impeachment trial for a circuit judge after the Kentucky Supreme Court says it should all end?

Governor Beshear signed some bills into law and vetoes others, as the legislature is set to come back to Frankfort in the U.S.

Senate race.

Republican Andy Barr parts company with his campaign manager and Democrats debate the issues.

Senator Mitch McConnell travels the state talking about money he's bringing home from Washington as a beautiful spring rolls on with rain needed.

Comment is next on KET.

[MUSIC] Good evening.

I'm Bill Bryant and we welcome you to comment on Kentucky.

A look back at and some analysis of the week's news in the Commonwealth and the guests on our panel of working Kentucky journalists tonight are Alex Acquisto politics and health reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Laura Cullen Glasscock editor and publisher of the Kentucky Gazette, and Mario Anderson, anchor and host of In Focus Kentucky on Spectrum News one.

We have a lot to discuss.

First, Kentucky is remembering a soldier killed in the war in the Middle East.

Flags have been at half staff in honor of Technical Sergeant Ashley Pruitt of Bardstown.

She was 34 years old.

She was killed March 12th in the military action in the Middle East when a refueling tanker she was aboard crashed.

There was a dignified transfer when her body arrived back home in Bardstown.

Her visitation is underway this Friday evening, with a service to follow at a local cemetery on Saturday.

Alex, another reminder that this War reaches us here at home in Kentucky.

>> It is.

And I remember a bill the last time I was on comment.

We were talking about the first soldier from Kentucky that was killed.

This war has not been going on very long, and already we've had a handful of Kentuckians die.

And as you said, I think it's just a good reminder that while it's overseas, the impact is very intimately felt here.

>> Yeah.

It shows you the commitment that so many Kentuckians have made to to serve in the military.

Well, let's talk Frankfort, and we'll begin with the looming question of whether there is going to be an impeachment trial in the state Senate for a circuit judge.

The Senate in a five to the Supreme Court, in a 5 to 1 ruling this week, vacated the impeachment of Judge Julie Goodman of Lexington.

But Senate President Robert Stivers indicates the Senate still plans to take up the case.

Is it your call, Mr.

President, on whether there will be a Senate removal trial?

>> Well, it is something we're looking at.

I had a meeting today.

We have talked to other constitutional lawyers who are their expertise in that.

We are going to have a meeting with the House on Monday when we come back in, but we will not do it during the session.

It would be an extended session.

For us to do it, the decision yet has not been made because there are some procedural things to review and look at, but as of now, we are not changing our schedule.

>> Now, apparently this is the only thing that the legislature can extend for, and that is to hold a trial that's under the state constitution.

And Mario, with all of these questions about how to move forward with one branch of government saying do one thing and the other seeing it in the Constitution, it says it is their duty to impeach and have a removal trial.

Is this a real state constitutional quandary?

>> It sounds like it is, especially since the Supreme Court issued their ruling to order the lawmakers to stop the proceedings as they are.

Judge Julie Goodman.

She has appeared in Frankfort.

She testified during a House committee during the session, disputing some of the claims that were levied against her.

But again, time will tell to determine whether or not she actually does appear in front of the Senate members there, but her team is there given time to be able to issue a defense, prepare a defense.

But it's not known yet if they're actually actively planning on doing that.

Or will they let it proceed on without her there in person?

>> Of course, they believe they won.

Goodman has filed to have her legal expenses covered by former state representative Killian Timoney, who filed the impeachment petition.

That filing relies on the on the Supreme Court's decision of earlier this week.

>> It sure does.

And that process is still working itself through the legal system.

As Representative Killian, former representative Killian Timoney, he's the one that filed that back early in January.

He was very kind of outspoken when he first filed the petition.

But since this has been going on, he's not shared any public statements about the status of the case.

>> It's interesting to note, too, the Senate has set aside six days to deal with the impeachment trial.

Right there, giving it plenty of.

>> Time in which the, you know, the allegations apparently would be presented.

And there's more time for the defense and to the point that Mario's making here, if there is a defense or if there even is a trial, clearly.

And that answer that that I obtained from Senate President Stivers this afternoon, you know, it's 5050.

Whether this goes ahead, it looks.

