JUDGE HORNER’S ROUNDUP FOR WEEK OF MAY 9TH, 2008
State House Democratic Whip Rob Wilkey (D-Scottsville) has announced that he would leave the House at the end of this year, leaving a hole in the five-member House Democratic leadership team. In a May 6 e-mail reply to a scathing e-mail by Rep. Susan Westrom (D-Lexington) to Wilkey and to the other four members of the House leadership group, Wilkey wrote, “I thought we didn’t serve anyone very well ... I also thought there was a conscious effort to embarrass this governor during this session. It worked. He could have done a better job of building a relationship with the House, but I also feel he was misled into believing that we would work with him. We didn’t.” Westrom accused the team of total failure in the legislative session ended on Apr. 15.
Speaker Jody Richards (D-Bowling Green) issued a five-paragraph May 8 press release – as a method of response – in view of press reports written about Wilkey’s e-mail. Richards said that Wilkey was inaccurate in accusing the leaders of willfully not working with Beshear. “I trust that Rep. Wilkey’s email merely reflects his frustration with the session, rather than lasting ill-will toward the rest of the members of House Leadership,” Richards said, according to a May 8 post by The Herald-Leader’s Larry Dale Keeling at his KYKurmudgeon.typepad.com.
Wilkey also accused the leadership team generally at being preoccupied with holding on to their positions to the detriment of the rank-and-file House Democrats, according to a May 8 story by The Courier-Journal’s Joseph Gerth. “The whole session became some kind of effort to assure re-election by members of leadership, instead of assuring re-election of our members – and, more importantly, what would be best for our state,” Wilkey wrote. Gerth reported that Richards in an interview flatly denied Wilkey’s assertions.
Gov. Steve Beshear issued the following statement, according to a May 7 post by Keeling: “I am saddened to hear of Rep. Wilkey’s decision to leave the General Assembly. He has been a dedicated public servant who has devoted a great deal of his personal and professional time to the people in his district and to the people of Kentucky. His work as part of the House leadership proved most helpful to my administration during the recent session of the General Assembly. I wish Rob well and I want to thank him for working with me in our attempts to move Kentucky forward.”
House Minority Leader Jeff Hoover (R-Jamestown) issued the following statement, according to a May 7 post by The Herald-Leader’s Ryan Alessi at polwatchers.typepad.com: “Rob Wilkey is one of the best friends I have ever had in my life, and not just in the legislature since we began serving together in 1997. He is a true gentleman, very smart, hard-working and was an outstanding legislator. I am going to miss his personal friendship and counsel, but the people of Kentucky and the Kentucky General Assembly is losing one of its best ... bar none.”
In 2005 Wilkey narrowly failed in an attempt to unseat Richards, but his later election as Majority Whip put him in continuous close contact with Richards – a situation that has not played out smoothly for either lawmaker. The disunity was often cited as key to Democrats’ failures during the 2008 regular session of the General Assembly that adjourned on Apr. 15. Wilkey and Speaker Pro-Tem Larry Clark (D-Louisville) comprised the minority faction of the five-member group with Richards, Majority Leader Rocky Adkins (D-Sandy Hook), and Majority Caucus Chairman Charlie Hoffman (D-Georgetown) controlling the majority. Wilkey’s departure in the wake of public outrage with lawmakers’ performance may unsettle the status of some or all of the other four House Democratic leaders.
Clark told Gerth that he agreed with Wilkey’s assessment of the problem. “I think there was a big division in leadership, and it hurt us in getting things done this session, and it hurt us in working with the governor,” Clark said. Wilkey is a lawyer and general counsel for Commonwealth Brands, a cigarette distributor, but Wilkey said his company did not ask him to give up his legislative career.
Clinton’s KY Lead at 34%
US Sen. Hillary Clinton’s (D-NY) lead in the May 20 Kentucky primary stands at 34% according to SurveyUSA.com’s latest poll of 595 likely voters that was released on May 6. The poll, co-sponsored by Cincinnati’s WCPO-TV and Louisville’s WHAS-TV, has a 4% margin for error. Clinton’s Kentucky margin over US Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) in the Democratic race for president has stayed remarkably stable since the first poll on Mar. 31 showed her with a 29% lead. Polls released on Apr. 15 and 29 both showed her with 36% spreads.
The following comments appear on the organization’s web site about the latest poll: “Two weeks to the Democratic Primary for President in Kentucky, Hillary Clinton remains decisively atop Barack Obama, according to this 4th tracking poll conducted by SurveyUSA for WHAS-TV in Louisville and WCPO-TV in Cincinnati. Today, it’s Clinton 62%, Obama 28%, effectively unchanged from SurveyUSA polls released on 04/29/08 and 04/15/08. Clinton leads in every region of the state and in every demographic subpopulation of consequence.”
Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton spent May 2 and 3 in Louisville attending activities related to the Kentucky Derby, and returned to the state to headline the opening of the campaign’s Frankfort headquarters on May 8 and for an appearance at an EKU event in Richmond that same day. Sen. Clinton spoke to a Kentucky Democratic Party fund-raiser in Louisville on May 9 – an event to which Obama was also invited but declined to attend.
SurveyUSA.com’s latest poll on Kentucky’s Democratic US Senate primary shows very little change in multi-millionaire Bruce Lunsford’s big lead over a group of six opponents. Lunsford now has a lead of 19% over multi-millionaire Louisville businessman Greg Fischer, according to the May 6-released poll with a 4.1% margin for error. The others all trail Fischer – each in single digits. On Apr. 29, Lunsford led Fischer by 25% so Lunsford’s lead with two weeks to go has slightly shrunk.
The following comments appear on the organization’s web site about the latest poll: “Two Weeks Out, Lunsford Still Well in Front in KY Dem Senate Primary: In a Democratic Primary for United States Senator from Kentucky today, 05/06/08, 2 weeks until the primary, Bruce Lunsford defeats Greg Fischer, 41% to 22%, according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted exclusively for WHAS-TV Louisville and WCPO-TV Cincinnati. Five other candidates are in single digits. Compared to an identical SurveyUSA poll released one week ago, Fischer is up 4, Lunsford is down 2. Among men, three weeks ago, Lunsford led by 40 points; one week ago, by 21; today, by 20. Among women, Lunsford led by 35, by 27, and now by 19. Among voters 50+, Lunsford led by 44, by 21, and now by 14. The winner of the 05/20/08 closed Democratic Primary advances to face incumbent Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the U.S. Senate, who is running for his 5th term.”
The poll was taken from May 3-5 on the heels of a negative TV ad campaign against Lunsford that Fischer ran accusing Lunsford of throwing nursing home residents out of facilities that his former company, Vencor Inc., owned and operated about 10 years ago. Lunsford has denied Fischer’s claims and is currently running his own ad’s to rebut Fischer’s ad allegations.
When his first TV ad’s went up to introduce himself to voters, Fischer was criticized as being like a wet noodle with no energy whatever. Widely-quoted Democratic political consultant Danny Briscoe, who is not involved with any Senate candidate’s campaign, said that Fischer sounded like “he was going to a funeral.” Briscoe said Fischer “doesn’t come across forcefully,” according to a May 4 story by The Courier-Journal’s Andrew Wolfson. “You have a chance of falling asleep.” Briscoe added that “nobody knows him, and I don’t think he has a chance to win.”
Keeling annually posts on his kykurmudgeon.typepad.com a list of the most pithy quotes during the just concluded legislative session. The following are some of those from his Apr. 18 post:
“…‘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…
“ ‘[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….”
Keeling’s Apr. 20 column contained some more quotes that he heard during the legislative session that were not all attributable to certain speakers:
“I sort of had the impression the cupboard was going to be bare. I just didn’t know that the cupboard was going to be gone, too.”
“We have a six-year road plan that looks like a 15-year wish list.”
“The good news is that we have 18 months to deal with the really bad news.”
“We’re spending money like drunken sailors over there, and we don’t have it, and we’ve been doing it for a long time.”
“We’re anorexic now. And we’re going to tighten the belt on that.”
“They basically pulled the plug on the bathtub and drained her.”
“I think next we’ll have a bed-belt bill. You know people fall out of bed all the time.”
“May I suggest this bill is full of sin?”
“We must hopscotch surrounding states that have tiptoed into casino gambling.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
And, then, finally, Keeling reported on an exchange between Rep. Bob Damron (D-Nicholasville) who complained that House Judiciary Committee Chairwoman Kathy Stein (D-Lexington) would not place on her committee’s agenda his bill to allow guns on state university campuses:
Damron: “She’s gun-control Sally up here.”
Stein: “I have a very thick skin. I’ve been called worse by better.”
The state budget to run through June 30, 2010 and passed by the state General Assembly on Apr. 2 contains $231.5 million for the Ohio River Bridges Project (“ORBP”) through a “GARVEE” bond issue – an amount that state Transportation Cabinet officials say will keep the work on the project on schedule. A “GARVEE” bond (Grant Application Revenue Vehicles) is one paid by anticipated US highway money. However, US Transportation Sec. Mary Peters has said on many occasions that no new construction money from the Federal Highway Trust Fund will be available to the states after the fiscal year ending Sep. 30, 2009 – a date within the upcoming state biennial budget that will end on June 30, 2010.
