Kentucky GOP's Special Session Performance Was A Power Grab
We’re heading into our second pandemic winter, with a surge of variant-fueled cases and sadly stagnant vaccine numbers, while state politicians continue to play power-struggle games. During last week’s special session, where the GOP-controlled legislature essentially inherited control of the state’s coronavirus response after a recent Kentucky Supreme Court ruling shifted policymaking power, it became glaringly obvious, very early on, that the emergency lawmaking meeting wasn’t about new ideas. It was about tearing down what Gov. Andy Beshear built. It was about some sort of delusional payback.
On the first day of the special session, Sen. Damon Thayer, the Republican majority floor leader, was one of the many members who made it clear.
“Many of us felt that the governor’s unilateral decisions were made in a non-collaborative fashion with the people’s branch of government, and that businesses and our liberties were arbitrarily impacted,” he said, referencing Beshear’s executive orders at the beginning of the pandemic, before reading from the state Constitution about the power of the various branches of government.
Once you get past the whole “arbitrarily impacted” portion of that sentence — like a deadly virus hasn’t been tearing through the globe — he pretty much just epitomized what the Republican supermajority has been clamoring about for more than a year. Their perspective has basically been reduced to ‘Beshear didn’t consult us last year; now we’re in charge, buckle up for some reactionary and visceral decision making.’
Read more: https://www.leoweekly.com/2021/09/kentucky-gops-special-session-performance-was-a-power-grab/
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