>> Like there's a lot of discussion, too, on what the next steps will be with the legislature.

If they use this as a plan, move forward in future sessions to look at other judges across Kentucky that they may have felt.

Issuing opinions that they don't agree with, and whether this is a precedent to start that process moving forward.

>> And Stivers also makes the case, you know, that the Constitution says it is up to the legislature to to make this decision.

So they're relying on that.

And yet you have this strong order from the Kentucky Supreme Court that this is over.

>> It is interesting that section 66 of the Constitution says it's one sentence long.

It says the House of Representatives shall have the sole power of impeachment.

So, I mean, that's it.

That's the entire section of the law of the Constitution in one sentence.

So it is interesting to see who's going to ignore whom.

>> All right.

>> So when it comes down.

>> To it, we'll have an interesting week ahead.

Right.

And members of the General Assembly are back home right now waiting to come back to Frankfort and act on vetoes issued by Governor Andy Beshear.

Laura, the governor has line item veto authority on the budget, $32 billion, two year spending plan that's been passed.

That means that he can strike things from the budget, but he cannot add to it.

Right?

>> Yeah.

That's correct.

He also can veto the whole budget, but he can veto the whole budget.

He can line item veto spending items only or spending bills only.

But it's not going to matter.

The the General Assembly will override it.

So whatever the governor does doesn't matter other than to score political points, right?

He can use these strikes as saying he disapproves of this program or that program, and then he can use that in his political messaging, in campaigning or what have you.

And then the Republicans can come back and say, oh, he doesn't like this, he doesn't support that.

And it becomes, you know, battle of words.

But legally, logistically, legislatively, it's the Republican's call.

>> Sure.

And he cannot, for instance, add in universal pre-kindergarten, which he called for.

>> He cannot do that.

He cannot change dollar amounts either.

So if something is appropriated at X million of dollars, he can't add x X million.

He can just strike the whole thing.

>> All right.

So that process is going to be interesting to watch.

And the governor continues to look at those bills.

And that state budget.

There was a $1.7 billion one time spending bill.

A lot of that goes to education projects.

And Alexa, included in that is about $50 million to support the osteopathic medicine program proposed at EKU.

Eastern really pushing its reputation for its graduates staying in Kentucky as a reason.

It says it could help solve the state's shortage of primary care physicians.

>> And this is a long time coming.

And of course, it's buttressed by a lot of data that shows that not only does Kentucky have a physician shortage, we have a physician shortage that's exacerbated in rural parts of the state.

I think I read 94% of Kentucky counties have a shortage.

And so EKU is really vying for this.

There's a separate resolutions that were passed this session, that task.

EKU, UK and UofL with solving the shortage.

And so in the meantime, yes, EKU got to imagine it's pretty excited about this money.

And it's all to help retain doctors and to sort of help pull them from metropolitan areas to try incentivize them to go to more rural parts of the state.

Obviously, Eastern Kentucky is a big one of those.

>> And with the EKU and the University of Louisville and UC's medical program being sort of under an order from the state Senate to help solve the state's shortage of medical doctors.

>> That's a big task, and it will take multiple years, but the legislature is obviously taking it very seriously.

And so are these medical institutions, too.

It's it's a problem that many people have a vested interest in solving.

>> I do have some good news for the panel.

We're all on the air, and Artemis two has splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean.

We want to know that a little later, we'll talk about some Kentucky connections to that.

Laura, you know, as we've pointed out, it's easy for these lawmakers to override the governor's vetoes.

And he did several of those.

And we expect sort of a festival of overrides coming up.

>> That's funny phrase.

Yeah.

As of this morning, the governor had vetoed ten bills.

And before their veto break, the legislature had overridden four of those.

So, yeah, the interesting thing is when lawmakers come back on the 14th and 15th, they can still file bills, but they won't.

The governor they won't be able to override a gubernatorial veto if he does veto them.

Excuse me, in those last couple of days.

>> So they take their chances.

>> They take their chances.

>> Yeah.

The governor vetoed Senate Bill 59.

It forbids school officials from using public resources to campaign for or against ballot measure.

And Mario, that harkens back to when amendment two failed a couple of years ago, where some school districts had openly opposed it and had done so on their Facebook pages or in some cases had used signage outside their their campuses.

