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Monday, Jul. 21, 2008

Many may grumble, but few are running

When Kentucky's founding fathers put together this democracy, they gave voters the chance to fire their state legislators every every two or four years.

If things weren't going well in state government, the people could install better leaders, or so the theory went.

Well, the 2008 General Assembly is coming off a spring of gridlock and acrimony that left the legislature's approval rate hovering around 22 percent — down there with the same percentage of Americans who claim they've seen ghosts.

Yet there will be little that Kentucky voters can do to exorcise that frustration with state lawmakers at the ballot box this fall.

Just 37 of the 119 House and Senate seats up in the November election have competitive races. Five of those races are for open seats, meaning that just 32 of the 114 incumbents seeking re-election have competition. That's an anemic 28 percent.

The math also shows that it's impossible for the Democratic-controlled House to change hands, and it's unlikely the Senate Republicans will relinquish their hold on that chamber.

It's even possible that both majorities could add to their ranks, despite the public's annoyance with the tenor and progress in Frankfort.

And challengers are dropping like flies.

Since the May 20 primary, four opponents to incumbents have taken themselves out of the race, including Republican Marvin Wilson, an Eddyville lawyer who had run for the 6th House District seat three times. He removed himself Thursday from making a fourth run.

So why the reluctance for people to run for office?

“I think there's just a lot of money in politics. For the average person, it's really difficult to go out and raise the kind of money that is out there or necessary,” said Steve Heibert, a Brandenburg Republican who withdrew from challenging freshman Democratic Rep. Jeff Greer.

Heibert, however, said money wasn't a concern for him. He took himself out of the race after losing his job when the home-building firm for which he worked drastically cut its staff.

“I also believe some people would be intimidated by having an incumbent who either raised an enormous amount of money the time before or they have a lot of money on hand,” Heibert said. “That would be a deterrent for people.”

That's basically what drove Northern Kentucky Democrat Ed Worland out of the 64th House District race.

He told the Kentucky Enquirer, after withdrawing last month, that “there's so much money that has to be raised to run a credible campaign.”

And after Worland failed to raise any money this spring, his bid to unseat Rep. Tom Kerr, who has served 23 years in the House as a Democrat and now Republican, would have started in a $17,752 hole.

One possible bright side to few legislators attracting challengers — who have to file by the last Tuesday in January — is that the incumbents can go about their business without the fear of losing the forthcoming election hanging over them.

Conventional wisdom, then, would suggest that if an overwhelming majority of lawmakers didn't have to worry about election opposition, they might be emboldened to get a little creative and pass new solutions.

Instead, this year's legislature couldn't manage to approve emergency legislation to address the state's sagging pension system until called back into a special session this summer at a cost of $60,000 a day.

Rep. Kathy Stein, a Lexington Democrat who is giving up her safe House seat to run for the Senate, said that sometimes lawmakers are more paralyzed by fear of enticing opposition the next election cycle if they vote a certain way.

She said she realized early on that “it's not the most important thing to continue to be re-elected, because if you have to vote contrary to your beliefs, to your moral convictions on public policy issues, then you have no business being there.”

Heibert, the Republican who dropped out of the 27th District, essentially agreed. And he plans to one day try to run again, and he hopes others with that same attitude will.

“I wasn't running to overhaul the entire General Assembly,” he said. “I was running so that I could be one voice to like-minded constituents.”