Senate Republican Leaders go after Andy Beshear’s power with three new bills.
Senate Republican leaders used their last day to file bills Wednesday to take aim at Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, by filing three bills limiting the powers of the governor.
In the first session with Republicans controlling the legislative branch and a Democrat in the governor’s office, Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, and Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown, made a play to assert the legislative branch’s power over the executive branch.
The bills would limit the governor’s ability to issue executive orders, limit the salaries of people who leave the legislature to join the executive branch and give the Senate oversight over the governor’s appointments to the Kentucky Horse Park and the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission.
When asked Wednesday if the bills were directed at anyone, Stivers said they weren’t.
In a statement, Beshear’s office said: “Gov. Beshear is attempting to change the tone in Frankfort and bring people together. The people of Kentucky want results, not partisan games.”
Senate Bill 269 is an attempt to prevent legislators from spiking their pensions by joining the executive branch by limiting the salaries of anyone who joins the executive branch but is not retired from a “state-administered retirement system.”
While the bill does not appear to be retroactive, it would apply to situations like those of Rocky Adkins, who left his post as House Minority Floor Leader without retiring from the legislative pension plan to become senior advisor for the governor.
That move meant Adkins, who as of January was eligible for a $47,000-a-year pension, was able to boost his pension with an executive branch salary of $129,523.
Under Stivers’ bill, salaries of anyone who stayed in a state retirement system would be limited to 25 percent of their highest compensation.
Lawmaker compensation fluctuates from year to year depending on the length of the session and how many days they spend in Frankfort. Adkins, for example, made between $60,000 and $80,000 in total compensation (which includes expenses paid by the state) with a highest compensation of $80,354.51 in 2018.
Under the bill, Adkins would be limited to a $100,443-a-year salary, should it prove retroactive.
“It’s something institutionally that we have always been about, about spiking your pension,” Stivers said. “We can’t change the pension system but we can change the pay scale.”
Former Republican Gov. Matt Bevin attempted to force anyone who left the legislature to retire from their pension plan before taking a job in the executive branch by filing an executive order shortly before leaving office. Beshear rescinded the executive order.
SB 271, also filed by Stivers, would limit the governor’s ability to issue executive orders.
Rather than orders immediately going into effect, as is the current process, the orders would not go into effect until 35 days after they are filed with the Secretary of State.
The new process would require the executive orders to be referred to a House of Representatives or Senate standing committee during a legislative session or an interim joint committee in between legislative sessions. The committee would have 30 days to object to the executive order with a vote of the majority of the committee’s members.
If an executive order is objected to, it would be made unenforceable unless it is passed by both chambers of the general assembly and signed by the governor like any other bill.
The bill would also dissolve “each administrative body” formed by an executive order 90 days after the end of the Governor’s term, unless the administrative body is established by the general assembly.
Beshear has already used his power as governor to issue several executive orders, including one where he restructured the Kentucky Board of Education and another where he restored voting rights to 156,000 people who served out their felony convictions.
Thayer, who has a strong interest in horse racing and whose district includes part of the Kentucky Horse Park, filed SB 261 to make gubernatorial appointments to the horse park and state racing commission subject to Senate confirmation.
Earlier this year, Beshear reappointed Alston Kerr, a friend of his mother’s, to the Kentucky Horse Park Commission and designated Kerr to be chairwoman of the panel that governs the 1,200-acre tourist attraction in Fayette County.
Kerr, of Lexington, was removed as chair of the commission in March 2016 by then-Gov. Matt Bevin in the midst of a major shake-up and audit of the park instigated by Thayer, R-Georgetown.
Thayer said in January that he will closely monitor the Horse Park.
In another bill related to Beshear, Stivers filed on Wednesday SB 270 to prohibit executive branch lobbyists from making campaign contributions to any elected executive branch official or candidate.
The bill is similar to one Stivers shepherded through last year’s senate to give the public more information about lobbyists of the state’s executive branch.
Last year Stivers said his bill was prompted by revelations in the federal government’s criminal cases against James Sullivan and Tim Longmeyer.
Sullivan was sentenced last year to two years and nine months in federal prison for giving Longmeyer, who was then the top deputy to Attorney General Andy Beshear, a $1,000 bribe in March 2016 in an attempt to get business from Beshear’s office for law firms to handle civil lawsuits.
Sullivan also allegedly bribed Longmeyer on other occasions when he headed the Personnel Cabinet for former Gov. Steve Beshear, Andy Beshear’s father.
No evidence has been presented that Andy Beshear did anything wrong.
Longmeyer pleaded guilty to taking payoffs in return for getting state business for a Lexington company called MC Squared. He was sentenced in September 2016 to 70 months in federal prison. He admitted receiving more than $200,000 in kickbacks.
This story was originally published March 5, 2020 at 7:14 AM.
