Kentucky Law And Government

Kentucky is one of only five states that elects its state officials in odd numbered years (The others are Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Virginia). Kentucky holds elections for these offices every 4 years in the years preceding Presidential election years. Thus, the last year when Kentucky elected a Governor was 2003; the next gubernatorial election will occur in 2007, with future gubernatorial elections to take place in 2011, 2015, 2019, etc.

Kentucky's legislative branch consists of a bicameral body known as the Kentucky General Assembly. The Senate is considered the upper house. It has 38 members, and is led by the President of the Senate, currently Republican David L. Williams. The House of Representatives has 100 members, and is led by the Speaker of the House, currently Democrat Jody Richards.

The executive branch is headed by the governor and lieutenant governor. Under the current Kentucky Constitution, the lieutenant governor assumes the duties of the governor only if the governor is incapacitated. (Prior to 1992, the lieutenant governor assumed power any time the governor was out of the state.) The governor and lieutenant governor usually run on a single ticket (also per a 1992 constitutional amendment), and are elected to four-year terms. Currently, the governor and lieutenant governor are Republicans Ernie Fletcher and Steve Pence, respectively.

The judicial branch of Kentucky is made up of courts of limited jurisdiction called District Courts; courts of general jurisdiction called Circuit Courts; an intermediate appellate court, the Kentucky Court of Appeals; and a court of last resort, the Kentucky Supreme Court. Unlike federal judges, who are usually appointed, justices serving on Kentucky state courts are chosen by the state's populace in non-partisan elections.

The state's chief prosecutor, law enforcement officer, and law officer is the attorney general. The attorney general is elected to a four-year term and may serve two consecutive terms under the current Kentucky Constitution. Currently, the Kentucky attorney general is Democrat Greg Stumbo.

Kentucky's two Senators are Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning, both Republicans. The state is divided into six Congressional Districts, represented by Republicans Ed Whitfield (1st), Ron Lewis (2nd), Geoff Davis (4th), and Hal Rogers (5th), and Democrats John Yarmuth (3rd) and Ben Chandler (6th).

Judicially, Kentucky is split into two Federal court districts: the Kentucky Eastern District and the Kentucky Western District. Appeals are heard in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals based in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Where politics are concerned, Kentucky historically has been very hard fought and leaned slightly toward the Democratic Party, although it was never included among the "Solid South." In 2006, 57.05% of the state's voters were officially registered as Democrats, 36.55% registered Republican, and 6.39% registered with some other political party.[43]

Kentucky has voted Republican in five of the last seven presidential elections but has supported the Democratic candidates of the South. The Commonwealth supported Democrats Jimmy Carter in 1976, and Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, but Republican George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. Bush won the state's 8 electoral votes overwhelmingly in 2004 by a margin of 20 percentage points and 59.6% of the vote.[44]

Kentucky's body of laws, known as the Kentucky Revised Statutes (KRS), were enacted in 1942 to better organize and clarify the whole of Kentucky law.[45] The statutes are enforced by local police, sheriffs, and sheriff's deputies. Unless they have completed a police academy elsewhere, these officers are required to complete training at the Kentucky Department of Criminal Justice Training Center on the campus of Eastern Kentucky University.[46] Additionally, in 1948, the Kentucky General Assembly established the Kentucky State Police, making it the 38th state to create a force whose jurisdiction extends throughout the given state.[47]

Kentucky is one of 38 states in the United States that sanctions the death penalty for certain crimes. Criminals convicted after March 31, 1998 are always executed by lethal injection; those convicted before this date may opt for the electric chair.[48] Only two people have been executed in Kentucky since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstituted the practice in 1976. The most notable execution in Kentucky, however, was that of Rainey Bethea on August 14, 1936. Bethea was publicly hanged in Owensboro for the rape and murder of Lischia Edwards.[49] Irregularities with the execution led to this becoming the last public execution in the United States.[50]

Kentucky has been on the front lines of the debate over displaying the Ten Commandments on public property. In the 2005 case of McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the decision of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals that a display of the Ten Commandments in the Whitley City courthouse of McCreary County was unconstitutional.[51] Later that year, Judge Richard Fred Suhrheinrich, writing for the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of ACLU of Kentucky v. Mercer County, wrote that a display including the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, the Ten Commandments, the Magna Carta, The Star-Spangled Banner, and the national motto could be erected in the Mercer County courthouse.[52]

The Kentucky State Capitol building in Frankfort

A map showing Kentucky's six congressional districts