Jay Blanton will leave his role as spokesman at the University of Kentucky and will be taking over as communications director for Gov. Steve Beshear on August 1.
"He's a big get for us," said Beshear's newly named Chief of Staff Adam Edelen of Blanton who has served in the same capacity for President Lee Todd, Jr. at UK since Nov. 2004.
The role Blanton will be filling for Beshear, a Democrat, is the same his wife Carla was named to under Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher in 2005. The Merit System Investigation which eventually led to the indictment of Gov. Fletcher began less than a month after Carla Blanton's appointment in April of 2005. A month after Fletcher issued blanket pardons covering everyone in his administration other than himself, Blanton chose to resign from her post in late September of that year.
Jay Blanton's role with Beshear will be much more involved than most previous communication directors, Edelen said.
"Jay is a key member of the senior staff. He'll be active in not just communicating our message but actually policy development and I don't think that there's been a communications director in the governor's office who's had that intimate of a role for some time," Edelen said. Often under Fletcher and other governors, communications staff has been left out of decision making.
Current Beshear communications director, Dick Brown, who came to the administration from Humana will become director of communications for the Environmental and Public Protection Cabinet, Edelen said. Brown came on with Beshear after the governor's original appointee Lexington's Phil Osborne, owner of public relations and marketing firm Preston Osborne, had to turn down the appointment because of possible conflicts with Preston Osborne clients.
Blanton will also serve as Beshear's chief spokesman for the near future, according to Edelen, as Vicki Glass who was Beshear's spokeswoman since the primary campaign left at the end of last month for a similar role with the State Fair Board.