The first 10 weeks of Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s administration has brought his newly appointed chief of staff and general counsel La Tasha Buckner a sense of great opportunity—along with the swift and unanticipated public health challenge of COVID-19.
In early March, the focus of the governor’s office shifted quickly to monitoring developments and crafting a coordinated response to the appearance of the novel coronavirus in Kentucky, in the effort to minimize its impact across the state. The new priority was unexpected, but maneuvering quickly to address high-stakes issues that affect large numbers of Kentuckians is familiar territory for Buckner, a Lexington resident who previously served under Beshear as assistant deputy attorney general.
La Tasha Buckner meets with Gov. Andy Beshear at her office in Frankfort. Buckner holds dual roles in the administration, as chief of staff and general counsel.
As part of the former attorney general’s team, Buckner spent the past four years working some of the office’s most high-profile litigation, including the ultimately successful effort to overturn a controversial public pension law and the state supreme court case that ruled against former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin’s effort to order budget cuts at the state’s public universities.
The cases garnered a lot of attention in the media, Buckner said, primarily because of their direct impact on the lives of many Kentuckians.
“We had a lot of fun fighting for the things that we believed were right—and that are right,” Buckner said.
That experience, Buckner said, was the best preparation she’s had in her more than 20-year career in federal, state and administrative law for entering her current role as the Commonwealth’s first-ever dually appointed general counsel and chief of staff to the governor.
Buckner, a native of Glasgow, Kentucky, earned her law degree from the University of Kentucky after attending the UK Honors program as an undergraduate. She began her career as a state prosecutor in the office of longtime Fayette Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Larson, “prosecuting everything from cold checks to murder,” she said.
“It was probably the best courtroom experience that any attorney could ask for,” she said. “I was trying cases within months of coming on after passing the bar.”
After that, Buckner served a stint as deputy executive director for the office of legal services in the public protection cabinet, gaining exposure to a wide variety of fields that fell under the agency’s purview, including horseracing, charitable gaming and alcoholic beverage control. She also gained a wealth of knowledge on how regulatory government agencies operate, she said, and the ins and outs of how Kentuckians engage with them.
Buckner said the transition into the governor’s office has been a smooth one, thanks in part to the strength of her team, many of whom transitioned with her from the office of the attorney general, including deputy chief of staff Jonathan Smith and chief deputy general counsel Travis Mayo.
“We have a great shorthand, and we are able to talk to each other really frankly at this point to get things done. It’s a great way to reduce the chance of miscommunication and just to deal with things more efficiently,” she said. “We know how each other works. And we definitely incorporate new people into our way and make them feel a part of the team as well.”
In addition to being the first person ever to hold both her posts simultaneously, Buckner is the first woman, and also the first African American of any gender, to serve as chief of staff in the Kentucky governor’s office. She is also the first African-American woman to ever serve as general counsel for the office. Buckner said that she has not met with any difficulties so far in balancing her roles as both chief of staff and general counsel, and she likes being able to continue to engage her legal skills.
“Fortunately, a lot of the meetings I would be in as chief of staff are the same meetings I would be in as general counsel anyway,” she said. “It helps that there’s a lot of overlap. And I’m not afraid to work extra hours.”
Outside of the office, Buckner’s community involvement in Lexington includes serving on the executive advisory board for the UK Honors program, now known as the Lewis Honors College, which she cites as the reason she stayed in Kentucky. She also participates in Lexington’s John Rowe Chapter of the National Bar Association, a local affiliation of black attorneys that provides outreach and pro bono services within the community.
Prior to the U.S. outbreak of COVID-19, the governor’s team was beginning to make progress on many of the administration’s priorities for wage growth, health care, retirement and education, Buckner said. She cited more than $274 million in planned investments and the addition of 545 full-time jobs in advanced manufacturing, the food and beverage industry, software and IT services in the first 75 days of the administration.
“In our first week, we rescinded the Medicaid waiver that would have kicked about a hundred thousand Kentuckians off their coverage,” Buckner said. “We’ve been really vocal about how we think that [education] is the springboard to increasing our workforce, … and we waived the fees for GEDs.”
Looking forward, Buckner said the governor’s team will also be working to improve the state’s criminal justice system and address the social and fiscal concerns related to Kentucky’s high rates of incarceration. She also hopes to contribute to an overall improvement in dialogue and demeanor for state government, she said.
“We want to end the snarking,” she said. “We are dedicated to that, and to reaching out and trying to promote the things that I think we all value as Kentuckians.”