KY Senate Kisses Horse Industry Good-Bye

What a disappointing vote yesterday in the Kentucky Senate:  citizens will not get to vote on whether Kentucky should expand gambling to aid the horse industry.

At least there was a vote; last go round, Senate President David Williams killed the bill in committee, in an alarming lack of transparency. Yet many are left with the nagging suspicion that this was a rigged vote -- timed to ensure defeat.

David Williams opposes gambling in Kentucky, although it is well known that he personally likes to gamble:  gambling for me, not thee. He has no credibility on the issue and should have just let Sen. Damon Thayer handle the whole thing.  Indeed, given Williams' resounding defeat in his bid for governor, he has little credibility on any issue.  Why is he still Senate President?  Are people still afraid of him after that disastrous election? Sure, he's a brilliant man, but wouldn't a less polarizing leader be more effective?

What is discouraging about the Senate vote is that it is anti-democratic.  Ordinary Kentuckians deserved a chance to have their say on the issue. All senators, regardless of their personal position, therefore should have voted to put the issue on the ballot.  A vote against the amendment is parternalistic; it says that voters cannot be trusted to make the right choice. The only way this issue can be put to rest is by allowing voters to address it directly.

There should be bipartisan support for our horse industry. As an out of state transplant, I can testify that bourbon and horses do more for Kentucky's image than anything else. That add an allure to the state and do  much to counterbalance the notion that we all have meth mouth and run around barefoot. Moreover, the horse industry is a huge employer, offering jobs for a wide range of skill levels, It is a tourism magnet. It is a counter-weight to the dreaded Urban Sprawl.  It is a green industry. Really, there are any number of constituencies, otherwise odd bed-fellows, that should be banding together to save it.

The reality is that other states, like New York, are gunning for our horse industry -- successfully. Those who oppose gambling need to identify an alternative to prevent the horse industry from becoming a vestige of Kentucky's past.

Rand Paul Gets Creative for David Williams

For a guy who likes to tell us how he stands on principle, Sen. Rand Paul's direct mail piece for Republican gubernatorial candidate David Williams reads like an exercise in truthiness.

Take the first sentence: "It's clear that Governor Steve Beshear is one of Barack Obama's most loyal Governors."

Really?  Then how come Beshear wasn't invited to join Obama in congratulating the Navy Seals at Fort Campbell?  And how come Beshear faked us all into thinking (1) he had been invited to the Obama event but (2) declined because he was so busy (and Obama is so unpopular in Kentucky)?

"Snub-gate," as Joe Arnold has dubbed it, illustrates that Beshear and Obama are not BFFs.  The Fort Campbell trip is the only time Obama has come to Kentucky since he was elected president; he hasn't even come to the Derby!

Moreover, as Joe Gerth points out, Beshear was not a big Obama supporter in 2008 and did not commit to vote for his nomination until Beshear arrived at the Democratic National Convention.

The "p.s." to Rand Paul's letter states that "With liberal Steve Beshear's brazen support of 'Obamacare' and the entire Obama agenda, it's little wonder Kentucky is in competition with Puerto Rico for among the highest unemployment rate in the nation!"

I don't recall Steve Beshear's "brazen support of 'Obamacare'" or the "entire Obama agenda."

Beshear requested that Kentucky be given a three year exemption from Obamacare.  (The administration denied the request and will only exempt Kentucky for part of 2011.) Someone who asks to be exempt from a law can hardly be called a "brazen supporter" of that same law.

Gerth notes in the same article linked above that Beshear has criticized the Obama administration's proposed coal rules.

Obama is hugely unpopular here, no doubt. A campaign strategy that ties Beshear to Obama would work if it were based on something other than to two having a "D" next to their name on the ballot.  The fact is that they appear to have no personal relationship and little ideological overlap. Kentuckians know that Obama is much more liberal than Beshear. The strategy is doomed to fail because it has such little basis in fact.

More is the pity that Rand Paul tarted up his letter with exaggerations trying to tie Beshear to Obama; Paul offered some really great ideas about how to make Kentucky better able to compete with Tennessee for jobs:   reform the Kentucky tax code; repeal the prevailing wage; pass a Right to Work law. These are substantive issues that could transform the economy of Kentucky.

To be sure, these are complex issues, but Williams has the intellect to present them in a way to make Kentuckians not only understand but care about them.  Williams needs to remember that voters are smart enough to get these sensible changes to make Kentucky competitive.  And Kentuckians are smart enough to know that Steve Beshear is not some wild-eyed liberal in the tank for Obama.

David Williams Proposes Amending Law on Student Enrollment

Senate Pres. David Williams supports amending the law that Judge Irv Maze just used to uphold the Jefferson County Public School District student assignment plan.

The plan is voluntary, not court-mandated. Parents who want their children to attend neighborhood schools for which they were denied challenged the plan. The basis of the suit is a Kentucky statute that permits parents to "enroll" children at the neighborhood school. Because the Kentucky legislature amended the law to drop the language "for attendance," Judge Maze held that the right to enroll a child does not equate with the right for the child to attend the school where the parents enrolled him or her.

Republicans have pre-filed a bill to add back in the "for attendance" language -- making clear that JCPS must provide neighborhood schools now denied under its assignment plan.

Even aside from the obvious benefits of neighborhood schools -- and the drawbacks of making small children spend hours a day on a bus -- the bill makes sense from a budgetary standpoint. JCPS receives roughly $3500 per child per year in state "SEEK" money. JCPS spends more than $5 million to bus children all around the county. At a time when Kentucky cannot even afford to buy new text books for its students, that $5 million could be better spent.

H/t: Joe Arnold

That Sounds Familiar

There's much speculation about whether the Obama administration offered Rep. Joe Sestak a job to entice him not to run against Sen. Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania. There's also debate about whether such an offer, assuming it occurred, is inappropriate.

There was no secret that the Obama administration and Democratic leaders in Pennsylvania wanted to avoid a divisive primary fight and rally around Specter. But Sestak refused to stand down, and then caused a stir in February when he told veteran TV journalist Larry Kane that he had been offered a significant federal job to forgo a challenge. Kane asked whether the post was Navy secretary, and Sestak declined to comment.

He has stayed mum since on the details of the job claim, and the White House, when it would address the subject at all, has said nothing inappropriate happened.

Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the top Republican on the House government-oversight committee, has demanded information from the administration on conversations with Sestak, and he has called for an independent counsel to investigate the matter. He has been rebuffed on both counts.

Last week, Issa said he was considering filing a formal ethics complaint against Sestak on grounds that he has withheld knowledge of a potential crime.

If the Obama administration did in fact offer Sestak a job to protect Specter from a primary challenge, it may be that the Obama administration took a page from the play book of the Beshear administration.

Gov. Steve Beshear has been picking off Senate Republicans for some time by offering them plummy jobs.

As Patrick Crowley wrote last fall for BloodHorse, quoting Kentucky Sen. President David Williams, “The governor is methodically going about giving jobs to Republicans to replace them not just with any Democrat, but Democrats that favor his slots proposal,” Williams said.

The parallels between the tactics of the Obama and Beshear administrations underscore that the lack of transparency in buying off the opposition is not the Kentucky way, it's the Democratic way.