>> That's right.

And Governor Beshear, in his veto message, he actually shared that Senate Bill 59, from his opinion, would actually ban members of the General Assembly from speaking from the Capitol Annex offices or on state or public property about constitutional amendments that are set to appear on the ballot.

So, again, he's, you know, trying to look out for the General Assembly lawmakers in his reasoning for why he disagrees with this bill to not move forward.

But again, that's one of those bills that we anticipate the legislature steamrolling and and overriding that.

>> Beshear did sign a lot of bills into law.

And we've also watched that several things have have gone through this session that that got the governor's approval.

>> He sure did.

During the last few days before the lawmakers left for the veto recess, they sent about 100 or so various bills to his desk.

So he's been able to weed through a lot of those, but also issue some quick feedback and passing these through, signing them into law.

Or there's been a handful as well that have been sent to Secretary of State Michael Adams office that the governor has decided not to sign it.

Well, Secretary of State Michael Adams, his job will be able to sign those into law himself.

>> Which has been kind of interesting the way Adams took advantage of the publicity of that.

Most secretaries of state have just quietly signed those.

And you never knew it.

But he he would make a story out of that as though it were a gubernatorial signature when he signed.

>> It, because he's going to run for governor.

>> Well, that's what we're here, right?

No secrets there.

All right.

Mario.

>> Potentially run for governor, right?

>> Yeah.

He's very interested and has said so.

One item that passed a push by the legislature to support nuclear energy development in the state.

I know you did an interview on that this week.

>> That's right.

Lawmakers they have been Republican lawmakers have been very adamant that they want to transition from coal reliance here in Kentucky to a new nuclear economy.

That's what they're using by the year 2030.

So they have several a couple of sessions back.

They created this commission.

It's called epic is the nickname for it.

But to be able to basically look at Kentucky's current and future energy landscape, but then figure out some best practices moving forward to see how they can be able to start utilizing nuclear energy in various forms.

And there's two bills that the governor actually did sign into law.

One was Senate Bill 57 that creates the nuclear reactor site readiness pilot program.

It's basically some grant funding for site development locations across Kentucky, but also Senate Bill 157 that allows Kentuckians to buy down their interest rates on their mortgages through discount points.

And, you know, so various forms of ways to utilize nuclear energy in Kentucky.

>> I know you talked to Eric King.

He's the director of Kentucky's Energy Planning and Inventory Commission.

Here's a snip of what he said.

>> There's no one technology that's going to solve all our problems.

This is a transition that we're going through in our economy.

This one customer could consume as much energy as the city of Lexington.

That's a completely different landscape than what we've seen for the last 30 years, when our energy was very, very much flat.

And I think our leaders knew that, that we're going through a transition right now in terms of our economy.

>> So King says the State energy policy really needs to take a lot of things into account.

>> That's right.

This is an example of one of the bills that originally passed out of the state legislature.

And to create this commission, the governor vetoed this bill back in 2024, but the legislature came back and overrode that.

And then this commission took place.

And Eric King was hired to be the executive director for it.

So his sole job was to look at the current industry, but also look at all the various utility companies, the Kentucky service, the Public Commission, Public Service Commission, and look at how they evaluate whether to raise rates up and down and then give recommendations to the General Assembly to create future legislation.

>> Then you had some constitutional amendments that made it through.

One is on the ballot, for sure.

That would curtail the governor's ability to issue pardons very late in their terms.

>> Senate Bill ten, Senator Chris McDaniel filed that again this year.

I think this was the seventh year, maybe sixth year.

He's tried to get that through.

And and it finally went through for him.

Persistence pays.

Right.

But that bill creates a window around the gubernatorial election during which the governor cannot issue pardons.

And it's a response to former Governor Bevin's pardons, and also some that former President Joe Biden made late in his term as well.

>> And in this last couple of days, other constitutional amendments could be added.

Yes, I know there's been some momentum for ballot summaries to appear.

>> Yeah.

There's one.

It's Senate Bill 262 that passed the Senate.

The House hasn't taken it up yet, though, which is interesting.

That would allow summaries of ballot language to appear, summaries of the amendment language.

I'm sorry, to appear on the ballot rather than the verbatim language as is required now.

