FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - Republican lawmakers failed to strip some powers from Kentucky’s Democratic attorney general on the final day of the legislative session.
When major issues come before the U.S. Supreme Court - including abortions and affirmative action - Kentucky and other states will often file amicus briefs, even though they have no official role in the case. The attorney general does that as the state’s chief legal officer.
But in Kentucky, the attorney general, governor and House and Senate leaders are no longer in the same political party, and Republicans feel Andy Beshear’s legal filings don’t reflect the wishes of a majority of the state’s voters.
The state Senate voted 26-12 on Thursday to make the Republican governor, not the attorney general, the state’s official voice in amicus briefs. The House had until midnight to approve the bill, but Republican leaders did not call it for a vote before the midnight deadline.
“I think what (the bill) was very good policy, it’s just we did not have time to do it,” GOP House Speaker Jeff Hoover said.
Beshear had warned the bill would violate U.S. Supreme Court rules that automatically accept briefs filed by state attorneys general but not governors. Beshear said that means Kentucky would have been voiceless before the court on some of the most important issues it faces.
“Kentucky to my knowledge would be the only state not to have that right, and it will be based on a vote done solely to cater to the governor’s ego,” Beshear said.
The measure was pushed by Republican Senate President Robert Stivers, who during one tense exchange earlier in the week locked eyes with Beshear across a committee room and cited a recent state Supreme Court decision, saying “We can define your powers.”
Stivers was particularly upset with some briefs Beshear filed in a federal lawsuit challenging the ability of local governments to pass ordinances that ban mandatory labor union dues. Beshear told a federal appeals court such ordinances were illegal, even though the Republican governor and GOP leaders disagreed.
“His amicus brief doesn’t reflect a bipartisan support of a bill that has been passed in both chambers. You want to talk about overreach? Usurpation?” Stivers said.
The proposal came as a bitter feud plays out across state government between Beshear and Gov. Matt Bevin. Beshear has sued Bevin three times, earning a victory at the state Supreme Court when it ruled the governor could not cut the budgets of colleges and universities without the approval of the state legislature.
Beshear has also sued Bevin over his orders to replace the University of Louisville board of trustees and the governing board of the Kentucky Retirement Systems. The new Republican majority at the state legislature has stepped in to pass laws legalizing both of those changes.
Both lawsuits are still pending.
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