Beech Tree News Network

Undoubtedly, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear has to be thinking, at least on some level, about the oft-repeated phrase “what goes around comes around.”  Or, perhaps he remembers the more abrupt version of this concept - “Kharma is a ….”

As Attorney General for four years when Matt Bevin was governor, Mr. Beshear seemed to wake up daily with the goal of making the governor’s life miserable with numerous court challenges, verbal diatribes, and near constant political harassment of nearly everything that came out of the governor’s office.  Mr. Beshear and his supporters called it oversight.  Others would have a somewhat different word for it.  

Fast-forward a bit and now-Governor Beshear is experiencing a small taste of what he inflicted and he’s not happy about it.  Since the Coronavirus came to America via Wuhan, China, Mr. Beshear, through executive orders, has aggressively implemented economic shutdowns that have devastated the state economy, dispatched state troopers to intimidate church members, set up a hotline to encourage Kentuckians to snitch on each other when they run afoul of his orders, and issued a mandate requiring every Kentucky resident to wear a facemask whenever they are in public.  This latest edict has had the practical effect of turning businesses into his own private army of enforcers, putting them in the crosshairs of angry customers.  However, most big retailers are towing the company line because the scope and scale of their operations make it easier for them to withstand the controversy surrounding the governor’s order.  They are bandwagon businesses that love to engage in virtue signaling to show how much they care.  Their CEOs are probably mumbling the governor’s various hashtags in their sleep.  For smaller retailers and the common folks, the economic impact of the governor’s executives orders have been disastrous.    

Here enters Kentucky Attorney General (AG) Daniel Cameron and the work of many rank-and-file citizens and businesses who have pushed back against Mr. Beshear’s heavy hand of executive regulatory action with various court challenges.  Although Mr. Beshear argues that his actions are absolutely necessary to save lives, the governor has been thwarted on almost every legal challenge to his orders.  The governor just can’t seem to understand that even his power is limited and that he can’t just issue executive order after executive order because he deems it necessary.  Mr. Beshear is a governor whose power is checked by both state law and the Kentucky State Constitution.  He is not a king.  Or, maybe he is.  Breaking Friday afternoon, AG Daniel Cameron said that a Kentucky judge is set to issue a temporary injunction (sought by the AG) that will block most of the executive orders that have been issued by the governor.  Shortly after that, the Kentucky Supreme Court stepped in at Mr. Beshear’s request to stop that potential injunction.  So, the drama continues.  

Mr. Beshear has accused Mr. Cameron, and essentially all who disagree with him, of being reckless, risking lives, playing politics with people’s lives, and being irresponsible.  He shames you.  So, if you don’t agree with this governor and his brand of keeping you safe, then you really don’t care about folks and want to see people die.  This is total hogwash.  The path pursued by this governor isn’t the only legitimate path that could have been taken in response to the coronavirus.  To attack those who disagree with you by basically calling them accomplices to possible manslaughter is irresponsible.    

Mr. Cameron has fought back in one of his court motions, saying “The governor’s claim of discretion to decide whether to enforce his executive orders or not, at his whim, with no public notice, guidelines, or explanation for how and when his orders may be enforced, is an exercise of arbitrary power." 

Mr. Cameron continued, “The Constitution is not political, and it must be followed even in a pandemic."

It’s hard to say where this will end but the governor is likely to prevail in the Kentucky Supreme Court.  A constitution can be a vague document open to interpretation by those with a certain judicial lens.  And, state law is fairly permissive in the powers it gives to a governor during times like these.  I expect that to change come January when the Kentucky General Assembly comes back to town.  A governor with near totalitarian powers during an emergency is one thing when a tornado rolls through or flood waters rise; it’s quite another when faced with an “emergency” that can last months or even years.  There has to be something better than giving one individual almost sole power over the lives of 4.5 million people in the state.

In closing, a quote I recently read and a statement I heard someone make seems an appropriate way to end this column.

“Beware of those who seek to take care of you lest your caretakers become your jailers.”  --Jim Rohn

“Don’t keep me alive by keeping me from living.”  --Lou Holtz 

Let those words sink in a bit.  

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