily be up next year. We might have to do some belt tightening in some areas of state government, but it won't be devastating. This was nothing but a ploy to generate support for his gaming legislation.
Next they moved on to ethics reform. At first they weren't even going to introduce ethics reform. After a rash of stinging criticism for dropping one of their campaign's key platforms, they decided to throw together an "ethics reform" bill to make it look like they were keeping a campaign promise. Of course the need for ethics reform was ridiculous and they knew it. They were hoping to let it slide this session to be forgotten later. Instead they submitted an ethics bill that is largely symbolic and does little in the way of actual reform.
Afterwards came the state senate race in the 30th. Instead of holding the election before the legislative session, Beshear and team decided to push the race into the session. Rather than lead, they decided to focus a lot of time and resources on this senate race. Amusingly, they lost the election.
Today the issue is casinos. Beshear riding into office on the backs of the horse industry has decided to focus on keeping his pledge of taking care of his own. He recently introduced expanded gambling legislation. Instead of working with the legislature to make sure that a bill was introduced that would pass, he decided to go it alone.
The results were laughable at best. It even got one Democratic Rep. Larry Clark to claim "Beshear's first draft was being written by the horse industry". Now the issue of gaming is back to square one, as the Democrats in the house are going through the process of re-writing the bill. They are reworking it into some form that might have a chance of passing in the house. Even if the legislation magically makes it out of the house, it is likely DOA in the senate.
While this circus has drawn top priority among the administration and top legislators, the pressing issues of the day continue to languish from lack of leadership. Beshear has already decided to pass on the county jail problem.
Despite a growing thunder of pleas from local officials, Gov. Steve Beshear says his administration won't push plans to ease pressure off the overburdened and underfunded county jail system this year.
"We're not planning on introducing any additional jail legislation during this session," Beshear told the Herald-Leader after his address Thursday night at the Kentucky County Judge Executive Association conference.
Likewise, we haven't heard any plans from the Beshear administration to address the rising costs of the state pension plan. Nothing on improving education. Nothing on rising health care costs. Nothing on combating our drug problems. The key word in all of this is nothing. Instead of doing the business of the state, he is wasting our time on a "casino bill" that will likely never see the light of day.
I wonder why Beshear's approval rating has dropped?
