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| Timeline for Losing Control of the Kentucky State Budget |
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Timeline for Losing Control of the Kentucky State Budget
November 6, 2007
Steve Beshear won an impressive mandate from the Kentucky voters to change how business was conducted in Frankfort. Beshear had won a hard fought series of political battles within his own party and against the Republicans to gain the right to lead the state into the future.
By February 18,that hard fought mandate and political momentum was in shambles. Within 125 days, Governor Beshear had lost control of the political game in Frankfort.
November 7, 2007
Beshear is elected governor with a 17 % margin of victory over Ernie Fletcher.
November 15 Transition Teams start work
December 10 Transition Teams complete their reports
December 12 Governor Beshear takes office
December 12 Stock market tumbles almost 300 points due to concern over
Fed policy on cutting interests rates in trying to stop home mortgages
sub prime crisis from deepening. This is one of the early signs that US moving toward deep recession in 2008. This will impact Kentucky’s budget for 2009 and 2010.
January 8 Kentucky General Assembly convenes for 2008 session.
January 14 Governor’s State of the State Speech
January 29 Governor’s State Budget Speech
February 5 Special election in 30th Senate District and Governor loses his bid to project political power from the Governor’s Office. This was the seat held by Lt. Governor Dan Mongiardo.
This defeat so early in Beshear’s administration may him seem weak. The
30th Senate District is 60% registered Democrat. Both Beshear and
Mongiardo campaigned hard in this special election. Because of their involvement, this election became a “Referendum” on their party, the issue of casinos, and the issue of who had the right to speak for local county Democrats.
February 8 Republicans lay claim that the Governor lost this election because of his awkward involvement with a local race. Local Democrats held the governor at fault for his rough treatment of the local Democratic Committee members in this election.
End result was that Governor Beshear, in his first attempt to project his
power of office, was defeated by not only Republicans but local Democrats as well.
February l1 Anti casino forces now waged a strong state wide message that claimed victory for defeating the Governor in the 30th Senate District race. Beshear gambled that he could beat back any attempt to link the issue of casinogambling with the issues of the senate race. He lost big time. The Republicans waged political war through the local churches. The issue
of gambling became an issue that preachers talked about from the pulpits.
February 12 Western Kentucky Night at Capital
At a reception in the Frankfort Convention Center, some 500 very somber
leaders from West Kentucky gathered for dinner and to discuss issues with their legislators.
The Governor showed up for about an hour. His speech was normal light politics except for his reference to the Economic Development Cabinet. Not covered by any newspaper was Beshear’s ringing endorsement of the Economic Development Partnership Board and its new Cabinet secretary.
This marked one of the Governor’s most telling insights into how he is
willing to give up his power base to the Louisville Partnership board.
This is in direct conflict with most of his advisors from the transition teams research and opinions. The transition reports show that the Cabinet was a failure in creating jobs and should be abolished.
Not a good sign for those in the audience who had expected a more
aggressive and knowledgeable governor over such an important part of
his Cabinet.
February 13 Legislators Fire Warning Shot Across Casino Bow
Key legislators spoke the day before Governor Beshear’s anticipated release of the casino bill about their concerns over the structure for any statewide gambling network.
“Any casino bill will have to balance the need to attract enough General
Assembly votes with the economic reality that too many casinos could hurt their profitability.”
Rep. Larry Clark, D-Louisville and the house speaker pro tem, expressed himself with these words. “We want to create new tourism spots. We want to import new people, and yes, there is some politics involved. Anything we do in Frankfort has politics.”
Speaking to a regional concern, Senator David Boswell, D-Owensboro,
said, “...that he doesn’t believe that Henderson and Owensboro can both
support full fledged casinos, but that a combination of an Owensboro casino and slots machines only at Ellis Park might work.”
February 14 Advocates for children skewer Beshear. He is accused of reneging on a pledge to fund system. Kentucky advocates for abused and neglected children charged that Governor Beshear has failed to keep his campaign
pledge to fully fund the state’s financially distressed child welfare system.
February 14 Governor Beshear met with Democratic House leadership on the eve of his casino bill release. Meeting lasted for 15 minutes and according to
House members, Beshear refused to give any exact details of his plan for
statewide gambling. This meeting could have been a great political opportunity for the Governor to reach out and enlist support from several key House members for his plan. Instead, it became a “drawing of the line in the sand as to who had the power over the fate of the casino bill.
This was the first warning that that the casino plan would have trouble in the Kentucky House of Representatives.
February 15 Governor Beshear dropped his long awaited casino plan. The language of the proposed constitutional amendment soon became the target of opposition forces due to its awkward language structure for the amendment.
In a 136 page plan, Beshear laid out a proposed system of 12 casinos. These would be a mixture of racetrack casinos and free standing resort type casinos.
Church groups, regional political interests soon attacked the plan as being
“dishonest with facts and figures.”
February 15 Rep. Jimmie Lee, D-Elizabethtown and chairman of the House Human
Services budget subcommittee, called the proposed state cuts in the human
services a “disaster,” during special hearings in Frankfort to review the
impact of Governor Beshear’s budget for human Services.
At the hearings, several witnesses spoke to the cuts in their budget. One
fact emerged that seemed to sum up the concern of all in the room.
Communicare and the state’s 13 other regional agencies that serve people
with mental illness and mental handicaps are facing cuts of about $25
million over the next two years, after operating for 12 years with no
increase.
February 15 Kentuckians for the Commonwealth lead 1,000 protestors to Frankfort to make a show of unity in their fight to stop mountain top removal in Eastern Kentucky.
Wendell Berry, international known author and conservationist spoke to
the protesters.
`”Are 400,000 acres of devastated land and 1,200 miles of obliterated streams not enough? This needs to be stopped. As both federal and state government have amply shown, you cannot regulate an abomination. You have to stop it.”
Berry has been coming to Frankfort for some 40 years to make his case
before the powerful of state government. “We have made our protests and arguments, presented our facts, appeared before committees, spoken to
those willing to speak to us. And virtually always we have failed. The
destruction has continued. Nothing has changed. It is time to become
more radical.”
February 15 Jane Beshear joins the 2010 foundation board overseeing the World Equestrian Games. This same board was in the news for the news that
members form it are deeply involved in building a luxury hotel on state
park land.
February 17 Major financial backer to Beshear’s governor’s race, William Yung III, expressed serious doubts as to the design of the governor’s proposed
casino plan for Kentucky. He said that the new Democratic Governor’s
proposal would not work. Kentucky casinos could not complete with those
in Indiana.
At heart to his concerns was the taxing structure for the new casinos. Beshear’s plan called for 50.6 % tax on gambling revenue.
Yung gave $1 million dollars to a 527 committee during the election in
hopes of securing a favorable governor who would back new gambling
opportunities in Kentucky.
Yung said, “At a 50 percent tax rate, unless you just have a slot parlor, it’s
just not going to work. I just don’t understand why they would try something like this.”
February 26 House Elections, Constitutional Amendments and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee voted 3-5 against a version of the amendment that would have authorized up to nine casino licenses, with five of them reserved for horse tracks.
March 7 House Democrats held private meeting in the Supreme Court chambers to discuss Governor Beshear’s latest position on a cigarette tax. The House
members announced after their meeting that they would disagree with the Governor on 70 cent increase in the cigarette tax.
Hard words were said in regard to the Governor’s budget vision by Harry Moberly, House Appropriations & Revenue Chairman. “Our budget is responsible and the Governor’s budget is irresponsible. His proposal would put us in a hole that we would never climb out of.”
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