Governor Ernie Fletcher sure does have his hands full for a Governor who got elected partly n promises to change the way the state of kentucky does business, and to change the atmosphere of corruption that prevails there and, well, still does.
A long time mainstay of Kentucky law is it's hiring practices, something called the merit system, which basically states that a state employee is to be hired according to his qusalifications, and that politics is not to play a hand in an hiring/firing decisions. Governor Fletcher assurred his constituents that he would abide by this law, that he had no intwntion of changig or of in anyway undermining Kentucky's tried and true merit system. Some months into his term, he was singing a different tune all together, saying that the merit system was outmoded and contained loopholes that made it easily abused.
True enough, there have been ways of getting arund the law, and former Governor John Y. Brown siad that, while he himself did not abuse the merit system, practically everybody else that had ever been governor did. It was actually standard procedure. But the Democratic party has pretty much monopolized Kentucky state politcs for the last half-century, up until the last decade or so, there was nevcer any serious challenges to the way the State Party, which to all intents and purposes was the state itself, did business.
The Bop-Tropt investigation by the Federal Government in the late eighties pretty mcuh changed all that, and set the stage for the resurgence of the State Republican Party, who now controls the State House, as of 2003, for the first time since the administration of Louie B. Nunn, the last Republican Governor, who was there from 1967 through 1971. In fact, one of the major criticisms of Nunn's governorship was that he himself abused the law as pertaining to the hiring and firing of state employees, and showed a good deal of political favoritism, which, again it is alleged, everyone does. But of course the Republicans seem to be the only one blamed for his. Not that I'm saying, by any means, that they should be allowed to get away with it on the basis of the democrats having done it for years (if that is true). Beleive me, if Democratic State Attorney General Stumbo has hiw way about it, Fletcher would be definitely hung out to dry on just this very issue.
In fact, he has conducted an investigation into the Fletcher Administrations hiring practices, which seem to be chiefly centered around the Transportation Cabinet. Just yesteday, this investigation culminated in Fletcher's being called before the Grand Jury, in front of whom he answered not one question, other than his name, his occupation, and his address.
Afterwards, he called a press conference at which he announced that he would issue a blanket pardon to anyone that may be indicted by Stumbo. He also said, however, that he would decline to issue a pardon for his own self, even though according to state law he could do just that. This didn't sit too well with Stumbo, who advised Fletcher that any information that might lead to an indictment should be alowed to come out int he Grand Jury before any decisions regarding pardons was rendered. But Fletcher, it seems, has all ready made up his mind that Stumbo is engaged in nothing more or less than a partisan witch hunt.
And so the stage is set for what indeed promises to be one rowdy contest fo rthe Governor's seat in the 2007 elections, obviousy to be fought out between the incumbent Fletcher and Attorney General Stumbo.
But it may turn out to be not all rancor and steam. In a rare but welcome moment of bi-partisan agreement, Fletcher and Stumbo agreed to cooperate in prosecuting to the fullest extent that the law allows, all those proven to be engaging in gasoline price gouging in the wake of the recent Hurricane Katrina disaster in the Gulf States.
