Politics: Recent Episodes
WKU Public Radio
U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is reserving comment on Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer’s planned retirement from the bench. NPR and other media outlets are reporting Breyer is expected to make a formal announcement Thursday. During a stop in Bowling Green on Wednesday, the GOP leader was asked if his party would attempt to block President Joe Biden’s nominee. "We don’t even know who the nominee is yet, so that’s something the president has an opportunity to make and Justice Breyer will determine when and if there’s a vacancy," McConnell said. Although Biden's pick wouldn’t change the overall balance of the court, the nominee could serve on the court for decades.
Community bail funds would be considered illegal under a bill being considered in the Kentucky General Assembly. Charitable bail organizations take donations and use them as part of a revolving fund to bail people out while they’re awaiting trial. A bill being sponsored by Rep. John Blanton would make the work these organizations do illegal. The Republican from Magoffin County said he wants to see more accountability for community bail fund organizations. “All of a sudden it’s being used basically as a get out of jail free card from someone who has no interest in anything other than releasing people who have been criminally charged with a crime," Blanton said in an interview with WKU Public Radio.
Kentuckians who can’t afford to have their criminal records expunged , or cleared, can now ask a court to waive those fees. That change could have a big impact on the lives of individuals who have served their time and are eligible for expungement. A recent opinion from the Kentucky Supreme Court allows individuals to ask the court to waive expungement fees if they can’t afford to pay them. When someone has served their time, including parole for non-violent, non-sex-related crimes in Kentucky, they can apply to have mention of their crimes removed from public record . “This is a really important win for access to justice because now there’s a clear signal to everybody that there’s no financial barrier to accessing the court to seek this relief,” said Mike Abate, a lawyer who worked on the case.
A new report from the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy shows the number of people incarcerated in the state–and the costs of keeping them locked up–have risen over the past decade. Kentucky has the 7th-highest incarceration rate in the nation. Nearly 60 bills passed by the Kentucky legislature in the past 10 years have increased or expanded felony criminal punishments, compared to only 10 bills that have reduced criminal punishment. According to Prison Policy Initiative , at least 41,000, Kentuckians are currently incarcerated in the state’s jails and prisons.
Hearkening to a time when Democrats were overwhelmingly powerful in Kentucky, Charles Booker is reaching back nearly a century for his new campaign initiative, saying the state needs a “Kentucky New Deal” to lift people out of poverty, build infrastructure and provide universal health coverage. Booker, a former Democratic state representative, is trying to unseat Kentucky’s junior Republican U.S. Sen. Rand Paul at the ballot box next year. He ran for Senate last year as well , narrowly losing his party’s nomination to retired Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath . And just as McGrath invoked former President Donald Trump ’s promise to “drain the swamp”—to the chagrin of some Democrats in Kentucky—in a recent interview, Booker said Trump was right about the government not working for most people.
Once a year, children race black and orange woolly worms up taut strings in Beattyville, Ky., goading them to the top by blowing with straws or clapping. Legend has it you can predict how severe a winter will be by observing the coloration of the 13-segmented caterpillar, really the larval form of the tiger moth. And people come from far and wide to celebrate the furry oracles during Beattyville’s annual Woolly Worm Festival, when the 1,300-person town in the foothills of Appalachia jumps by about 10,000 people for the weekend. But Beattyville’s Lee County is one of more than half of Kentucky’s counties that lost population over the last 10 years, dropping by 6.2% according to the decennial Census .
The Chief Justice of the Kentucky Supreme Court has announced plans to retire after serving 30 years on bench. In an interview on Wednesday with WKU Public Radio, John Minton, Jr. of Bowling Green announced he will not seek re-election next year. Minton says although his term doesn’t expire until January 1, 2023, he wanted to announce his intentions early. “One of the rules of traditional politics would be that an elected official, such as the chief justice, would never confirm that he wasn’t seeking re-election because the concern is that you become immediately irrelevant," commented Minton. "Well, I don’t intend to become irrelevant. I’ve got more than a year left to serve.”
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul says law enforcement groups are being unfairly criticized in the media and in public debate over police violence. Paul spoke on Thursday at the Kentucky Sheriff’s Association meeting in Bowling Green where he denounced the idea of defunding police. “Of the killings that are going on in Louisville, they have more murders per capita than Chicago. You would think by what you read, it’s the police killing people in Louisville. No, it’s people killing people in Louisville," stated Paul. It’s not an easy problem to fix. I’m not here to say I know how to fix the murder problem in Louisville, but I know it’s not getting rid of the police.”
U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky says President Biden will not be impeached over his withdrawal from Afghanistan, despite calls from some Republican colleagues. Speaking in his home state on Thursday, McConnell urged voters to hold the president accountable in next fall’s mid-term elections. During a stop in Glasgow, the Senate minority leader called President Biden’s withdrawal and evacuations from Afghanistan "incompetent." McConnell noted Congress is run by Democrats and said voters angry with Biden should respond at the polls. “I think the president needs to be held to account, and of course the way we have accountability in this country is called elections, and they’ll be an election next fall," stated McConnell. "Typically, the election two years into any administration, is a referendum on how they’re doing.”
At a time when the Delta variant has led to a spike in COVID-19 cases across the country, U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is urging those in his home state to “overcome skepticism” about the vaccine. The Republican leader promoted vaccinations during a stop in Butler County on Tuesday. As a polio survivor, McConnell said he's perplexed why more Americans aren’t rolling up their sleeves. Speaking in Morgantown, the GOP lawmaker noted it took 70 years to find two vaccines for polio compared to the mere months it took to get three vaccines effective against COVID-19. He stressed the solution to ending the pandemic is right in our hands. "We have the vaccine now," stated McConnell. "We have the solution.”
