Saturday, July 07, 2007

To Obstruct or Not To Obstruct -- Richards

It's sad to see the current trivialization of the governmental process in Kentucky. Governor Fletcher may or may not be right in calling a special session to handle the possible tax-break issue for potential installers of fuel-from-coal-processing plants. Speaker Richards may or may not be right in his assessment of the need for a special legislative session to do now what it could do in the regular session in January. The sadness derives from each side claiming the other to be functioning entirely within the "political" process, with an eye toward the November balloting, instead of "doing the people's business," as the legislators so often mouth, turning the phrase into a hackneyed cliché.

Taking their marbles and going home, the democrats in the House they control – thus shutting down business – displayed the schoolyard mentality of the fourth-grader. The republican-controlled senate operates as usual…but within a vacuum of sorts. This is from the Louisville Courier-Journal of 22 June: "There's no promise that if we pass these incentives that anybody will come," House Speaker Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green, told reporters after Fletcher's remarks. "We don't have any real details, and I don't think our members are inclined to want to come to a special session right now."

There's also no promise that "anyone will not come," although it seems obvious enough that the incentives may be the deciding factor. It seems perfectly obvious, too, that if the tax-breaks are enacted and "no one comes," there's no harm done. In this scenario, the state's not out any money (except for the session), but there could be great good accomplished (think Toyota, not chicken plants) if the desired plants (except as assessed by the Green-Peace crowd) should come. This seems so elementary that the obvious conclusion is that Richards doesn't want the governor to receive credit for a good thing – in other words, politics as usual, besides being an insult to one's intelligence.

There's also the matter of ending the session, which Richards seems to think he's done. Article 41 of the Constitution would seem to indicate that he can't do that, though there will be the inevitable argument about what is meant by "General Assembly," i.e., does "special session" fit the definition of "General Assembly." Anytime the legislature is called to order, it would seem to automatically become the "General Assembly." If not, exactly what is it? Richards would have looked much smarter if he had simply participated, brought about the defeat of the governor's proposition, as well as anything else proposed (the "domestic partners" issue, for example, which will be settled in the courts anyway), and then packed up and gone home.

Richards has a problem. If he gets his way and the industries are lost, he gets the blame. Perhaps that doesn't matter to him. He's been around a long time, is in line for a fine pension, and knows definitely by now that he will not be governor. If this scenario plays, Fletcher profits while the state loses, but his chances of success in November probably will not be affected much either way, though Beshear is essentially a one-issue campaigner – casinos at all cost – while a lot of Kentuckians take a dim view of more gambling and the guaranteed corruption it engenders.

In Washington, Congress will do essentially nothing until the election is over next year – except bluster and bluff and hold multitudes of hearings in an effort to hang Karl Rove and Cheney or anyone else it can trick into perjury. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Conyers is apparently gearing up for hearings on pardons, commutations, whatever, although he may have second thoughts when considering the Clinton record regarding these things. In Frankfort, everything is on hold until the expected blessed event takes place for the democrats in November, while Fletcher tries to govern and campaign and Beshear is campaigning while counting the money to be made in the casino trade. Both places stink.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

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