Pol Watchers

Clinton touts Kentucky's importance

By Bill Estep
BESTEP@HERALD-LEADER.COM

Louisville -- Hillary Clinton opened her Kentucky campaign Saturday with a 40-minute speech in Louisville, making clear that, for a change, the state’s Democrats can play a real role in choosing the party’s nominee for president.

Clinton trails U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, but said the race is far from over.

“It’s exciting because Kentucky’s going to be helping to pick a president . . .,” Clinton told a noisy crowd of about 2,500 at DuPont Manual High School. “I’m happy that Kentucky’s going to be voting.”

Clinton didn’t mention Obama, but repeated a familiar charge that she has more substance than the Illinois senator.

“This election is not about the speeches we give, but about the solutions we offer,” she said.

Clinton was joined on stage by five Democratic women state lawmakers: Rep. Joni Jenkins of Shively, Rep. Leslie Combs of Pikeville, Rep. Dottie Sims of Horse Cave, Rep. Mary Lou Marzian of Louisville and Rep. Sannie Overly of Paris. Jenkins explicitly endorsed Clinton.

The themes in Clinton's speech were not new, but the message could make a difference in Kentucky this year.

Though the state's primary often makes little difference in the presidential race because it comes relatively late, Clinton and Obama are locked in a tight race that might not be settled until after Kentucky's May 20 primary.

In her 40-minute speech Clinton stuck to key campaign issues such as ending American involvement in the Iraq war, moving toward universal health-care coverage and jump-starting the economy.

On the economy, for instance, she said there should be no tax benefit for any business that exports jobs from Kentucky, which drew cheers in a city with a large manufacturing base.

Clinton also advocated expanded federal aid to help with higher-education costs, which drew loud cheers.

Clinton said she would advocate forgiving federal college loans for people who went into public serviced jobs such as teaching and nursing.

She advocated greater investment in renewable energy sources -- funded in part by ending tax credits to oil companies -- and said the country could sell bonds its citizens to finance massive infrastructure upgrades in the country, creating jobs in the process.

Clinton said the country also could create jobs “if we end President Bush’s war on science.” That was a reference to his veto of stem-cell research.

Clinton also reminded the crowd of the successes of her husband, President Bill Clinton, saying that the economy did well in the 1990s and the country had a balanced budget and a budget surplus.

“President Bush inherited that balanced budget and that surplus, and now it’s gone. It’s been squandered,” she said.

Voters who attended the rally said they were glad Kentucky’s primary could play a role in choosing the Democratic nominee this year.

“It’s really controversial and really exciting this time,” said Kri Martin, of Louisville.       

Budget negotiations: Day 5

UPDATED THROUGHOUT THE DAY

FRANKFORT -- After meeting privately Saturday with Gov. Steve Beshear and Transportation Secretary Joe Prather, House and Senate budget negotiators have a new plan to consider to build two new bridges in Louisville across the Ohio River.

Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, outlined to the budget negotiators when they resumed their work at 4:30 p.m. a plan involving short-term federal bonds for the Louisville bridges project and using tolls to pay the debt on them.

Williams said language could be put in the budget to use so-called GARVEE bonds for the project and stipulate that the Kentucky Turnpike Authority could issue tolls to retire the debt on the bonds.

Such a plan, Williams said, would keep the cost of federal money for the project to a minimum and free up more federal dollars for other projects in Jefferson County.

The Senate's first version of the state budget adds $130 million for a total of $341 million for the Louisville bridges project. The extra money would come from other federally-funded road projects, half of them in Jefferson County.

An earlier Senate bill sponsored by Williams would have allowed local authorities to come up with funding ideas for megaprojects, but Williams said opponents of the proposal turned it into a "tolls bill" so he stopped pushing it.  Several senators from Northern Kentucky had expressed concern about the use of tolls to improve the Brent Spence bridge in their area.

The House plan sets up a state authority that could consider various funding options for megaprojects -- ones that cost more than $500 million.

Earlier this week, Beshear urged lawmakers to negotiate on the details of a House bill that could pave the way for using tolls to fund mega-transportation projects, such as two new bridges in Louisville. 

He said he hopes this legislative session will not end without a funding mechanism in place for such projects.