Former Democratic state Rep. Charles Booker launched his 2022 campaign for U.S. Senate earlier this month. He’s trying to build off his 2020 Senate bid, which was cut short after he narrowly lost to retired Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath in the primary election. Booker surged to prominence during racial justice protests last year and created an advocacy organization called “Hood to the Holler,” named after his campaign slogan and attempt to build an urban-rural coalition in the state. If he wins the Democratic nomination next year, he would likely face Republican incumbent Sen. Rand Paul, who was first elected in 2010 and is running again.
The head of the Kentucky Supreme Court says the past 14 months have been the most challenging in the history of the modern court system. However, as courts return to full, in-person proceedings, Chief Justice John Minton, Jr., says the judicial system should retain lessons learned from the pandemic. COVID-19 proved the importance of electronic filing and remote technology in the court system. In recent remarks to an interim legislative committee, Chief Justice Minton said COVID-19 forced courts to pivot to phone and video proceedings. “If the pandemic had struck a decade, even five years ago, our ability to operate remotely would have been seriously curtailed, but we were able to persevere and use this technology to our advantage," Minton said.
The beginning stages of a plan to bring high-speed, reliable internet access to homes and businesses is underway in Kentucky. The General Assembly this year approved $300 million for a "last mile" broadband expansion project that focuses on under-served areas of the state . State Budget Director John Hicks gave an update this week to the legislature’s Interim Joint Committee on Appropriations and Revenue. He said a Request for Information, or RFI, will be issued in a couple of weeks. “It’s purpose is to ask the providers and municipalities, and other government agencies their ideas, comments and their suggestions," Hicks said. "We don’t know what we don’t know, and so we want to avail ourselves of their expertise before we finalize our process.”
The Poor People’s Campaign will hold a rally in Bowling Green on May 10 that will be more of a celebration than the group’s usual marches or protests at the state capitol. But the group will still emphasize its main concerns – poverty, environmental destruction, systemic racism and social justice. The rally signifies the group’s return to more public events as the COVID-19 pandemic eases with widespread access to vaccinations and a lifting of some state limitations on gatherings.
Following more than a year of restrictions due to the pandemic, Kentucky’s Agriculture Commissioner is pressing Gov. Andy Beshear to set a reopening date for restaurants, bars, and other businesses. Ryan Quarles held a roundtable discussion in Bowling Green on Wednesday with farmers and restaurant owners, as well as food suppliers and distributors. Quarles said bars and restaurants have suffered more under the coronavirus than any other industry. He’s on a listening tour around the state, hearing from business owners who have struggled under what Quarles calls inconsistent and confusing executive orders from the governor’s office.
Former President Donald Trump is endorsing Kentucky’s junior U.S. Senator for re-election. Rand Paul will be seeking a third term in office in 2022. In a statement on Thursday, Trump said Senator Paul has “done a fantastic job for our Country, and for the incredible people of Kentucky.” Paul was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2010 and ran for president in 2016. Trump and Paul are former political rivals, often clashing when they both sought the GOP presidential nomination. But Paul later became one of Trump’s allies. During a stop in Logan County last week, Paul praised the former president for expanding the party. “I think President Trump did a good job bringing working class people into the party," he told reporters. "At times there’s been a sense that Republicans were more of a country club, richer people’s party. Trump really brought in a lot of America’s working class and that was good for the party.”
Kentuckians pushing to lift people out of poverty and guarantee access to voting took part in a car caravan in Frankfort on Monday. The Poor People’s Campaign organized car caravans in more than 25 states, including Kentucky, in an ongoing series of nationwide demonstrations the group calls "Moral Mondays." Kentucky supporters of the Poor People’s Campaign made their voices heard by driving in a "pandemic safe" caravan around the state capitol. The caravan was followed by an outdoor news conference and two members of the group - wearing masks - going into the building to deliver printed copies of 14 demands to state legislators. Those demands are related to social justice and ending poverty.
Police reform wasn’t on the radar of most Kentucky lawmakers when Louisville police killed Breonna Taylor last March. But after months of protests calling for change, politicians started to pay attention. Demonstrations led to some new policies—the city of Louisville passed a ban on no-knock warrants and Lexington temporarily suspended them. And at the statewide level, police reforms are moving forward through the state legislature, but they’re not everything the protesters hoped for. Democratic Rep. Attica Scott’s bill to ban no-knock warrants, Breonna’s Law for Kentucky , will get its first hearing in the House Judiciary Committee this week.
After an extraordinary inauguration ceremony marked by heightened security and coronavirus safety measures, President Joe Biden started his first day in office signing executive actions on climate change, immigration, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Even before taking the oath of office, Biden was already addressing the nation about his ambitious plans to fight the twin crises of a pandemic and a flagging economy. “We understand what you are going through,” Biden said in an address about what he called a rescue plan for the nation. “We will never ever give up and we will come back. We’ll come back together.”
On his last day as senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell directly tied the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol to outgoing President Donald Trump. “The mob was fed lies,” McConnell said in a speech on the Senate Floor. “They were provoked by the president and other powerful people.” The statement was the first time McConnell publicly blamed Trump for the insurrection, though he had gotten close in the hours after the riot when he warned of a democratic death spiral “if this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side.”