State court appointment questioned

By Brandon Ortiz
BORTIZ@HERALD-LEADER.COM

Uncertainty reigned over the state court system Friday.

Questions surfaced about the status of the court's administrative director only a day after Chief Justice Joseph E. Lambert announced he will retire June 27.

And the Frankfort rumor mill ground at full speed with speculation about who will succeed Lambert as chief justice and whether he will play a role in the process.

Senate President David L. Williams, R-Burkesville, acknowledged Friday that the Senate did not confirm the appointment of Jason Nemes to director of the Administrative Office of the Courts during the recently ended session of the General Assembly. Nemes' appointment was not put to a vote.

"He did not have the support to be confirmed," Williams said in a statement released by his spokeswoman.

The consensus in the Senate was that Lambert was likely to retire soon and his successor should get to pick the AOC director, Williams said.

Nemes appears to be the first AOC director that the Senate refused to confirm.

Lambert responded this week with a one-page order reappointing Nemes as AOC director.

"After consultation with the Supreme Court the chief justice entered the attached order, which removed any previous questions as to my authority as the director of AOC," Nemes said in a statement.

But Williams pointed to a law that requires the AOC director to be appointed every four years "with the advice and consent of the Senate."

And Williams pointed to another law which states that the governor "or other appointing authority" must wait two years to reappoint someone rejected by the Senate. That law, however, is in a section of the Kentucky Revised Statutes that deals with the executive branch.

Retired Chief Justice John Palmore said he doesn't think that Lambert needs the Senate's approval to appoint Nemes. He noted that there is no such requirement in the Kentucky Constitution, which says the chief justice is the executive head of the courts and "shall appoint such administrative assistants as he deems necessary."

Palmore said the law requiring Senate approval is unconstitutional. He said the Senate is meddling with the court's internal affairs.

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Comments

[Pam]

Chief Justice Lambert made such a good decision when he appointed Jason Nemes as director of AOC. I don't think there is anyone else who has the best interest of the Court of Justice and its employees any more than Jason does. David Williams has chosen this vendetta with the Chief Justice for whatever reason he has , it has punished the whole Judicial System. He needs to get over himself and these childish grudges. Jason is a real good guy who allows us to be heard.

[greg]

Nemes has to be better than Lambert's last power hungry, corrupt director Jimmy Deckard.

[Dissent within the minority]

When you are the minority party, you absolutely cannot afford dissent within your ranks. And it is critically vital that you not let that dissent spill over into the public.

Everyone within the GOP knows that Mitch McConnell and Hal Rogers don't particularly get along that well. Rogers has an ego the size of Pike County, and he is the longest-serving GOP member of the federal delegation. His service on Capitol Hill predates McConnell's by four years. Yet they have by and large managed to keep their differences out of the public's eye to present a unified front.

There's no doubt that Ernie Fletcher would have fared better in last year's general election had the party stayed unified behind him. But the party didn't stay behind him. They weren't even unified in defending him from the partisan attacks from Greg Scumbo and others before the election last year. Anne Northup's entry into the race caused deep divisions that hurt Fletcher in the general election last year and will no doubt hurt Northup's comeback bid against Yarmulke this fall.

Now we've got David Williams and Joseph Lambert, two of this state's most influential Republicans, sniping at each other in a very public way.

Republicans can't afford to act like Democrats in Kentucky. We can't afford to split into factions. While we are still in the minority, we need to stay united. Rogers and McConnell -- well, you never hear about their spats. People like Northup, Williams and Lambert would do well to heed that example.

[Dissent within the minority]

When you are the minority party, you absolutely cannot afford dissent within your ranks. And it is critically vital that you not let that dissent spill over into the public.

Everyone within the GOP knows that Mitch McConnell and Hal Rogers don't particularly get along that well. Rogers has an ego the size of Pike County, and he is the longest-serving GOP member of the federal delegation. His service on Capitol Hill predates McConnell's by four years. Yet they have by and large managed to keep their differences out of the public's eye to present a unified front.