Williams said Saturday he believes "tremendous progress" has been made on the issue of funding for the Louisville bridges.

House Speaker Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green, said his group, too, met Saturday with the governor.  He said Democrats would like to see more money in the budget to emphasize education, human services and corrections.

Discussion then turned to how coal severance tax receipts should be used.

Williams criticized how some of the money is spent, noting that some coal counties spend it on such things as baseball parks and artificial turf instead of water and sewer projects.

House Majority Leader Rocky Adkins, D-Sandy Hook, said he is proud that the money has benefited communities.  He noted the use of the money to link schools by computers to the University of Louisville.

Williams agreed with him that that was a good use of the money.

UPDATED AT 6:05 p.m.  The committee recessed at 5:30 p.m.

Richards said some of the committee's breakout groups on various issues will meet informally tonight and the full panel will not meet again until sometime Sunday.

He said the House wants to make sure that education and human services are funded before any project is.

--Jack Brammer and Art Jester

Send felons home? The pros and cons of cons

It's Friday night at the Capitol, and lawmakers are talking about the high cost of convicts.

The House-Senate conference committee on the state budget has worked its way down to the Corrections Department, which incarcerates nearly 23,000 felons (and more every week) and is set to cost nearly half a billion dollars a year in the near future.

The Senate has proposed using home incarceration to absorb 2,000 state inmates -- Class C and D felons -- now held in largely overcrowded county jails. Jails get about $32/day per inmate from the state. By contrast, home detention costs an average of $8.65/day.

The good news, Justice Secretary J. Michael Brown is telling lawmakers: This maybe could be done. Of the Class C felon population, Brown said, 6,783 are classified as nonviolent and not sex offenders. Many of them -- most, perhaps -- are drug offenders, sometimes repeat drug offenders whose felony level has been enhanced by the persistent felony offender law, Brown said. While they broke the law and clearly have problems, they are not necessarily a threat to the public safety.

The bad news, Brown added: Kentucky has no experience in offering home incarceration to a large group of Class C felons, and he's not sure that other states do, either, so he has no data to offer on how successful or unsuccessful this experiment would be.

As of this week, Kentucky has only 161 felons on home incarceration. What lawmakers are considering would be a major expansion -- and it would rely on state probation and parole officers to monitor the felons, officers who already struggle with large caseloads.

And not every felon is fit for home incarceration, Brown told the budget conferees.

"You have to have a phone, a family, a place to go," Brown said. "It's not as easy as just opening the door."

-- John Cheves

Prosthetics bill caught in political cross-fire

A Senate bill to license and regulate those who make, fit and repair artificial limbs got caught in political cross-fire on Friday in the House .

Rep. Joni Jenkins, D-Louisville, presented the legislation, which she said is necessary to protect the growing numbers of Kentuckians who rely on prosthetics.

“It allows Kentuckians to make educated choices about their care,” Jenkins said.

But Rep. Jimmy Higdon, R-Lebanon, offered a floor amendment that would put off any action, and instead call for a Legislative Research Commission study.

That prompted a floor fight ostensibly about access to care, pitting House Majority Whip Rob Wilkey, D-Franklin, against Majority Caucus Chair Charlie Hoffman, D-Georgetown.

But it swiftly became apparent the fight was less about artificial limbs and more about strong-arming Jenkins, an ally of House Speaker Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green.

A rift in Democratic leadership appeared earlier this session on the casino gambling legislation, with Wilkey and Speaker Pro Tem Larry Clark, D-Louisville, lining up behind a racetrack-friendly version.

They unexpectedly succeeded in temporarily blocking the less racing-friendly version backed by Richards. But Richards did an end-run around Wilkey and Clark and got his version out of committee by booting a recalcitrant legislator and replacing her with two supporters.

One of them, Rep. John Will Stacy, D-West Liberty, Friday made an angry and unsuccessful plea to defeat Higdon’s amendment.

But Wilkey and Clark won the power struggle, with the amendment passing 48-44.

Some lawmakers may also have wanted to deliver a rebuke for bad lobbying form. At one point, Richards from the Speaker’s chair chastised Jason Baird and at least one other lobbyist in the gallery for standing and signalling thumbs-down to legislators below.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Dick Roeding, R-Lakeside Park, said he will try to get the bill into a conference committee to possibly iron out a compromise.

