From Kentucky Public Radio’s Tony McVeigh
Kentucky House and Senate leaders say the 2009 legislative session was one of the most bipartisan and successful sessions on record. But what about rank and file lawmakers? Do they agree?
Senator Kathy Stein spent 12 years in the Kentucky House, including chairing the powerful Judiciary Committee before seeking higher office. The 2009 session was the Lexington Democrat’s first taste of Senate life, and she has mixed emotions. She says it’s been a good learning experience, but there’s one thing she did not enjoy.
“And that is the ambush nature of legislation here in the Senate in particular. You never know what you’re going to vote on until it’s put before you. And I have a very, very big distaste for that,” said Stein.
Northern Kentucky Republican Senator Jack Westwood agrees with legislative leaders. He believes the session exuded bipartisanship and cooperation.
“At least for the years I’ve been down here – I’ve been down 12 years – I’ve never seen so much cooperation between the House and Senate and between parties. Seemed like everybody got along,” said Westwood. 
In the House, Louisville Rep. Jim Wayne says the 2009 session was an improvement over the 2008 session, which ended in what some called a train wreck. That was the year House and Senate clocks mysteriously stopped at midnight and lawmakers kept passing bills of questionable legality. But Wayne says the new majority leaders, who promised involvement and openness, still have some work to do.
“We thought that the Democrats in the House would meet more regularly and review legislation in a more open fashion and that was not done. The leadership kept a lot of their ideas and their bills close to their vests and some bills were not properly debated,” said Wayne.
Assessing the performance of House majority leaders from a minority point of view is Rep. Stan Lee. The Lexington Republican is unimpressed.
“We had projects added to a clean-up bill in the back rooms, in the middle of the night. We were promised with this new leadership team that that would not happen and yet it did. You saw what happened on the floor when that came out,” said Lee.
What happened was several House Democrats openly criticized their new leaders for failing to live up to their transparency promises. But former Democratic governor Julian Carroll, who now serves in the Senate, defends the closed-door, House/Senate negotiations that resulted in tax hikes and a revised state road plan.
“You cannot, in the final analysis, with different individuals, with different attitudes about any particular subject matter, get anything done by setting down in complete open space and have the media present and other individuals present, because no one in those kind of circumstances are going to truly reflect their own personal attitude. They’re going to play games,” said Carroll.
If former House Speaker Jody Richards has an opinion on openness or any other facet of the new leadership team’s performance, he’s not talking. The Bowling Green Democrat, who lost to Speaker Greg Stumbo in this year’s leadership races, says much was accomplished during the session and he’s enjoying spending more time with his constituents.
“No regrets, no regrets. I had 14 wonderful years, so I feel very honored and I’m very humbled by the great experience that I had. So, I’m just enjoying a different role,” said Richards.
Obviously, opinions on the session are widely varied, but if legislative leaders are correct and 2009 truly marks a new era of bipartisanship, that spirit soon could be tested anew. The tax hikes approved last month address only current fiscal year deficits. The second year of the biennial budget begins July 1st. And without dramatic improvement in the economy, lawmakers could be back in Frankfort in June for a special session on the budget.
The owner of Louisville’s Oxmoor Center and Mall St. Matthews is no longer negotiating with its bondholders for a reprieve of debt payments.
General Growth Properties owns some two hundred malls nationwide and two weeks ago missed a payment deadline on $395 million in bonds.
Company officials declined to comment on the air, but say the company is continuing talks with other lenders and bondholders.
Louisville commercial real estate attorney Barry Hines, who’s not connected with the company or its bondholders, says General Growth’s financial troubles are caused more by the difficulty in the financial market than a drop in consumer spending.
“For the most part, my understanding is the underlying income stream from these malls is healthy and is sufficient to service the debt,” says Hines. “Their big problem is they can’t find enough money out there in the debt marketplace from lenders who are actively making loans in order to repay the debt that is blooming.”
Hines says the company can file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and restructure its debt, but it may be forced into Chapter 7, which would lead to the liquidation of property.
Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels announced a plan Tuesday to use federal stimulus funds to create two thousand temporary jobs.
Daniels says stimulus money will be used to create the Young Hoosiers Conservation Corps. The program will put two thousand people, ages 16 to 24, to work in state parks.
Daniels says the jobs are meant for those seeking job training and experience and not for college or high school students who want summer employment.
“We’ll certainly be giving preference in couple ways – to those currently on the unemployment rolls, those below the poverty line, also to veterans,” he says. “Applications start immediately and anyone who thinks they might meet the standards should give it a try.”
Daniels says more than 25 thousand young people qualify for the jobs, which will last from May through September.
The University of Louisville women’s basketball team is back home after capturing a spot in the NCAA Final Four next weekend in St. Louis.
The Cardinals defeated Maryland Monday night in Raleigh, North Carolina to advance to the national semifinals for the first time in the program’s history.
They’ll play either Oklahoma or Purdue Sunday in St. Louis.
They were greeted by students, family and fans Tuesday on campus, where senior Angel McCoughtry said the team has its eye on a national title.
“We’ve got the best fans in the world, I couldn’t ask for a better senior season for these girls…the Final Four, and it ain’t over, we’re not settled with this,” she said.
A public sendoff celebration for the Cards will be held Wednesday at 5:30pm at Fourth Street Live.
(Photo courtesy of www.uoflsports.com)
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U.S. Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky says the Obama administration is getting too involved in the daily operations of General Motors and Chrysler.
President Obama is giving the automakers another infusion of cash and a new deadine to come up with a more aggressive restructuring plan.
Bunning says the companies should go ahead and file for organized bankruptcy and the government should let them work out their own problems.
“It’s a series of picking winners and losers without General Motors and Chrysler having one thing to say about it. nothing, they have nothing to say about it. Now if you think that isn’t socialism, there’s something the matter with you,” Bunning told reporters today.
During his weekly conference call today (Tuesday), Bunning also criticized the federal budget proposal, calling it fiscally irresponsible.
Tuesday is the Center for Women and Families’ second-annual denim-day.
Thousands of people in the area are wearing denim to work to raise awareness of sexual assault.
Center for Women and Families’ President Denise Vazquez Troutman says the threat of assault exists everywhere.
“One in six women will be the victim of sexual assault,” she says. “Also, two college campuses [in Louisville], huge prevalence there – we are a huge college community. So if the statistics are one and six, just think of our own community.”
The significance of wearing denim comes from an Italian rape trial, where a judge ruled that a victim’s blue jeans could have only been removed by the victim. To protest the decision, California legislators wore denim and the idea spread to other cities.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Adventure Tourism
Whether you’ve climbed Kilimanjaro or simply watched someone else do it on the Discovery Channel, you know how far people will go to seek adventure. Adventure travel—at the intersection of the environment and the economy—is a growing industry worldwide, but that doesn’t mean you have to travel around the world to find it. Kentucky offers an increasing number of hiking, rock climbing, boating and fishing, biking, and wildlife viewing opportunities close to home. Join us Tuesday as we discuss adventure tourism and its impact on the economy and ecology of the bluegrass.
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