Years ago, when I was covering the West Virginia legislature (the 3rd of 6 I have covered,) I remember a debate on putting a constitutional amendment to the peoples' vote. What to call it on the printed ballot? The "Good Law Enforcement Amendment" its proponents said, and it may well have appeared that way. I remember much guffawing on the House floor over that because the real purpose was to lengthen the terms of county sheriffs, whose state association was behind it.
I cite this because the Ky. Supreme Court saw thru the last attempt to pull something like this in Kentucky with "Marsy's Law." Voters approved it in 2018 when it appeared on ballots as something that would have given guarantees of victim's rights in court proceedings. That was an emotional phrase, and clearly designed as such. It passed, but objections were raised and in a unanimous decision our state's high court overturned the vote; something courts very rarely do, saying the state constitution required not a "terse phrase' describing the amendment to be put on the ballot but the entire wording. If you read the involved, complex legalese the legislature adopted--and I did--you would have had second thoughts.
Even more so, perhaps, when you realized, as the Herald-Leader pointed out recently, this was the result of a California billionaire, who lost a family member to crime, bank rolling the amendment in many states. That is his right, and it may not take away from its purpose if I point out, as the H-L did not, that the California backer is also a convicted felon himself---stock fraud, later dropped, and serious drug charges, where his money got him out of prison time in return for community service and $1M donated to treatment programs.
Be that as it may, my objection to the old 536 word amendment, now grown to 614 words, which I don't plan to read, is that this subject is NOT one to be in our constitution, the fundamental law of the commonwealth, but should be handled as are other justice system issues by regular statutory law, and as a matter of fact, Kentucky already has such a victims' rights law, passed in 1986. More should be done for victims, but this is not the way to do it.
Now to the "Good Law Enforcement" amendment...okay, Amendment 2, it seeks to require district judges, our lowest courts, to get more experience before they can run for the post. Good idea. But the carrot for this is that their four year term would be expanded to eight years. Same for county prosecutors. Backers say high court judges have eight year terms, and this would make matters uniform. Opponents, myself included, think eight years is too long before the people get a chance to vote on how the judge is doing. If you want to make them uniform, drop the higher courts to four, or maybe even six, but not 8.
So, may I recommend to you all, vote early, by mail and vote "NO" on the amendments.
BTW, the legislature has decided to put just two amendments at a time before the voters. Here are the two they missed:
PRIMO---allowing the legislature to call itself into session. it will never be an equal partner to the Executive branch until ti has this power, as only the governor does now. Illogical.
SECUNDO--Eliminating the archaic anti-dueling oath from the constitution, the one that makes Ky. a laughing stock every four years. If we pull down some Civil War monument, why not end this provision which goes way, way, way back to before the Revolution! It has no place in a 21st century constitution. Neither do the new, verbose Marsy's law, or an attempt to give county politicians a free ride at our expense.
I'm just sayin'...