House-Senate budget conference committee members could not agree on exactly where the rest of Kentucky’s $2.9 billion share of the $4.1 billion project will come from after the expiration of the upcoming biennium. Richards said that a decision, on whether user tolls would be the final answer, would be made “sometime down the road,” according to an Apr. 2 story by The Courier-Journal’s Marcus Green. Rep. Jim Wayne (D-Louisville) called the appropriation “risky” because lawmakers did not devise a long-term funding strategy. “We do not have a way that we’re going to pay for these bridges,” Wayne said, according to Green’s Apr. 14 story.
ORBP planning and site preparation is all that is scheduled over the next two years with construction due to commence in 2011, according to Green’s story. The ORBP calls for a new I-65 bridge in downtown Louisville, a complete re-do of the existing Spaghetti Junction I-64/65 merger at the current I-65 Kennedy Bridge downtown, and a new I-265 bridge bear Prospect in eastern Jefferson County.
The Cincinnati Enquirer’s Patrick Crowley reported on remarks by several legislative leaders in his story posted on Apr. 13 at the newspaper’s nky.com. State Senate Minority Leader Ed Worley (D-Richmond), appearing on Apr. 7 on Kentucky Educational Television’s “Kentucky Tonight,” said that for the ORBP to be built “it is going to involve tolls.” Worley continued, “There is no other financing mechanism short of the federal government just giving a $3 billion award to the city of Louisville. That’s not going to happen. We all in the legislature have come to grips with the fact that the financing mechanism used for the bridges will be tolls.”
Referring to a $3 billion replacement for the aging I-71/75 Brent Spence Bridge at Covington, Crowley reported that Richards on the same show then seemed to embrace the tolling option, “We have other bridges that are going to come online too, and this will be a pattern, hopefully, for the other bridges so we can build those around the state.” State Senate Pres. David Williams (R-Burkesville) said on the show that, because the Brent Spence replacement is behind the ORBP in planning and scheduling, it is possible that tolling might not be used for the Brent Spence because “the federal policy might change as far as earmarking funds.
Opposition to bridge user tolls is believed to run rampant in the NKY region as eight Kenton County municipalities have already gone on record against the proposal to use tolling revenue source as Kentucky’s share for a Brent Spence replacement. Crowley reported that at least one NKY lawmaker, who was among 21 House members who voted against the conference committee’s final budget bill, was spooked by language on page 120 of the 247-page budget bill document: “The Secretary of the Transportation Cabinet, or his or her designee, shall be authorized to update the initial financial plan utilizing toll revenues as an available funding source for the Louisville-Southern Indiana Ohio River Bridges Project.”
“What is done in Jefferson County is probably what they’ll try here,” state Rep. Arnold Simpson (D-Covington) said, according to Crowley’s Apr. 8 story. “Be it Northern Kentucky or Jefferson County, people there pay a lot of money into gasoline tax coffers, and we don’t get that much back. It is blatantly unfair to impose a toll on those bridges.”
Two other lawmakers from the region, who voted for the budget, said that they were careful to understand that the final budgetary language was specific only to the ORBP and, if it weren’t, they would have voted against the budget, too. “If it didn’t, I wouldn’t have voted for the budget ... because I’m not voting for tolls,” state Sen. Jack Westwood (R-Crescent Springs) said, according to Crowley’s story. “And if tolls are proposed on the Brent Spence, Northern Kentucky legislators will work against it.”
State Rep. Adam Koenig (R-Erlanger) initially voted against the House budget bill which included tolling language for all “mega-projects” exceeding $500 million in scope. However, Koenig voted for the conference committee budget bill with the Jefferson County-specific language quoted above. “There's nothing in there for the Brent Spence,” Koenig said, according to Crowley’s story. “If it comes, we’ll fight it just like we did this time.”
A Mar. 26 story by The Kentucky Gazette’s Feoshia Henderson presented statistics concerning the travel behavior of NKY lawmakers’ constituents. Henderson reported that the following percentages of the work force in the following counties cross the Ohio River each day to work in the Cincinnati metropolitan area: Boone-18.8%; Kenton-26.5%; and Campbell-34.9%.
On proposed legislation to form local authorities to build bridges and charge tolls, Simpson told Henderson, “We send far more to Frankfort than we get back…(If) you have to fund it through a local authority, I think it’s a regional insult.” This legislation did not pass the General Assembly despite very heavy support from chambers of commerce from across the state and from other business groups.
US Sen. George Voinovich (R-KY) told The Associated Press for its story posted on Apr. 13 at nky.com that tolls must be included in the funding for a Brent Spence replacement. In answer to a direct question about user tolls, Voinovich said, “Sure, it’s going to be one of the options. It’s got to be looked at.” After Voinovich met in Cincinnati on Apr. 14 behind closed doors with regional governmental and transportation leaders, he made this contradictory statement, according to a story by Jessica Noll posted on Apr. 14 at kypost.com: “The most important thing I’d like to share with you, my feeling is this ought not to be a toll bridge because it’s not something that deals with Kentucky or Ohio, but is a national priority and should be shared in by the rest of America,”
“People realize the state and federal governments don’t have the funding,” said Kay Stewart, executive director of Build the Bridges Coalition, according to Henderson’s story. “We really can’t wait and hope somebody somehow comes up with the money.” Build the Bridges Coalition is an organization composed of businesses in Louisville and southern Indiana formed for the specific purpose of pushing the ORBP.
