Beshear sues David Williams back in veto case

Gov. Steve Beshear responded to Senate President David Williams' lawsuit with a lawsuit on Monday.

Williams, R-Burkesville, sued the governor last month in Franklin Circuit Court, alleging that his veto of the legislature's six-year road plan was unconstitutional. Beshear failed to act within the legally mandated 10 days after the General Assembly approved the road plan, Williams said.

But on Monday, Beshear asked the judge in a counter-suit to dismiss Williams' case, in part because the road plan passed the legislature after 12 a.m. on April 16 -- and the constitution required the General Assembly to adjourn at the end of April 15. The legislature gets 60 days to do its business in even-numbered years.

The House and Senate had not finished their work and ordered the clocks stopped in their chambers in the final hours of the 2008 session, so that midnight would not happen until they were ready for it. They continued to pass bills until about 1 a.m. on the 61st day.

Nice try, the governor said in his claim.

"By operation of Section 42 of the Kentucky Constitution, the Kentucky General Assembly ceased to exist after 11:59:59 p.m. on April 15, 2008," according to Beshear's counter-suit.

Without a valid road plan from the legislature, the state Transportation Cabinet drew up its own plan with some different projects included, Beshear said.

For more information on this story, see Tuesday's Herald-Leader.

-- John Cheves

Comments

[Cletus McGuire]

They also passed other laws that the Gov signed and liked...so I guess if this is ruled to have been unconstitutional, then everything they passed after 11:59:59 is null and void. This potentially could have been a bad thing to claim this in a counter-suit all in the name of redistributing road money, and now could hurt a lot of people with the bills that passed after midnight. I guess there will be more special sessions to re-pass those bills again after they're all declared unconstitutional as well. Way to go Gov, I don't know who your legal advisors are but I would fire them quickly.

[JimmyB]

For some reason I like the idea of everything they pass after midnight being null in void...

For the lawmakers (chicken hagglers) it would be a valuable lesson to quit running the time clock down in the back office deals.

It would be unfortunate for the tax payers to have to pay for another special session to re-pass laws... But maybe that would be a signal to get rid of some law makers "Speaker of the House" and "Senate President" that can't see to work together for the good of the Commonwealth.

Kind of brings to mind the state motto...
United we stand, divide we fall"...

[rob]

Yeah, blame it on the Gov. when King David started this whole mess.

[Stop the clock]

If Beshear wants anything passed after the clocks were stopped declared null and void, then the court ought to pull a KERA and throw the baby out with the bath water and declare EVERY bill passed after the clock was stopped in EVERY legislative session ever held to be unconstitutional. Stopping the clock in the General Assembly has been a time-honored tradition, for right or wrong, and it's nit-picky to complain about it now when it's been going on for years.

Kinda like Democrats never objecting to patronage until they perceive it happening in a Republican administration.

[David Adams]

Not that I'm against blaming any particular politician for this mess, but we, the voters, deserve a share of the blame as well.
Until we insist on moving the candidate filing deadline until after the end of the session, we will always have legislators sitting around doing nothing the first full month in even-numbered years.
And that brings up another point. We should insist on passage of a bill to run budget sessions in odd-numbered years so a new governor would have a year (instead of a month) to put together a budget.