Sunday, November 21, 1999
New era to arrive in Senate
BY PATRICK CROWLEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The scene: Frankfort, mid-February. The General Assembly is in session. Snow is on the ground.
A cold wind slashes through the Kentucky River valley and across an icy State Capitol parking lot. The one good restaurant in the city closed early. The first committee meets the next morning at 8 a.m.
There are better places to be than Frankfort in the dead of winter. Aruba comes to mind. So does Key West — or a corner table at The Midway Cafe in Fort Thomas, or even a dentist's chair.
You get the point.
Politics is fun. Politics is campaigns. Politics is competition, strategy, debates, mud-slinging, background checks, big money being tossed around, smash-mouth contests where only the strong survive.
Policy isn't quite the same. Watching the government do its business can be as much fun as watching a cow do its business in the middle of a pasture.
This year in Frankfort may be different. This year could be fun.
Not Aruba or Key West fun. But not the same old dry, wonkish policy sessions the General Assembly is famous for, either.
For this, we thank the Republicans. Specifically, a couple of former Democratic state senators named Dan Seum of Louisville and Bob Leeper of Paducah, who a few months ago jumped ship to the GOP and gave the Republicans their first-ever Senate majority.
That uncomfortable, unsettling sound you hear is Democrats — from the Senate chamber down the hall to the House and into the first floor State Capitol office of Gov. Paul Patton — squirming in their collective seats.
No more can they count on moving bills through the legislature with the cursory, annoying interference and opposition from Republicans. Now, the Republicans have the power to kill Democratic bills in the same way Dems have chopped up GOP bills in past sessions.
“We are, finally, a two-party system in Frankfort,” Republican Sen. David Williams of Burkesville said during a GOP party fund-raiser Friday afternoon in Erlanger.
Mr. Williams, an articulate dandy who is as funny as he is smart, will be elected president of the Senate on Jan. 4, the first day of the 2000 legislative session.
That evening, as Gov. Paul Patton prepares to deliver his State of the State address to a joint session of the General Assembly, Mr. Williams will be introduced by the House doorkeeper as the president of the Senate. He will then walk to the podium to take the gavel from Democratic House Speaker Jody Richards — whose fingers will be turning blue as he tightly clutches the big wooden hammer — and bang the legislature into session.
Not that the Republicans will be gloating, but during his Friday speech, Mr. Williams promised to relish the moment.
“I'm going to walk real slow,” he told the crowd of 150.
Republicans are feeling confident these days, maybe even a little cocky. The embarrassing gubernatorial campaign of Republican Peppy Martin is just a bad memory.
The party raised $40,000 at its Friday fund-raiser, an amount that even surprised a couple of Democrats.
Mr. Williams promises progress in the legislature, not gridlock. He has worked well with the Democrats and Mr. Patton in the past, but that angered some in the GOP and gives cause to ponder just how strong this Republican majority really is.
On policy, Republicans say they want to wisely spend the slim state budget on projects and bills that “include the things Kentuckians need, not just want,” a direct shot at the spending patterns of some pork-happy Democrats.
“Our message is going to be about prosperity,” Mr. Williams said. “We're going to let people keep more of their own money and improve their educational opportunities and let them have better jobs and they'll take care of their problems.”
How they will do that remains to be seen. But it should be fun to watch.
Senate squabbling
The gloves are already off in the race between Sen. Jack Westwood, R-Erlanger, and his Democratic challenger in next year's race, Jaimie Henson of Independence.
Some Republicans were angry last week when Mrs. Henson showed up at a ceremony for a new Independence senior center. Members of Gov. Patton's administration were in town to present the city with a check for $275,000 to build the center.
The GOP assumed and alleged that Mrs. Henson was invited to the event by Mr. Patton's office.
Mrs. Henson said she was not invited by the governor or anybody else in his office.
“I went because I used to be on (Independence) city council,” she said. “This was an issue when I was on council and I wanted to be here for it.”
Then on Friday Mrs. Henson put out a press release proposing legislation that would allow residents of a community to vote before a jail could be built in their city.
The bill, which Mrs. Henson said she will file if elected to office, is intended to draw attention to the plight of Elsmere, where residents are unhappy with the Republican Kenton County Fiscal Court's decision to build a jail in the city.
While the release was written by Mrs. Henson, at some point it was faxed to the Crestview Hills law firm of Mark Guilfoyle, a Democratic Party strategist and part-time lobbyist who worked against Mr. Westwood in the 1996 election. The firm's fax number, along with Mrs. Henson's fax number, was printed at the top of the release.
“I am not inclined to support bills created by Democratic activist and lobbyist Mark Guilfoyle put out in a press release for a news story in a political campaign,” Mr. Westwood said.
But Mr. Guilfoyle said he had nothing to do with the release. He was out of town Friday and is not working on the campaign. The release was faxed to another attorney in Mr. Guilfoyle's firm, David Kramer, who is working on the campaign.
“I haven't spoken to Jaimie Henson about this issue,” Mr. Guilfoyle said Friday.
Patrick Crowley covers Kentucky politics for The Kentucky Enquirer. His column appears Thursdays and Sundays. He can be reached at 578-5581, or 502-875-7526 in Frankfort, or by e-mail: crowleys@cinci.infi.net .
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