FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - Tim Morton’s family says he was committed to mental hospitals 37 times before he died because that was the only way they could make sure he was getting treatment.
The Lexington man died in 2014 of natural causes, but his family said he died because the system neglected him.
Earlier this month, the state legislature overwhelmingly passed “Tim’s Law,” which would allow a judge to order people with mental illnesses to undergo outpatient treatment in certain circumstances. Mental health advocates had already contacted the governor’s office to request a bill signing ceremony.
All of that was put on hold late Monday when Republican Gov. Matt Bevin surprised advocates by vetoing the bill - one of three he axed that cleared the new GOP-controlled legislature this year.
Lawmakers could override the veto when they return to the state Capitol on Wednesday for the final two days of the legislative session. The bill passed the state Senate 34-3 and the House 95-0.
“I was uneasy that (Bevin) wouldn’t get it, that he just would not understand,” said Faye Morton, Tim Morton’s mother. “I’ve become numb. I want so much for (Tim’s) life to have a meaning more than this story.”
Kentucky law already allows the government to order people with mental illnesses to be hospitalized if they are a danger to themselves or others. But Bevin said he vetoed this bill, Senate Bill 91, because it would allow the state to “restrict the liberty of individuals based on nothing more than a finding that they are ’unlikely to adequately adhere to outpatient treatment on a voluntary basis.’”
“When there is no threat to anyone, the Commonwealth has no constitutional right to restrict an individual’s liberty simply based on a belief that the individual might not otherwise comply with his or her mental health treatment,” Bevin wrote in his veto message.
The law would have allowed judges to order outpatient mental health treatment for people who had been involuntarily committed at least twice in the past year, had a diagnosis of a serious mental illness and had symptoms of anosognosia - a condition where people do not realize they are sick.
“If we let people go untreated, the chances are at some point they will run into trouble with the law,” said Sheila Schuster, executive director of the Kentucky Mental Health Coalition. “They end up in our jails.”
Schuster said she and other mental health advocates were busy Tuesday calling lawmakers and asking them to override the veto. Bill sponsor Republican Sen. Julie Raque Adams did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Bevin also vetoed House Bill 540, which among other things made it a felony to fly drones in a restricted area. He vetoed it because he said it would allow local governments to regulate air space, resulting in “fractionalized control of the navigable airspace.”
Bevin vetoed Senate Joint Resolution 57, which named various roads throughout the state, because he said it violated the Transportation Cabinet’s road naming policy. And he vetoed House Bill 471 to remove language that would only let the state legislature spend money from the Volkswagen Mitigation Trust Agreement.
“If I ever veto something, I always speak with the legislator first whose bill it was,” Bevin said. “These bills were good bills. Some of them were frankly bills that I liked but for various reasons, but the timing may or may not be what it should be.”
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