And there's a lot of opposition to that because, as we all know as writers, there can be a lot of nuances and meaning drafted into something that's that's more extensive than a summary.

>> All right.

So we'll be watching Frankfort very, very closely.

>> It's interesting, real quick to note to the governor cannot veto amendments bills, right.

>> People may or may not realize.

>> Those if they pass, they'll go.

>> Senator Mitch McConnell is in his last months in the Senate after nearly 42 years on the job.

This week, he traveled the state extensively and talked about bringing home money for projects here in Kentucky.

While deficit hawks rail against spending for projects, McConnell says he's proud that he's brought money home to Kentucky for airports and universities and other projects.

>> You know, there are some people who have tried to convince the public that if you do not do project funding, you're somehow saving money.

It's really easy to explain why that's wrong.

My job was to help our medium sized State punch above its weight, to be able to compete against California, New York and other big states.

>> So Mario McConnell says he's making no apologies for bringing home here in his last year in office, about $2.6 billion for Kentucky projects.

>> That's right.

And during some of these appearances he's been making across Kentucky this past week, he actually shared that he's brought in about $65 billion over the last 40 years from Washington to Kentucky for various highway projects, other various grants across the state.

So he's not openly saying he's looking at is talking about his legacy, but he's talking about his record that he's been able to secure funding, and we'll see how that continues or does not moving forward once he's no longer in his high profile position in Washington.

>> And won't it be difficult for anyone who replaces McConnell to position themselves to be able to bring in money and projects like that, regardless of where you are politically right?

>> I think so the whoever replaces McConnell from Kentucky is going to have a hard it's going to take them a while.

The structure in Washington for committee assignments, for example, is based on.

Seniority is one of the primary criteria for placement on committees like the Appropriations Committee where Senator McConnell sits.

So it takes some years being in the chamber in order to get those plum assignments.

And so I think it will take a while before anyone can can match his power.

>> Yeah.

And in the race to take McConnell's seat at the end of the year, there's been some shakeup in Republican Congressman Andy Barr's campaign.

He parted ways with his campaign manager, Blake Gober.

It came days after previous social media posts from Gober that were critical of President Trump surfaced.

This was interesting to see.

>> That's right.

And the Barr campaign, you know, they're not spelling out the reasoning for the parting of ways, but it has been surfaced.

Dozens of past tweets on social media from Blake Goble, where he publicly shared at one time many times that he didn't vote for President Donald Trump during the first elections.

He was selecting and supporting other candidates.

But many, many tweets talking about disagreements with the president during the first administration and then also when he was running for this current term.

And the Barr campaign decided to move forward in a different decision.

And it appears not to be hiring a campaign manager at this point to replace him, as it's now just a couple weeks to the primary.

>> And Gilbert had replaced longtime trusted Barr Tatum Dale, who died unexpectedly right before Christmas.

All right, we'll all get in on looking at this.

Some of the Democratic U.S.

Senate candidates debated at w h a s t v in Louisville Charles Booker Amy McGrath Dale Romans and Pamela Stephenson took the stage.

>> We are in a moment where democracy is at stake.

Humanity is at stake.

And so this conversation is not just about what we need is Kentuckians.

It's about our very future.

And I'm offering today an opportunity for us to talk about addressing structural issues and generational poverty, standing up for Kentuckians with ideas that meet our needs and not giving excuses that our challenges are too crazy to meet.

>> Here in Kentucky, we're seeing prices for everything through the roof, from rent to utilities to gas prices.

Now, health care less and less affordable.

Because of these Republicans in Washington, Kentucky has this open seat and deserves a senator who will be a voice for all Kentuckians.

I am ready on day one to take on the challenges that face us today.

>> The last time I was on Capitol Hill meeting with the senator and we sat down, we were talking about immigration reform, and he looked right at me and said, I agree with everything you said, but politics plays a role in everything up here.

And I was thinking, something's wrong.

He said, everything has to go through the white House, something's wrong.

And I said, I got to get off the couch, quit complaining and try to do something about it.

>> What's happening now is the destruction of our democracy, and we need a leader who knows government, who's who's advised commanders before and has the experience.

I'm running for the U.S.

