Last Tuesday’s special election was a plain old-fashioned butt-kicking by Jimmy Higdon. The same sort that Mike Reynolds accomplished to start 2009 off and take away the first of two Republican state senate seats in Kentucky. Maybe this year has been pretty productive for moving the horse industry’s chances forward.
However, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader’s editorial, it does need a Plan B.
With only about 20,200 votes, this election really isn’t a mandate on much of anything. But pro-gambling interests did see that manipulating Republicans out of the Senate and swamping special elections with money won’t necessarily turn the tide in their favor.
Kentucky has been debating expanded gambling for almost 20 years while states to the north, west and east have actually expanded gambling.
We’ve long argued that the only way to put the dispute to rest is a constitutional amendment ratified by voters.
We’re not talking about the amendments proposed for political cover by Republicans Sen. Damon Thayer and Senate President David Williams. Their proposals masquerade as instruments of direct democracy while meant to obscure and obstruct.
We’re thinking of a straightforward amendment, one that would enable Kentucky racing to remain competitive while the state recouped some of the gambling dollars flowing across the border.
For whatever perplexing reason, David Williams is so passionately defending the Indiana casinos that any sort of fair vote by Kentucky voters is off the table. And there were three special elections this year for state senate seats, where both parties concentrated all of their firepower on the races. All were for seats previously occupied by Republicans. Republicans lost two of those three seats. There never was a requirement that every single election must be won in order for a plan to be considered working. Taking two out of three is a success rate that, if applied in 2010, will complete the task that began in January in Bowling Green. If the Republicans lose two seats next fall, it’s all over.
