Tuesday's election results in Kentucky further solidified the fact that Republicans are gaining power in the Bluegrass State, and Democrats are losing their grip on the reins of governance that they've controlled in this commonwealth for decades.
The most staggering outcome was in the state House of Representatives, where the GOP solidified its control of the chamber it first flipped in 2016. With a couple of races still too close to call, as of this writing it appears the Republicans will hold a whopping 75-25 advantage in the House.
And as much as Democrats wish they could, they can't blame this on gerrymandering. The House is still operating under districts that were drawn up in 2012, when Democrats were in the majority and held the leadership positions. To add insult to injury, many of these districts were set up in such a way as to benefit Democrats at the time the state was last redistricted.
Republicans have made such inroads into territory traditionally controlled by the Democrats that in Breathitt County, where Democrats have ruled for eons, a Republican state representative candidate from Estill County carried the county over a Democrat who lives in Breathitt. A decade ago, predicting that would have gotten you an involuntary admission to a mental hospital for observation.
While much of the GOP's success can be attributed to the presence of President Donald Trump at the top of the ballot, there's a more logical and timely explanation to the results that saw the GOP pick up more than a dozen seats, both in contested races by beating incumbent Democrats and in races with open seats currently held by Democrats who didn't seek re-election.
The Kentucky legislative races were a direct referendum on Gov. Andy Beshear's handling of the Wuhan Chinese virus. Recent public opinion polling showed the governor's approval rating hovering in the 55 percent range, but the flaws in polling were laid bare again in the presidential election. The real measure of public opinion comes at the ballot box, and the message sent Tuesday was that the governor either needs to change his approach to the virus, or the legislature will change it for him when the odd-year session starts in January.
Already, bills for the 2021 session have been prefiled that would severely limit the governor's emergency powers and prohibit the state from requiring vaccinations against the virus. Several bills to restrain the governor's ability to order sweeping business closures and institute mandates will likely be considered, but the best of the bunch is Bill Request 130, sponsored by GOP firebrand and rising star Rep. Savannah Maddox.
A Libertarian Party House candidate from west-central Kentucky, who made impeaching Beshear the top issue of his campaign, failed to unseat the incumbent Republican in his district, but rumblings out of Frankfort are that impeachment will be brought up. Across the state, the citizenry is tired of the restrictions it has been forced to live under since the spring. Jobs lost, businesses closed, schools dismissed and converted to at-home learning, everyday activities curtailed, unemployment system failures, and the general disruption of lives -- all of this has Kentucky residents ready for changes. And since the state does not have a recall provision for removing elected officials, the only way to reduce an executive's power is either to pass legislative limitations or by impeachment.
Every time the governor has announced some new restraints on the lives of Kentuckians, legislative leaders have responded by saying there will be a reckoning next year. We'll have to see if the governor gets the message the voters of the state sent him.
But beyond that, Republicans continued to show just how far they've come in a state that went 32 years between GOP governors between 1971 and 2003. A state that went twice for Bill Clinton for president roundly rejected a Democrat from neighboring Tennessee in 2000, and hasn't given its electoral votes to a Democrat since. Voter registration has been trending Republican to the point where the Democrats are on pace to lose the registration majority in a few years. State legislative districts in areas that have been solid Democrat strongholds for decades are sending Republicans to Frankfort. A Republican was elected to fill the state senate seat that will represent Frankfort -- the stereotypical company town -- and Frankin County. Two years ago, for the first time ever, Republicans took the majority of county judge-executive positions in Kentucky's 120 counties. The GOP holds both seats in the United States Senate, and five of six congressional seats. None of the Republican incumbents was seriously challenged in an election that saw Trump win all but two of Kentucky's counties (the liberal bastions of Jefferson and Fayette.) And last year, only the personal unpopularity of Gov. Matt Bevin prevented Republicans from sweeping all statewide constitutional offices.
There are as many explanations for this as there are Bluegrass political analysts to suggest them. Mitch McConnell's work to build the Republican Party as a statewide force instead of a regional faction limited to the "Old Fifth" is one reason. The shift of national Democrats away from the party's traditional focus to a more liberal viewpoint is another. How many times have you heard, "I didn't leave the Democrats, they left me," over the past few years? The view from here is that Kentuckians got tired of seeing their state ranking low in categories where a high rank is desirable, and ranking high in categories where it's preferable to rank low. They finally realized which party had run the state for years, particularly state government, and decided it was time for a change.
For years, Kentucky's legislature met for a 60-day session every two years. That fact gave rise to the oft-expressed sentiment that the state would be better off if the General Assembly met for two days every 60 years instead of 60 days every two years. In odd-numbered years, the legislature met only for a five-day organizational session after the previous November's elections. However, in 1998, Kentucky voters approved a constitutional amendment that allowed for annual sessions, and the odd-year sessions began in 2001. The rules are a bit different for the 30-day sessions, however, as supermajorities are required for passage of certain bills.
The practice has been that in odd years, the legislature would convene for a week for an organizational session as always, but consideration of legislation would not begin until the session reconvened several weeks later. That changed in 2017, after the GOP took control of the House of Representatives, giving them supermajorities in both chambers. With a Republican governor in power, the legislature passed an ambitious package of legislation during its first week.
So between now and January, observers should pay attention to the governor's words and deeds. Since the virus became a factor in Kentucky in March, Beshear has shown little inclination to work with legislative leaders. His recommendations and orders have come without benefit of consultation with the General Assembly. When legislative leaders have pushed back, he's bristled. With Republicans in even firmer control of the House and Senate, will Beshear strike a more conciliatory tone? Will he seek input from legislators? Or will he continue to act independently?
And what will the legislators do? Will they be ready to act during their first week in session, secure in the knowledge that they're immune from a gubernatorial veto? Or will they wait until they reconvene for the balance of their short session?
There's lots of business left to be done from this spring's virus-shortened meeting, including passage of the second year of a biennial budget. Given the urgency that the virus seemed to dictate, the legislature didn't do a lot of whittling on the governor's proposal. House leadership has already said one of their priorities is to pass "a responsible budget" when they come back into session. But representatives and senators, leaders and members, are saying more frequently that the governor's response to the virus will be under review, with various degrees of diplomacy in their statements. Some are more adamant than others that the governor will pay a price for actions they deem to be unilateral, heavy-handed, and detrimental to the long-term prospects of the state.
Kentucky voters weighed in on their expectations of the legislator via the Tuesday election results. Legislators have already indicated they heard the message. Whether or not the governor did remains to be seen and bears watching.