In addition to the mega-projects at Louisville and Covington, a new I-69 bridge between Evansville and Henderson is also proposed. The current price tag on that is $800 million. Indiana has already started right-of-way acquisition for I-69 construction southwest of Indianapolis.
Tyler Allen, the “father” of the 8664 alternative to the ORBP, came under fire in a letter to the editor by Jackie Green published on Apr. 8 by The Courier-Journal. Green accused Allen of having a significant conflict of interest by proposing an East End bridge – to the exclusion of a new downtown bridge – because Allen owns an 18% interest in 32.68 acres at the southeast corner of US 42 and the northern terminus of I-265. Allen’s 8664 proposal would not build the downtown bridge, would not re-do Spaghetti Junction, would dismantle I-64 in downtown Louisville, and would divert I-64 traffic (if headed westbound for purposes of this discussion) over a new East End bridge and across southern Indiana over the existing I-265 roadway to the point that it connects with I-64 west of New Albany. This diversion for I-64 traffic would add about 20+ miles to a trip between Frankfort and St. Louis.
Green wrote: “…For six months, 8664 has refused a request that it disclose the fact that Tyler Allen is a principal and president of Ferriell Lorenz Brownsboro Partnership, a company that owns 32.68 acres at the intersection of I-265 and U.S. 42… The relationship between 8664’s East End bridge and that 32.68 acres suggests a conflict of interest… The objection is to lobbying the public while not disclosing the fact that one has a financial interest in the issue. The ‘10,000 people in this community’ that 8664 claims to represent deserve full disclosure….” Green is a public transportation advocate and founder of the Kentuckiana Transportation Action Partnership
May 2 – CNHI News Service’s Ronnie Ellisquoting Mike Barry, then-reporter for The Courier-Journal, on former Gov. A. B. “Happy” Chandler’s “favorite son” presidential candidacy at the 1956 Democratic National Convention: “Any time Chandler is referred to as Kentucky’s favorite son, it should be made unmistakably clear the sentence is incomplete.”
May 4 – Keeling in The Herald-Leader: “Beshear’s second wind”
“…we’ll always be able to deliver glitz and glitter on the first Saturday in May because the Kentucky Derby is the greatest two minutes in sports, a race that annually draws up to 20 contenders and provides the best damn display of equine and human heart, strength, traffic skills and riding ability you’ll find in any race anywhere.
“But the rest of the year can be a struggle for Kentucky tracks trying to remain competitive with their counterparts in the growing number of states where purses are supplemented by casino and racino gambling.
“All of that was supposed to change with the landslide election of Gov. Steve Beshear, who made expanded gambling that would boost the state’s revenue and benefit Kentucky’s racing industry a focal point of his campaign.
“But Beshear fumbled away his political capital and momentum early on. House Democratic leaders did their party’s governor no favors with their clumsy handling of the issue. And the Thoroughbred industry, as usual, didn’t seem to get its own act completely together.
“And here Kentucky sits on its annual Sunday morning coming down, with no casino gambling amendment on the November ballot, with unmet revenue needs forcing painful cuts in education and human services, and with its racing industry stuck at a competitive disadvantage…
“But once lawmakers left town at the end of the session, Beshear showed he knows a thing or two about exercising gubernatorial power…
“He vetoed a highway projects bill…(and) the implied threat that he might disband the Council on Postsecondary Education by executive order…are small steps back for a governor who has fallen very far very fast. But small though they are, they at least suggest it would be a mistake to think of him as a pushover.”
May 6 – Keeling at his KYKurmudgeon.typepad.com: “Leftovers, legislative and otherwise”
“…Although these legislative dictators did not put a casino gambling amendment on the ballot for the November election, this issue will not go away until voters have their say. And as long as that issue is unresolved, there will be no serious discussion of Kentucky’s long-term revenue needs because a decision up or down on the issue determines how much more money the state needs from other sources…
“…After Beshear vetoed the legislature’s two-year road plan, Republican Senate President David Williams mentioned the possibility of a constitutional challenge of the veto based on its timing. Williams claimed the governor was one day late in issuing the veto. But the risk in challenging the veto on this basis is that the courts may decide the road plan itself, along with everything else that was enrolled (signed by chairs of the respective houses) after midnight April 16, violates the constitutional provision that says the General Assembly has to adjourn no later than April 15.”
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