Blowing Back Beshear

Kentucky Republican state lawmakers, with both a two-thirds supermajority in the state House and a three-fourths chunk of the state Senate, have had no issue this year overriding Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear's vetoes on a raft of bills that strip his office of most of its regulatory and appointment powers not locked in by the state constitution. The latest override: giving the state legislature sole power to name candidates to replace a US senator should they no longer be able to serve.

The Republican-run Kentucky legislature on Monday easily overrode Gov. Andy Beshear's veto of a notable bill that restricts his ability to fill any vacancies that arise if one of the state's U.S. senators dies or leaves office early.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the commonwealth's powerful senior senator, threw his support behind Senate Bill 228. That sparked speculation that the 79-year-old statesman, who just got reelected last fall, might be eyeing the exits.

However, Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers, SB 228's lead sponsor, has said the longtime senator plans to stick around and McConnell himself has never given any public indication he doesn't plan to serve out his new six-year term.

Historically, Kentucky's governor has been able to choose anyone — of any political party — to fill in temporarily if a vacancy pops up in the Senate, whether that happens by the senator's choice, expulsion or death.

SB 228 changes that appointment process in key ways. Most notably, it requires the governor to pick a temporary successor who shares the same political party as the departing senator.

It also makes them select that person from a list of three names provided by the executive committee of the departing senator's state party.

SB 228 also includes fresh stipulations about how long the governor's appointment to the Senate can last before voters get to elect someone to take over that seat — which depend largely on when the vacancy happens — as well as new rules about how such elections would work.

Kentucky hasn't had a Democratic senator since January 1999, when former Sen. Wendell Ford retired. And with the state's increasingly conservative electorate, SB 228 is designed to ensure the governor can't appoint a Democrat to what's likely to be a safe seat for Republicans.

When Beshear vetoed SB 228 earlier this month, he claimed the bill violates the U.S. Constitution's 17th Amendment, which aimed "to remove the power to select U.S. senators from political party bosses."

Rep. Patti Minter, D-Bowling Green, likewise cited the 17th Amendment Monday night when she objected to overriding the veto. She also noted how SB 228 is part of a batch of bills GOP lawmakers have passed lately that strip Beshear of power.

"It wouldn't be happening if we had a Republican governor," Minter said of SB 228. "It’s a blatant power grab, and it’s something that strikes right at the heart of what people dislike about the political system."

The issue for me is that the General Assembly in the commonwealth is being run like there's going to be a permanent GOP supermajority for the rest of time. They are laying down the foundation for single-party rule for decades, if not generations.

It's the arrogance that really burns me, a tacit admission that Democrats simply don't matter. In fact, unlike other states, Republicans here aren't threatened at all by expanding voting rights, because they know it will help them win by even larger margins.

The Kentucky General Assembly passed significant legislation Monday night that will make three days of widespread early voting a regular part of the state's future elections and expand people's access to the ballot in other ways while also instituting new security measures.

The state House of Representatives' Republican and Democrat members overwhelmingly voted late Monday night, in a 91-3 decision, to give House Bill 574 final passage and send it to Gov. Andy Beshear's desk.

As long as the governor doesn't veto it, HB 574 will make significant changes to state law, including:

• Establishing three days of in-person early voting on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday before Election Day;
• Letting people "cure" their absentee ballots if a problem, such as a mismatched signature, would otherwise cause it to be thrown out;
• Making the online portal through which Kentuckians requested — and government officials tracked — absentee ballots in 2020 a standard feature of future elections;
• Letting counties offer vote centers where residents from any precinct can cast their ballot;
• Allowing for secure drop-boxes where people can turn in their absentee ballots;
• Requiring counties to gradually phase out electronic-only voting systems and switch to equipment that can process paper ballots;
• Letting state officials quickly remove someone from the voter rolls if they're notified that person moved to and registered to vote in another state.

Beshear and Secretary of State Michael Adams made notable but temporary changes to Kentucky's elections last year because of the coronavirus pandemic. HB 574 will adopt some of those things, such as no-excuse early voting and the online portal for absentee ballots, for the long term. 

Adams, who advocated heavily for HB 574, recently told The Courier Journal this legislation significantly revises the commonwealth's election system, which dates back to the "horse-and-buggy era."

"My campaign slogan was 'make it easy to vote and hard to cheat,' and this bill does both," he said. "We take a model based in the 1800s and update it to the modern reality of people’s busy lives, and we do it in a way that actually makes the elections more secure than they used to be."

And again, Republicans are happy to pass legislation like this here in Kentucky because they saw that the early voting and absentee ballot changes in 2020 gave Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump even larger margins of victory. 

It's the arrogance.