There's no doubt that Ernie Fletcher would have fared better in last year's general election had the party stayed unified behind him. But the party didn't stay behind him. They weren't even unified in defending him from the partisan attacks from Greg Scumbo and others before the election last year. Anne Northup's entry into the race caused deep divisions that hurt Fletcher in the general election last year and will no doubt hurt Northup's comeback bid against Yarmulke this fall.

Now we've got David Williams and Joseph Lambert, two of this state's most influential Republicans, sniping at each other in a very public way.

Republicans can't afford to act like Democrats in Kentucky. We can't afford to split into factions. While we are still in the minority, we need to stay united. Rogers and McConnell -- well, you never hear about their spats. People like Northup, Williams and Lambert would do well to heed that example.

[Worth repeating]

Dissent, you said it so well, that your post was worth repeating. :-) You are absolutely right.

[Dissent within the minority]

Well, Typepad's split personality helped me along.... LOL

[political realist]

Dissent ...,
You obviously are one of the still unemployed from the Fletcher Administration. "Factions from within the GOP" did not get Ernie beat. Ernie got Ernie beat. In fact, he created animosity within the GOP. Everyone in the GOP (outside of those incompetants within his circle) hated Ernie. Lambert is a distant second to Ernie within the party, but Ernie will be remembered as the Nixon of the KY GOP!

[Unrealist]

No, Realist, you are wrong.

Fletcher's administration tried its best to do what its grassroots supporters out in the state wanted. They listened to their constituents and to the ears out on the ground out in the state beyond the golden triangle. Perhaps you are one of those who wanted the Democrats to continue to run a patronage scheme right under the noses of the Republican administration. I didn't and neither did the GOP county chairs who were tired of seeing the Democrats still getting hired in counties with 75 percent Republican administration. We were tired of seeing the Democrat party chairs still calling the hiring shots with a GOP gov in power.

No sir, Ernie Fletcher didn't abandon the Republican Party. He did everything we asked of him. The party abandoned Ernie Fletcher, after he did exactly the things we wanted him to do.

[David]

"Realist": You obviously have an agenda. And, I thoroughly disagree with your comments.

Isn't it curious that in spite of Ernie's detractors within the party, and in spite of tepid support from other's (e.g. Mitch), he never blamed anyone else for his defeat. That tells a lot about the man.

Barely two weeks before the election, I met with Mitch and Ernie. I even asked Ernie after Mitch had left about Mitch using more of his own ammo to defend Ernie. Even then, he refused to even imply that there was any rift between them.

Ernie may have been naive. He may have made some poor appointments. He may have made some poor strategic decisions. But he did not rat on those who abandoned him. He showed real character and class to the end!

The ambush by Stumbo and his co-conspirators was entirely politically motivated. Does anyone really think he cared about the so-called victims of the hiring "investigation"? Does anyone believe he was pursuing "justice". His sole purpose was to smear and destroy Ernie, and anyone associated with him, politically. (And, it worked.) Only the most closed-minded individuals could believe otherwise. If other Republicans of stature had rallied around Ernie to protest the injustice of it all, we may not be stuck with probably the worst governor in my lifetime. (Well, maybe second to Wally the Weasel.)

You say "everyone in the GOP hated Ernie." You compared him to Nixon. Cheap shots. Ernie was a good man, who was very successful in everything else he had done, including his personal life. He was/is a committed Christian (not perfect, just a believer). Apparently many people were threatened by or jealous of him.

Ernie took all of Beshear's cheap shots. He has shown amazing grace in defeat. He is fallible, but I respect him for keeping his dignity through it all.

I love Kentucky. However, Kentucky doesn't deserve Ernie Fletcher. Neither does the Republican party. He and his family deserve to be at peace away from all the cheap partisanship and cowardly critics. I thank him for his service under withering political assaults, and I wish him the very best.

[What David said]

Dittos to what David said above.

