Kentucky’s Democrat Gov. Andy Beshear is on the hot seat after Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell froze while responding to a question at a GOP fundraising event.
It was the second time in two months that McConnell publicly froze, which has inevitably led to questions about whether the 81-year-old senator would be capable of finishing out his term which ends in 2026.
Beshear is currently bound by a law the Kentucky legislature passed in 2021 that changed how Senate vacancies are filled. Instead of the governor being given sole power to appoint a successor, the 2021 law creates a state executive committee made up of members of the same political party as the departing incumbent senator which then names three candidates from which the governor can choose.
McConnell supported the bill, and Beshear vetoed it. The legislature overrode the veto, and that’s where the matter stands. Beshear has hinted that if he has to appoint a replacement for McConnell he may very well challenge the 2021 law in court.
“There is no Senate vacancy,” Beshear responded at the news conference. “Senator McConnell has said he’s going to serve out his term, and I believe him, so I’m not going to speculate about something that hasn’t happened and isn’t going to happen.”
Beshear is a stranger in a strange land. He’s a nominal Democrat in one of the reddest states in the country. He has proven to be adept at dodging various partisan minefields, sticking with issues that are popular with his conservative citizens.
But this would be different. Challenging the 2021 law so he could appoint a Democrat wouldn’t sit well with Republicans in his state and would anger the legislature, which currently enjoys a super majority of Republicans.
Beshear will be under enormous pressure from national Democrats to challenge the law and name a Democrat to replace McConnell if it ever comes to that. Many constitutional experts believe he would have a good case to challenge the law based on the 17th Amendment’s direct election of a Senator by voters. Beshear included that argument in his veto message.
“The bill therefore upends a century of precedent by delegating the power to select the representative of all Kentuckians to an unelected, unaccountable committee of an organization that represents only a fraction of Kentuckians,” Beshear wrote in the veto message.
There’s also a good case to be made that the 2021 bill violates the Kentucky constitution. But none of this will sit well with the voters, who have given Beshear high marks — 63% approval. And Beshear is 10 points ahead of his GOP challenger Attorney General David Cameron for his November 2023 re-election. Would those numbers hold if he challenged the law in court and then went ahead and appointed a Democrat?
Beshear is refusing to commit to either following the 2021 law or challenging it in court.
Washington Post:
A reporter asked Beshear on Thursday whether, if McConnell were to step down, he would choose a replacement from one of three nominees selected by the state Republican Party, as the statute requires.
“There is no Senate vacancy,” Beshear responded at the news conference. “Senator McConnell has said he’s going to serve out his term, and I believe him, so I’m not going to speculate about something that hasn’t happened and isn’t going to happen.”
Asked whether voters deserve to know his stance on the issue, Beshear said he would not “sensationalize” McConnell’s health.
If there’s a vacancy, Beshear could always fill it with a Democrat and then challenge the 2021 law. Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. But Beshear has managed to stay out of trouble with Republicans in the state to this point. He has no reason to pull on the lion’s tail when his prospects for re-election remain cautiously optimistic.
