Monday, 24 March 2008
Beshear To Prove Irrelevance
« If You Are Going To Break A Promise Might As Well Go All Out | Main | Kentucky is Still A Racist and Sexist State »Most of us learn by experience. Take for example a hot stove. You don't really understand why you shouldn't touch it until you actually touch it. The searing pain teaches you a lesson. You learn not to touch a hot stove.
The rest of the people have a more difficult time learning simple lessons. They must touch the hot stove multiple times before they are convinced that it really hurts every time they touch it. Beshear clearly falls into the latter category. He has decided to make a last ditch effort to save his doomed "Casino Bill".
FRANKFORT -- With seven days left in his first legislative session, Gov. Steve Beshear is calling House Democrats together at 4:30 p.m. Monday "to launch a final push" to get his casino gambling amendment passed and sent to the hostile Senate.
Beshear announced the last-ditch effort at a Rotunda press conference surrounded by House leadership and handful of supportive groups -- teachers, chambers of commerce, and racetracks. The governor met privately with track leaders in his office beforehand.
Beshear is again pegging his pitch to money and the state's financial situation, thrown into stark relief with the release today of the Senate's proposed budget.
"It is clear that expanded gaming in the Commonwealth of Kentucky will create a substantial amount of recurring revenue, and it's very clear today Kentucky could certainly use a substantial amount of recurring revenue from some source," Beshear said. "It's time to let the people decide if this is how they want to get it."
The foolishness of the new effort to revive gambling is like touching a stove multiple times. Why? Because Beshear and his fellow Democrats don't have the votes to get it out of the house.
John-Mark Hack of Say No to Casinos. "We feel very good about the House Democrats who have committed to voting against casinos in Kentucky." Hack said by his count "close to 50" House members are committed to voting against the casino amendment.
I am at a loss to understand why the Dems are making a final push. The only thing Beshear will accomplish is to once again demonstrate how irrelevant he has become to the 2008 legislative session.
