All Entries in the "Elections" Category

Rep. Bill Farmer withdraws from House race

By Beth Musgrave
bmusgrave@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — Republican Rep. Bill Farmer of Lexington announced Thursday that he is not seeking re-election for House District 88, which includes southeastern Fayette County.

Farmer, a tax accountant, was first elected in 2002. Farmer said he decided to withdraw from the race because of health reasons. He has Rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic condition that causes pain, stiffness and inflammation in his joints.

“I’ve been dealing with this for eight years,” Farmer said. “My wife and I discussed it, and we decided that it was time.”

Farmer has been a champion of changing the state’s tax structure over the past several years and is a member of Gov. Steve Beshear’s commission on tax reform. Farmer said Thursday that he will continue to serve on that commission.

Farmer’s term ends at the end of this year.

Democrat Reginald Thomas and Republican Robert Benvenuti, a lawyer and former inspector general for the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, have filed to run in the 88th district.

Beshear’s tax reform panel holds first meeting

By Jack Brammer
jbrammer@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT – Gov. Steve Beshear’s special commission to draft a plan to overhaul the state’s tax laws started its first day of work Tuesday by putting out a proposal to hire a consultant.

Lt. Gov. Jerry Abramson, chairman of the 23-member panel, said Beshear considered it “imperative that we have someone from the outside who could lead this group through the issues” the governor considers important.

The consultant, Abramson said, will focus initially on how Kentucky’s tax structure measures up with surrounding states and should be in place by the commission’s next meeting on April 10.

Cost for the consultant has not yet been determined, he added.

Beshear announced in January the formation of the panel to try to make the state’s tax code more equitable and to make it more competitive in economic development. It is to submit its report by the end of the year.

2 more file for 4th Congressional District race as filing deadline passes

By Jack Brammer
jbrammer@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT – Friday’s filing deadline for congressional candidates in Kentucky brought out two more candidates for the already crowded field running for the open seat in the 4th Congressional District that runs from Boyd County to Oldham County.

The cavalry charge of candidates in the 4th and the potential rematch of Democrat Ben Chandler and Republican Andy Barr in Central Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District set up the two most hotly contested races for U.S. Congress this year in Kentucky.

The candidates will be running in districts with newly drawn boundaries. The state legislature approved a bill Feb. 10 with the new boundaries after weeks of negotiations and Gov. Steve Beshear immediately signed it into law.

All Lexington lawmakers will seek re-election in 2012

By Jack Brammer
jbrammer@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — All incumbent state lawmakers from Fayette County hope to return to office next year but a few will have opponents in this year’s elections.

The third filing deadline for state legislative candidates came and went at 4 p.m. Friday, but because of court battles it still is uncertain from what districts legislative candidates will run. And it’s possible the Kentucky Supreme Court could order another filing deadline.

What is known now is that 54 people have filed for the 19 state Senate districts up for grabs this year — those in odd-numbered districts — and 223 people have filed for the 100 House seats being contested this year.

It gets complicated after that because some of those filings are for districts drawn this year by the state legislature and some are for districts that were drawn in 2002.

Beshear signs into law new boundaries for Kentucky’s congressional districts

UPDATED AT 5:12 P.M.

By Jack Brammer
jbrammer@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — Gov. Steve Beshear signed into law Friday a compromise plan to redraw the boundaries of Kentucky’s six congressional districts after the plan rocketed through the General Assembly on Friday.

The new map in House Bill 302 moves part of Jessamine County, including Wilmore, and all of Garrard, Mercer and Boyle counties from Central Kentucky’s 6th District to the 2nd District, which extends west to Owensboro. Lincoln County was moved to Eastern Kentucky’s 5th District.

The 6th District gained the remaining portion of Scott County, a southern strip of Harrison County, and all of Robertson, Nicholas, Fleming, Bath, Menifee and Wolfe counties.

Those changes are expected to make it tougher for Republican Andy Barr to successfully challenge U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler, D-Versailles.

House Democrats will appeal ruling that tossed redrawn legislative districts

By Beth Musgrave and Jack Brammer
bmusgrave@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — House Democrats plan to appeal a judge’s ruling that declared Kentucky’s newly-drawn General Assembly districts unconstitutional.