[political realist]

David and Dissent...,
I think you both are unemployed, former members of Fletcher's staff. I could care less about the merit scandal. I agree that Stumbo led a politically motivated witchhunt. Obviously you both worked for Fletcher because none of ya'll get it. The GOP hated Fletcher because he was a phony.
He didn't clean up the waste, fraud and abuse he added to it: See the FBI investigating road bid rigging (and talk to those guys who were shook down for contributions to his reelection); See the "we took a deficeit and turned it into a surplus" crap and look at the huge shortfall that was "discovered" by the GOP Senate the day after Beshear took office; See the medicaid disaster and look at the very questionable $12 million grant that the administration awarded Pikeville Hospital on the last day Fletcher was in office and then notice that FLetcher's new job is as a "consultant" for that hospital; and See all of the religous talk that Fletcher tried to use against Northup and Beshear while he constantly held a drink in his hand and cussed like a sailor. Add the fact that he never helped anyone in the GOP riase a singe cent, and this is why you boys are out of work now and forever and why the GOP hated Ernie!

[David]

Realist/Liar: There is not a bit of truth to anything you just said. NOT A WORD! You are one of the jealous ones, and your words are worthless libel. I know Ernie Fletcher; you do not!

[David]

My apologies, Realist. This part of what you said IS true: "Stumbo led a politically motivated witchhunt." Forgive my error.

[Political hallucination is more like it]

"Political Realist," I don't know where to start.

He did reduce the waste, fraud and abuse. He consolidated the number of Cabinets, eliminated lots of state employees driving their vehicles home (Beshear has reversed this, now that gas is at an all-time record high, by the way).

The big-rigging thing won't bite the Fletcher administration. Wait and see. The hired-through-patronage merit system engineers are the ones who are going to go down for this one. They are the ones with knowledge of the estimates and are the ones who interact with the contractors on a daily basis. Just watch and see where this one ends up. Mark my words.

If you really believe there is a budget crisis, I have some oceanfront property in Washington County to sell you. That was contrived by Beshear to try to get a tax increase, or casino gambling, or both, passed.

The payment was made to the Pikeville hospital, along with one other hospital, in Corbin, a full month before the election, not his last day in office, and that was done on Birdwhistell's volition and Fletcher had nothing to do with it.

And I never heard Ernie Fletcher utter a four-letter word in all the time I spent around him. And he admitted in print that he occasionally has a glass of wine; there is nothing sinful or un-Christian about that.

And I'm not out of work, thank you very much. And I'm not out of my mind, as you obviously are. You have swallowed every untruth the Democrats have passed around about our distinguished ex-governor and you take those lies as gospel. You should be ashamed, especially if you are a Republican.

You want phonies? Steve Nunn. He's as liberal as they come -- more liberal than most KY Democrats -- and he couldn't even win re-election in a GOP district as the son of a former GOP governor. And he's gone to work for Beshear. There's a phony for you.

[John]

11:57: You speak the truth. I agree with everything you said, including your comments about Steve Nunn.

David is also right on.

[Oscar]

I am digging this dirty laundry!

From the perspective of a member of the political majority that is tired of all the Republican holier-than-thou politics (of which Gov Fletcher was an expert) and brainwashing "He did reduce the waste, fraud and abuse. He consolidated the number of Cabinets, eliminated lots of state employees driving their vehicles home," that is a bunch of horse crap! Everyone in central Kentucky knows he made everything worse!

And as for this quote:

"If you really believe there is a budget crisis, I have some oceanfront property in Washington County to sell you. That was contrived by Beshear to try to get a tax increase, or casino gambling, or both, passed."

Obviously our Hallucinator doesn't understand KRS 48.115 which states: "the detailed revenue estimates for the general fund shall be based on a consensus forecast developed by the consensus forecast group. The members of the group shall be jointly selected by the executive branch and the LRC."

Look it up Hallucinator (unless the drugs have really kicked in); the law that has been followed since 1996 means that your State Senate and the House and the Governor appoint folks to the group that then determines the revenues.

By the way it is this group that reduced the revenues for the next 2 years by $900 million; not the Governor.

So I'd say you need to be a little better with your understanding of how the vast majority in this state is fed up with right-wing politics and how revenue estimates work before you pop off about casinos or how truly wonderful the former Governor is or was...

[Take another hit]

Whatever you say, Oscar. Now go take another hit off the crack pipe.

[honestabe]

Abe says...David is 100 percent right. And Realist and Oscar are a couple of Beshear pundits that will sink with the ship....hope you boys can swim....Remember this 3 years from now..The next gov. of Ky will be a Republican, Beshear is seeing to that.