As we have previously noted, the state Supreme Court has consolidated the cases against the General Assembly’s new laws restricting Governor Andy Beshear’s (D-KY) ’emergency’ powers under KRS 39A, and a lawsuit against the Governor exercising those powers. The state Court then set June 10^th, then eight weeks away, to hear oral arguments in the cases. That means, in effect, that the Governor will continue to exercise authority the General Assembly denied him, for at least 3½ months after the state legislature took its action, and, in all likelihood, a couple of months after that.

Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY)

Several lawsuits were filed in state courts last year to stop the Governor’s emergency decrees under KRS39A. On July 17, 2020, the state Supreme Court put a hold on all lower court orders against Mr Beshear’s orders and directed that “any lower court order, after entry, be immediately transferred to the clerk of the Supreme Court for consideration by the full court.” Three weeks later, the  Court set September 17, 2020, another five weeks later, to hear oral arguments by both sides.

The Court then waited for eight more weeks to issue its decision, until November 12, 2020, which upheld the Governor’s orders.

If the Kentucky Supreme Court, officially non-partisan but in practice controlled by the Democrats, follows the same pattern, a second eight week delay will mean a decision around the first week of August! Even if that decision supports the duly passed laws of the General Assembly, the state courts will have given the Governor half a year to exercise power that the General Assembly restricted.

On May 6^th, Governor Beshear announced that he would loosen the restrictions, but not eliminate them entirely, effective just before the Memorial Day weekend. Then, on May 14^th, the Governor announced that almost all restrictions would be lifted on Kentuckians, including the hated mask mandate, even for those who are not vaccinated against COVID-19. He had, the previous day, followed the Centers for Disease Control’s recommendations, and stated that “fully vaccinated” Kentuckians could dispense with face masks.

‘A huge relief.’ Businesses, politicians celebrate end of KY COVID-19 restrictions.

By Alex Acquisto and Daniel Desrochers | June 11, 2021 | 6:00 AM | EDT | Updated: 7:45 AM EDT

A year of mask-wearing and social distancing ends Friday, as Kentuckians were given clearance to stop taking routine precautions against spread of COVID-19 for the first time since the virus initially invaded the state.

Gov. Andy Beshear first required masks be worn in public places and around others outside one’s household in July of 2020 as a way to blunt the spread of the disease and has renewed that order each month since.

On Friday, that order was lifted, along with restrictions on crowd capacity in restaurants and most other businesses, ripping off the state’s COVID-19 protective band-aid.

So, despite the best efforts of Republicans, Governor Beshear has pretty much gotten away with his dictatorial and unconstitutional actions. At this point, the battle is to keep him from being able to do it again.

KY Supreme Court hears arguments on limiting the governor’s power during emergencies

By Jack Brammer | June 10, 2021 | 1:37 PM EDT | Updated June 11, 2021 | 7:57 AM EDT

A day before Gov. Andy Beshear is to remove most COVID-19 restrictions in Kentucky, the state Supreme Court on Thursday heard arguments on Beshear’s challenge of Republican-backed laws that limit his authority to respond to the coronavirus pandemic and other emergencies.

Chief Justice John D. Minton Jr. said after nearly two hours of oral arguments on two related cases that the state’s highest court will rule “as quickly as we can.” A decision is not expected for several weeks.

The state Supreme Court last year unanimously ruled that Beshear’s orders were legal but that was before the legislature passed laws earlier this year restricting the governor’s powers.

There’s a lot more at the original, but basically the Governor’s attorney was arguing that the Governor had to have the powers he exercised.

After the court hearing, Beshear told reporters that a governor’s emergency powers certainly “have to be large enough with a one-in-every-hundred year pandemic that creates the deadliest year in our history, it has to be significant and strong enough to do what’s necessary there.”

“You look back at different things that this legislature has tried to do in the midst of this pandemic and they would have not had the courage to step up and mandate masks, which we know from the experts is absolutely necessary,” he said. “We would have looked like the Dakotas and not what we looked like here in Kentucky.”

The Governor was lying through his scummy teeth. The laws did not prevent him from issuing declaring a state of emergency or issuing executive orders under it; what hey did was to limit those orders to thirty days unless the General Assembly specifically authorized an extension. The legislature passed House Joint Resolution 77, which granted extensions to some, but not all, of the Governor’s executive orders, but did not include the hated mask mandate, and then highly partisan Judge Phillip Shepherd issued an injunction against that, saying that the Governor’s existing executive orders and emergency regulations constituted “proper responses to a public health crisis.” That’s a political judgement, not a legal one.

Mr Beshear was pissed off that the legislature did not agree with all of his executive order, only some of them. Saying that the legislature “would have not had the courage to step up and mandate masks, which we know from the experts is absolutely necessary” is a political argument, not a legal one.

Republicans, frustrated by the courts’ refusal to rein in the Governor’s mandates, ran against the Governor and his actions in the 2020 elections, and the voters rewarded Republicans with 14 additional seats in the state House of Representatives, for a 75-25 majority, and two additional seats in the state Senate, out of 17 being contested, for a 30-8 majority in that body. The state legislature, in passing the bills at the beginning of this year’s session, was doing whet the voters of Kentucky wanted them to do. The Governor does not like that the voters did not agree with his dictates.

Mr Beshear, who was very, very, very concerned about the law when he was state Attorney General and doing his best to frustrate Governor Matt Bevin (R-KY), doesn’t seem to care much about the law anymore, not when the law is a problem for him. He has argued necessity, as though the Governor’s personal judgement of what is necessary somehow trumps or supersedes the law.

Well, not just no, but Hell no! The law is the law, and the constitution is the constitution, and no Governor, not Mr Beshear or anybody else, should have the authority to just suspend or ignore parts of it.

Alas! I am not confident that the state Supreme Court will follow the law; they’ve been far too compliant with the Governor’s wishes. But, with the restrictions over, there is no reason at for the justices to ignore the laws passed by the General Assembly other than the argument of what might happen sometime in the future.

The real solution for Kentuckians will come on November 7, 2023, when they will have the chance to vote this wannabe dictator out of office.