Friday, June 02, 2006

Ernie Fletcher And Joseph Lambert-Balancing Checks

Ernie Fletcher just cant seem to move a muscle without bumping into controversy, and this time he has been joined in this display of accident proneness by Joseph lambert, the Chief Justice of the Kentucky Supreme Court, whose wife, Debra lambert, is the sitting judge of my districts Family Court.

A law was recently passed which stated that a retired judge who decided to leave retirement, upon assumming office, can no longer draw both his pension and the salary for his or her current post. So therefore, if a judge is drawing 250,000 dollars a year, and also a pension fo 30,000 dollars a year, then he must forfeit his judges salary, or a portion thereof, to where he is drawingno more than one complete salary. This kind of practive has been an on-going, though certainly not that common, controversial practice known as “double dipping”.

It sounds like a reasonable law to me, and Ernie Fletcher agreed, and so after it was passed by the Kentucky legislature, he signed it into law. Joseph Lambert was of the opinion that it was so good a law, in fact, that it should be implemented immediately, and told Governor Fletcher so. Previously, Fletcher had been disposed towards waiting until after the next election cycle bfoe it takes effect. Therefore, it would not apply to any judges currently sitting, or who might be elected during the next election. Thanks to Lamberts influence, however, Fletcher utilized the line item veto to excise this item out of the bill, therefore making th elaw immediately applicable.

All well and good, so far as I’m concerned. Unfortunately, there’s a hitch. The man running against lamberts wife, Debra, for the Family Court Judges seat this election, is a man who has come out of retirement to run agains the controversial Judge Lambert. And he and his supporters are outraged.

And really, I could care less about whether this candidate, were he to win, would be able to engage in the practice of double dipping. In fact, I think it’s a practice that should have never been allowed. But he does make a point that Jospeh lamberts influence on the Governor in this matter is a definite conflict of interest, and an obvipous one at that. Yet, stupidly, Fletcher played along with it, and wonders why his administration is considered the most corrupt in recent Kentucky history. And believe me, it takes some doing to reach that level. Kentucky has had some real doozys.

And besides, this is blatantly unconstitutional, on every level. Joe Lambert, a sitting Justice, an official of the Kentucky judicial system, has no business interfering or inserting his influence into a matter of state business on the legislative or the gubernatorial level. His opinion on these matters is welcome only when a matter pertaining to them appears before his court. Otherwise, he should shut his fucking mouth.