Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Politics

Ky. to get new governor, same promise of cleanup

A Democrat will take over after two scandal-ridden administrations.

FRANKFORT, Ky. - Democratic Gov.-elect Steve Beshear knows one of Kentuckians' expectations for him over the next four years: Stay out of trouble.

Beshear gets sworn in Tuesday, following two consecutive scandal-ridden administrations. Just like his predecessor, Gov. Ernie Fletcher, Beshear campaigned on a promise to bring back honesty and integrity to state government.

"After the experiences of the last few years, the people of Kentucky are certainly demanding a highly ethical administration and they have a right to demand that," Beshear told the Associated Press in a recent interview. "It's my job to make sure that we deliver on that promise."

Beshear, 63, a former lieutenant governor and attorney general and a prominent attorney, defeated Fletcher, a Republican, by 17 percentage points in last month's election, a margin Fletcher acknowledges was due to his political troubles during the past four years.

Fletcher had been elected after then-Gov. Paul Patton was caught up in a salacious sex scandal with a former nursing home operator. Patton's administration also had various other mini-scandals, such as state employees caught looking at pornography at work. And shortly before leaving office, Patton pardoned his chief of staff and three others from charges they colluded to help Patton's 1995 campaign skirt spending limits.

Fletcher - a congressman, physician, engineer, former fighter pilot and ordained Baptist minister - ended the Democrats' decades-long stranglehold on the Kentucky governor's office with a promise to "clean up the mess in Frankfort."

But then Fletcher's administration became embroiled in an investigation by the Democratic attorney general into allegations of improper patronage. By the middle of his first term, Fletcher had pardoned his entire administration for any possible charges that could result from the investigation. Fletcher, who still claims no wrongdoing, was later indicted on misdemeanor charges that were eventually dropped in a deal with prosecutors.

Beshear capitalized on the scandal, promising to change a state government that he said was "morally bankrupt."

Scott Lasley, a political scientist at Western Kentucky University, said the combination of Fletcher's troubles and Beshear's campaign promises could help avoid scandals. "It makes it a little easier to change the good ol' boy tactics."

[Last modified December 9, 2007, 01:25:07]