After House Democrats met behind closed doors Wednesday evening, House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, emerged to say the group decided to take the issue to the Kentucky Supreme Court.

Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd ruled earlier this week that the district boundaries lawmakers approved this year in House Bill 1 were unconstitutional because too many counties were needlessly split into different districts and the population of some districts varied too much.

The judge ordered election officials to use previous district lines in this year’s state legislative elections and extended the filing deadline for legislative candidates to 4 p.m. Friday.

Republican wins special House election in south-central Kentucky

By Jack Brammer
jbrammer@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT – Republican Bart Rowland of Monroe County won a special election Tuesday to fill the unexpired term of former state Rep. James Comer, who was elected state agriculture commissioner last November.

Kentucky Republican Party Chairman Steve Robertson said Rowland unofficially captured more than 62 percent of the vote in the 53rd House District. It includes Cumberland, Green, Metcalfe and Monroe counties.

The Democratic candidate in the race was Barry Dean Steele of Metcalfe County.

Rowland will serve the remainder of Comer’s term, which runs to the end of this year.

Moffett resigns as head of Bluegrass Institute to run for state House

Phil Moffett resigned Tuesday as president and chief executive officer of the Bluegrass Institute, a free market think tank, to run for the state House of Representatives.

Moffett, a Louisville businessman who ran unsuccessfully last year for the Republican gubernatorial primary, said redistricting developments in Frankfort offered him an opportunity to run for the 32nd House District.

For-profit college bill passes House, heads to Senate

By Beth Musgrave

bmusgrave@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — A bill that would create a new board to oversee for-profit colleges and universities passed the House 91-5.

Many who voted against House Bill 308 said the bill did not go far enough to protect students from what many say are predatory practices of some for-profit colleges. House Bill 308 abolishes the current Kentucky Board of Proprietary Education, which licenses for-profit schools that offer associate degrees and certificates in career programs. HB 308 would create a new agency, the Kentucky Commission on Proprietary Education. The industry would only hold four of 11 seats instead of the six it currently occupies on the 11-member board. The chairman can never be a member of the for-profit industry. The commission would also hire a staff person paid for by fees and dues from the for-profit industry.

A much tougher bill that would impose even more restrictions and more oversight on for-profit colleges passed the House last year but failed in the Senate after of aggressive lobbying by the for-profit industry. Rep. Carl Rollins, D-Midway, one of the sponsors of the bill, told House members Tuesday that the bill was a good start and brings more oversight to the industry. Although many wanted more teeth in the bill, the bill will likely pass both chambers, Rollins said.

But Rep. Reginald Meeks, D-Louisville, said that that the legislature needed to do more to protect students and that the bill makes the industry as transparent as a “Fort Knox safe.” Meeks has pushed for more oversight of the industry in past years in light of a state audit that showed that the current board was an inattentive watchdog that fails to protect the interest of students. Meanwhile, lawsuits and investigations in Kentucky and elsewhere have raised questions about deceptive marketing and the quality of educations sold by the schools.

No compromise on congressional redistricting; issue probably headed to court

By Beth Musgrave
bmusgrave@herald-leader.com

FRANKFORT — State lawmakers failed to redraw the boundaries of Kentucky’s six congressional districts before Tuesday’s candidate filing deadline, which means the issue probably will end up in court.

House Majority Leader Rocky Adkins, D-Sandy Hook, told House members about 20 minutes after the 4 p.m. filing deadline that a compromise agreement between the Democratic-controlled House and the Republican-controlled Senate could not be reached.

The House and Senate had delayed the original deadline from Jan. 31 to Feb. 7 to give the two sides more time to reach an agreement.

House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, had worked with members of congress on a possible compromise that late last week looked promising, House leaders said. But Senate Majority Leader Robert Stivers said Tuesday afternoon that the two sides appeared to “agree to disagree.”

Stumbo said congressional candidates will run in the state’s existing districts. That means someone — either a candidate or a national political party — will probably challenge the constitutionality of Kentucky’s districts.