Kentuckians wise to doubt legislature's ability to keep Beshear in check

One of the silver linings that's frequently mentioned when discussing the black cloud that will be Andy Beshear's term as Kentucky's governor is the fact that both houses of the General Assembly are firmly in Republican control.

The GOP holds a veto-proof supermajority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, and that's not likely to change next year when all 100 House seats and half of the 38 Senate seats are up for grabs on a ballot that will be headlined by the highly-popular President Trump.

The reasoning is that the Republican legislature can reject Beshear's proposals, pass its own initiatives, and then override any Beshear vetoes.

But can we really trust the General Assembly to do the right thing?

The newly-minted GOP majority started out like gangbusters when the legislature held its short session in 2017. On the strength of that new power, with a Republican governor in office, they approved right-to-work legislation, repealed the prevailing wage requirements for state- and locally-funded public works projects, tightened restrictions on elective abortions, and passed several other top-of-the-agenda initiatives that had languished for years because Democrats still controlled the House.

Unfortunately, after that, the legislature had nowhere to go but down, which it did. The Republican majority levied a sales tax on services such as veterinary fees and auto repairs, and then overrode Gov. Matt Bevin's veto. The GOP passed a drastic increase in fees for a number of transactions in county clerks' offices.

And it gets worse. Republicans continue to beat the drum for an onerous gas tax increase -- its leading proponents are GOP legislators and the ostensibly-conservative Kentucky Chamber of Commerce -- and some Republicans are even indicating they'll sign on to "red flag" gun confiscation laws that throw due process out the window.

Indeed, House Republicans invited Beshear to their caucus retreat, to begin the day after his Dec. 10 swearing-in. Beshear has not, of this writing, said whether or not he'll attend, but it's likely he won't be able to because of the immediate demands of his new office.

It's nice to fantasize that the GOP will tell the new governor to sit down and shut up and stay out of the way, but given the "new majority's" track record, they'd probably express a willingness to cave on core principles and express the "go along to get along" mentality that causes conservatives to mistrust and despise the Republican establishment.

The Senate has struck a more defiant tone. For one thing, leaders have said that any Beshear-backed proposal to legalize casino gambling is dead on arrival. But given the way that the Senate -- and the House, too, for that matter -- bucked a governor from its own party so many times, there's no reason for optimism.

Legislative leaders have said they're willing to work with the new governor on items that will improve the state. But seriously, how can supposedly conservative Republicans agree that the policies that will be proposed by a liberal Democrat would improve things? Of course, the "conservative" legislature has already shown itself to be too liberal on a number of important issues, which is disappointing to those of us who hoped for years that Kentucky voters would "flip the House" and get that body in line with the Senate on priorities.

Hope for the best, but expect the worst -- given the current legislature's track record in acting in a conservative manner, that's the safest bet for those of us who don't want to see Beshear's agenda implemented, and the line held on Kentucky regressing back to the old way of doing things until the Republicans can retake the governor's office.