This is the second year the bill has suffered a last-minute defeat essentially as political collateral damage.

“I sent a good bill,” Roeding said later. “Probably politics got to it, with the different leadership fights.”

- Janet Patton

Budget negotiations: Day 4

UPDATED THROUGHOUT THE DAY

FRANKFORT -- The president of the Kentucky Lottery Corp. met privately with several state lawmakers Friday afternoon regarding a Senate proposal that would require the lottery to provide more money to the state.

Arch Gleason met with the lawmakers behind closed doors in Senate President David Williams' Capitol office.

The Senate has approved a state budget that would take an additional $110 million over the next two years from the lottery to bolster the anemic state budget. That would raise the lottery's contribution from 27 percent to 35 percent of its sales.

A House-Senate budget conference committee, which is trying to iron out differences between the two chambers' budgets, decided Thursday night to contact Gleason about the Senate proposal.

Gleason said after Friday's meeting that he told lawmakers the Senate's plan would mean lower lottery prizes and less ticket sales.

He said the lottery now provides about $200 million a year to the state.

Williams declined to comment on Gleason's discussion. He said he was headed to the Capitol Annex to attend another meeting of the House-Senate budget negotiations.

UPDATE 4:40 p.m.: The budget conference committee began its fourth day of negotiations at 4:25 p.m.

Rep. Robin Webb, D-Grayson, informed the group about the discussion with Gleason.

Williams presented a document showing how much money neighboring states receive from their lotteries.

They ranged from 33.3 percent in Virginia to 26.5 percent in Indiana.  Williams said he did not consider West Virginia because that state has slots machines.

He said the average percentage return for the neighboring states was 30.1.  "I don't see why we couldn't do what neighboring states do," Williams said.

He said for every percentage increase, Kentucky could reap $7 million. 

A jump to the neighboring states' average, he said, would raise about $21 million a year for Kentucky, Williams said.

House Speaker Pro Tem Larry Clark, D-Louisville, said he was "not comfortable with taking money from the lottery at this time."

Another way of raising money for the state is the House plan to generate $150 million a year by restructuring state debt.

Williams said the Senate does not favor that move.

Earlier in the day, House Speaker Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green, said there is little hope for new revenue from a cigarette tax increase.

He echoed what House budget chairman Harry Moberly Jr., D-Richmond, had said Thursday.

The House plan raises about $230 million over two years from increasing the cigarette tax by 25 cents a pack.  The Senate did not raise any taxes.

Gov. Steve Beshear said Friday, "I'm still hopeful they will come around on the cigarette tax. ... From what I heard last night, the Senate is saying it's off the table.

"I don't think the House is saying that yet. But we'll see; obviously there is still a long way to go."

Concerning more money from the lottery, Beshear said that if the lottery says it can produce more "hard dollars" then that's acceptable to him.

Senate Majority Leader Dan Kelly, R-Springfield, said if the two chambers cannot agree on additional revenue measures, "then we will have to start cutting."

UPDATE 9:45 p.m.: The conference broke up, with both sides leaving the meeting room to go upstairs in the Capitol Annex to their offices.

It was not certain if they would reconvene this evening, but a staffer said it was doubtful.

The staffer said breakfast was ordered for the budget negotiations to resume at 9 a.m. Saturday.

UPDATE 11:32 p.m.  House Speaker Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green, said late Friday night that the House-Senate budget negotiators will reconvene at 4 p.m. Saturday and that he expects "a scaled-down budget" with little extra money.

He also said he expects the budget conferees to reach an agreement so the full House and Senate can vote on their work on Tuesday.

The legislature then would adjourn until April 14 and 15 to consider any vetoes by the governor, he said.

--Jack Brammer

Fight for control of Eastern State Hospital

A key lawmaker says that plans to build a new $129 million Eastern State Hospital in Lexington, and to swap several tracts of land around the city as part of the deal, are still alive despite an e-mail warning to the contrary sent Thursday by the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Lexington.

In a lengthy e-mail to Gov. Steve Beshear and many legislators, NAMI accused Rep. Jimmie Lee -- who engineered the deal -- of calling the group this week and angrily threatening to kill the new mental-health hospital over the question of who would run it.

