McConnell fails retired miners

Letters to the Editor

McConnell fails retired miners

Have you heard about Sen. Mitch McConnell blocking a bill to protect pension checks to retired miners and their widows? It has not been widely publicized. I wonder why?

This is also a message to all people with “Friends of Coal” license plates. Do you realize coal operators or owners created this plate as publicity meant to back coal miners? The coal operators provided buses to rallies in Frankfort and Washington, D.C.

So why would McConnell stop checks to retired miners, preventing the same group of coal operators from fulfilling their obligation to pay into the retirement fund?

Derek Hicks

Prestonsburg

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Letters to the Editor

Cringe-o-rama: Mitch McConnell, lower standards for nursing home inspections, UK shoe fetish, us. Us?

By Herald-Leader readers

February 15, 2019 04:51 PM

Cringe-worthy McConnell

In opinion pieces in the Herald-Leader and on the floor of the U.S. Senate, Sen. Mitch McConnell has opposed the Democratic Party’s legislation to reform the methods states use for electing members of Congress. He characterizes the bill as an unprecedented power grab by Democrats. He casts himself as a defender of the constitutional rights of state legislatures to prescribe the time, place and manner for holding elections for U.S. senators and members of the House of Representatives. He pledges that he will not let such a bill come before the Senate for a vote (as an aside, how democratic is a system based on procedures that allow one person to block a bill from being considered by the full Senate?).

As a retired University of Kentucky law professor, I cringe that one of our graduates would make an argument that ignores a basic tenet of constitutional interpretation — read the whole sentence/clause. The Constitution, Article I, Section 4, states: “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations...”