By Murray Evans
The Associated Press

LEXINGTON - The Lexington city council voted Tuesday to consider overriding Mayor Teresa Isaac's veto of a resolution that would have kept her from extending health-insurance coverage to city workers' domestic partners.

The council voted to place the item on a future agenda, a first step toward an override.

Friday, for the second time in four months, Isaac used her veto power in connection with the benefits plan. In a one-sentence document, she cited the city's 1999 Fairness Ordinance, which prohibits anti-gay discrimination in employment, as well as a Kentucky Constitution section that forbids "absolute and arbitrary power."

Isaac has said the Fairness Ordinance requires her to treat all employees the same and that extending health-insurance benefits to domestic partners - same sex or opposite sex - is necessary because spouses of married city employees receive such benefits.

Those voting against domestic partner benefits have raised issues of money and morality.

Nine votes are needed on the 15-member council to override a mayoral veto.