Gov. Cowardly Worm Begs Lege to Protect Him From Mean Old Judge

I don't know how Phillip Shepherd can function these days, helpless from hysterical laughter as he must be.

Tom Loftus at the Courier: 

A lot of state government's big legal cases in recent years have landed in front of Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd. And they haven't always gone the way the governor or General Assembly want.

A Senate bill filed Friday would let Gov. Matt Bevin or other state officials avoid going before Shepherd.

Senate President Robert Stivers, upset with Shepherd’s handling of the big pension case last year, sponsored the measure, filed as Senate Bill 2. The low number indicates it’s a top priority of the Senate Republican majority.

Stivers, a Manchester Republican, complained in a floor speech Friday that all big state government cases and constitutional challenges should not be heard by judges elected from a single county.

Hey moron: State government cases are heard in the "single county" of Franklin circuit because that's where state government exists.

“It’s not appropriate. As I’ve termed it, it’s a super circuit judge,” Stivers said.

But Senate Minority Leader Morgan McGarvey, D-Louisville, responded that he’s uncomfortable with the legislature meddling with the courts because it is angry over the outcome of a particular case.

“Initially, I am very skeptical of any piece of legislation which is directed particularly at one judge and one court,” McGarvey said.

Stivers' bill says claims against state officials and/or state agencies that now must go to Franklin Circuit can be redirected if a defendant requests a special judge. No reason for the request is required. And the chief justice of the Kentucky Supreme Court would be required to randomly appoint a special judge.

In an interview last fall, and again on the Senate floor on Friday, Stivers acknowledged that it is Shepherd’s handling of last year’s lawsuit against the pension bill that sparked his interest in in the issue.

Shepherd struck down the pension bill – Senate Bill 151 – last June for two procedural reasons. He said the rapid one-day passage of the bill violated part of the Kentucky Constitution that requires lawmakers have time to consider a bill. He also said the bill was an appropriations bill, which required at least 51 votes in the House to pass. (The House vote on the bill was 49-46.)

In December, the Kentucky Supreme Court affirmed Shepherd. In a 7-0 ruling, the high court agreed the rapid process violated the Kentucky Constitution, but it was silent on the question of whether the bill was an appropriations bill requiring 51 votes.

SNIP

One veteran Louisville attorney who has represented both Republicans and Democrats in major state government cases, Sheryl Snyder, said Monday he believes the current system is preferable.

“I think choosing judges at random for those kinds of state government and state constitutional issues would be at the cost of the expertise that the Franklin Circuit judges build up over the years by handling those cases…” Snyder said. “Also, the decisions of those Franklin Circuit court judges are always appeal-able to the Court of Appeals and/or the Supreme Court.”

SNIP

Robert Lawson, a retired professor at the University of Kentucky College of Law, said Franklin Circuit judges have always properly handled such state government cases and that it is “ridiculous” to make such a change because of disagreement with a particular judge.

“This whole criticism of Judge Shepherd is outrageous,” Lawson said. “He’s very fair-minded, very competent."

Shepherd also knows repug bullshit when he hears it.