The 13-year experiment in Kentucky politics that is annual legislative sessions should be ended.
The General Assembly has proven once again in 2013 that the hypothesis of better governance through annual sessions is simply wrong. In fact, the yearly scheduled convergence of the Commonwealth’s 138 legislators upon Frankfort has served as little more than a steady reminder of their collective deficiencies in leadership.
It was in 2000 when Kentucky voters were duped into believing that if they passed a constitutional amendment allowing annual sessions — 60 days in even-numbered years, 30 in others — the statehouse would operate more productively. Let it be noted that with more than 1.1 million voters on the issue, the measure passed by only 52,204 ballots. So almost as many voters as not were seasoned enough in Kentucky politics to know that the mention of an efficient and effective Frankfort is no more than an oxymoron.
Naively handing more power to state lawmakers who so artfully ask for such is hardly unique to Kentuckians. There has been a systemic growth of government in statehouses across the nation in the last half-century. In the early 1960s, 31 state legislatures met only biennially. Today, that number is a mere four as the reach of government has grown and its efficiency withered.
In Kentucky, since the initial 30-day session opened in 2001, lawmakers will have convened 666 days at the close of the current assembly later this month. Seventy-six of those days have come in the form of 10 special sessions. In the same 13 years prior to the 2001 session, lawmakers met for a combined 107 fewer days.
The legislative body of the Bluegrass State in whole has evidenced an inability to rise above petty partisan politics that derail solutions to real problems facing the residents of the Commonwealth. This year is no different. Of 1,064 bills and resolutions filed in the current session, only a handful had made it to the governor’s desk after the gavel fell Tuesday on the 28th day of the 30-day session. Of the few measures that have reached Gov. Steve Beshear, none include big ticket items like redistricting, pension reform, an overhaul of the tax system, creating a framework for industrial hemp production and attention to medicaid issues.
With only two more legislative days remaining and a bevy of important loose ends yet to be tied, another special session looms at a cost to taxpayers of $60,000 per day in order to conclude the business of the Commonwealth in 2013. So after 13 years, the only hypothesis legislators have proven about lawmaking in Kentucky is that the most efficient statehouse is one void of their presence.