NAMI wants the nonprofit Bluegrass Regional Mental Health-Mental Retardation Board to be guaranteed the management contract at the new hospital, and the Senate budget bill includes such language. Lee wants the contract to be open to competition, and the House budget bill reflects that.

“WE should not have to choose between a new hospital and the care we trust!!! ... PLEASE, PLEASE PLEASE ... help us and don’t let this absolutely righteous project be ruined,” NAMI Executive Director Kelly Gunning wrote in her e-mail. “We have basically been threatened with ‘no hospital.’” Gunning said Friday that her e-mail account is accurate.

That’s untrue, Lee said Friday. Lee, D-Elizabethtown, oversees the House budget for health and welfare.

“I have every intention of building a new Eastern State Hospital, because it’s important to the residents of the old facility and to their families,” Lee said.

Lee said he has angered some mental-health advocates because he’s uncomfortable writing into state law a guarantee that anyone must get a state contract without competition.

“I have nothing against Bluegrass,” Lee said. “I think Bluegrass has done a marvelous job. I hope they do a marvelous job in the new hospital. But I am not prepared to mandate that by statute.”

However, this isn’t a deal-breaker, Lee said. By the end of the ongoing House-Senate budget talks, he wants a new hospital, regardless of what compromises are reached, he said.

In fact, several for-profit companies are watching the Eastern State plan with an eye on bidding for the management contract if the legislature allows. One is The GEO Group of Boca Raton, Fla., which specializes in private prison and jail management. Lee confirmed that GEO has met with him.

“We would be very excited to submit a proposal,” said Jorge Dominicis, president of GEO Care, a GEO subsidiary that runs four civil psychiatric facilities for the state of Florida.

While Bluegrass may be doing a fine job now, “I just wonder aloud, why wouldn’t you want to find out what other people could offer you, what they could achieve for you,” Dominicis said Friday.

-- John Cheves

"In God We Trust" vs. "In God We Trust"

An “In God We Trust” license plate is almost ready to hit Kentucky streets.

The Senate Transportation Committee on Thursday approved House Bill 207 and sent it to the full Senate. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Jim Gooch, D-Providence, would let Kentucky motorists buy a specialty plate emblazoned with the words “In God We Trust.” Ten dollars from each plate would go to the state’s veterans’ trust fund.

Gooch's bill has drawn protests from a nonprofit group, Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana (ROCK), that applied late last year to the Transportation Cabinet for its own “In God We Trust” plates to raise money for its anti-pornography efforts. ROCK alleges that lawmakers swiped its idea and now stand to divert millions of dollars in potential revenue.

-- John Cheves

Three Frankfort reporters on 'Comment on Kentucky'

Three reporters who cover Kentucky's 2008 General Assembly will join host Ferrell Wellman on this weekend's "Comment on Kentucky" public-affairs show on the Kentucky Educational Television network.

They are Stephenie Steitzer with The Courier-Journal, Owen Covington of the Owensboro Messenger Inquirer and Jack Brammer of the Lexington Herald-Leader.

The show airs at 8 p.m. on KET1.

--Jack Brammer

Beshear: Casino proposal dead

A proposal to allow casino gambling in Kentucky is dead for the year, according to Gov. Steve Beshear and House Speaker Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green.

The announcement came in a news conference after Beshear huddled with House leaders in his office to discuss the future of House Bill 550.

The constitutional amendment would have allowed nine casinos in the state, with up to five at horse race tracks.

Beshear and Richards were never able to muster the 60 votes needed to pass the bill out of the 100-member chamber.

Even if it had passed the House, Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, had repeatedly said the measure had little support in his chamber.

Ultimately, voters must ratify or reject any change to the state's constitution.

MORE TO COME

- Janet Patton and John Stamper

Final decision on casinos expected this afternoon

Gov. Steve Beshear will meet with Democratic House leaders at 3 p.m. in his office Thursday to make a final decision about the future of a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow casino gambling in Kentucky.

"I would think we'll know exactly where we are at that point and either proceed based upon information that says we'll get the votes ... or call a halt to it," Beshear told the Herald-Leader.

Beshear and House Speaker Jody Richards have struggled for weeks to find the required 60 votes to pass House Bill 550 out of the House.

- Janet Patton