Senate because the promise of America is being shredded.

People died for this country so we could be free.

>> Our different styles.

Booker continues to take progressive stands that could help him in a Democratic primary.

But will those same stands make it more difficult in the fall race?

>> Well, that's the risk you take running too far to the left or the right, depending on your party, because you've got to feed that base in order to get elected in the primary.

And then, you know, you take your chances with that being used against you in the general.

It's interesting to note, too, that Secretary of State Michael Adams has called for opening primary elections to independent, independent voters, those registered outside the parties.

And that could soften some of this at some point, if that were to pass.

>> All right.

Alex, you've been working on an extensive piece that dropped this week about allegations of fraud by a large Kentucky drug rehab center, addiction recovery care arc, which has received a lot of praise for helping people get sober.

>> And it has helped a lot of people get sober.

My colleague Taylor, six, and I work on this story for I mean, it's been years at this point, and it's been no secret that addiction recovery care has been under fire for some nefarious behavior.

They're being investigated by the FBI.

There's a draft of a Department of Justice settlement out there that alleges some false billing, which we report on.

We talked with half a dozen former clients and employees at Arc who told us that they were pressured or directly told to help fraudulently Bill Medicaid, allegedly.

And so it's really been a, you know, arc had a meteoric rise and fall over the last six years.

They were the largest residential facility in Kentucky.

They've shrunk down to a fraction of what they were.

They've helped a lot of people get sober, including the people that we talked to.

They also build hundreds of millions of dollars for Medicaid, which the legislature has tried to curb in recent years.

And so it's a very complex issue, filling a need that Kentucky desperately needs filled and also potentially taken advantage of and abused some of the loopholes that exist and potentially allegedly committed fraud.

>> Or does it go from here?

Does it appear.

>> The FBI investigation is still ongoing?

Arc is still operational.

They're still billing Medicaid at this point, still serving clients.

But I think the long term, you know, conclusion has yet to be seen.

Will criminal charges be brought?

We really don't know.

>> And Arc has said.

>> Arc has denied what we've reported.

They've denied ever knowingly committed fraud.

You know, they talk about they recovery is a lifelong process.

They want to prop up their clients and position them to lead the lives that they want to lead.

But we've talked with a lot of people who said that they felt taken advantage of, sort of their Medicaid bill when it shouldn't have been.

And so it's a lot of conflicting stories.

And, you know, you can't you can't really ignore people's stories.

>> All right, folks can find your story online and a lot to it.

>> Herald-Leader website.

>> The Artemis two moon crew wrapping up its historic mission again, splashed down a little bit ago, and students at Morehead State helped track the spacecraft as it made its way around the moon and back.

And here's a little bit from them.

>> This mission specifically is like telling people, you know, this is what we're doing here in Morehead.

We are, in fact, having an impact on the space world, and we're going to probably keep having an impact on throughout different Artemis missions.

So it's, it's really cool to, to tell students like that, that we are doing that here.

>> And it's a fun fact and point of pride that Morehead State and UK both played key roles in the Artemis mission.

>> Well, interestingly enough, you just announced that Artemis had landed successfully right after my grandmother texted me telling me the same thing.

UK actually helped design its heat shield, which is a crucial part of the actual vessel, obviously.

So it's incredibly cool.

>> It's been fun to watch all week long, hasn't it?

It has.

All right.

Well, on a warm spring evening, they pretended that it was winter over in Paris and Bourbon County this week when a Hollywood crowd came to town to film a made for TV movie.

Local extras were invited to take part in the filming of Silver Bells.

It will run closer to the holidays on the Great American Family Network, and if you're looking for something offbeat to do this weekend, our friend Russ Cassidy has been a frequent panelist here reminds us that Pikeville is celebrating Hillbilly Days.

It's one of Kentucky's largest festivals been going since 1977.

They're promising some great music and food and all kinds of hillbilly fun.

And then all of this is ahead of Thunder Over Louisville next weekend, right?

>> Kicking off the Derby.

>> Yeah.

Busy time in Kentucky.

We do still need rain.

Our meteorologists are telling us that.

So we're beginning to watch that now.

That's common on Kentucky.

We thank you for joining us.

Have a good week ahead.

[MUSIC]