Kentucky governors have many structural advantages when they seek reelection — not the least of which is their apparent legal ability to use state-owned aircraft to whisk them to and from campaign events or fundraisers.
For instance, in the first eight months of this year, Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin used state aircraft to fly to at least 15 different reelection fundraisers, where his campaign reported raising $633,549. His campaign reimbursed the state $17,807 for the costs of those flights.
A Courier Journal review of Kentucky State Police flight records, election finance reports and other public records going back to 2008 shows that Bevin and former Gov. Steve Beshear made regular use of state aircraft to fly to cities where their campaigns held fundraisers.
In 2017 and 2018, Bevin used state aircraft to fly to nine different fundraisers for his 2015 campaign account — funds that can be used to pay the governor back for the more than $4 million he loaned his first campaign.
Bevin reported raising $281,750 for his 2015 account at these fundraisers — reimbursing the state for less than $5,000 for the costs of the flights — putting his total raised with the aid of state aircraft at $915,299.
Through the first 45 months of Beshear’s first term — the same time period for the data available for Bevin — Beshear used state aircraft to fly to the location of 27 reelection campaign fundraisers, where he raised $574,833, records show.
Beshear flew to the location of eight more fundraisers in September 2011, raising $190,334 and bringing the total aircraft-aided haul from his first term to $765,176.
Common Cause of Kentucky Chairman Richard Beliles lobbied for the sweeping ethics law passed by the General Assembly in 1993 that prohibits public servants from using state resources for political purposes. He says both governors abused the public trust by using state aircraft in such a fashion.
“Yes, we know incumbency is always an advantage, but this is an egregious advantage,” Beliles said. “This is our democratic system in Kentucky that’s being tilted unfairly.”
Beliles went so far as to refer to the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution, which seeks to prevent government officials from profiting from their office.
“I almost feel like I want to go to a hardware store, get some white paint and a ladder and go out to that airport and write on the side of it: ‘Emoluments Airlines,’” Beliles said. “That’s what it is, a flying emolument. It’s ridiculous.”
Considering that 1993 ethics law — and the fact that Bevin, Beshear and former Gov. Ernie Fletcher were all accused by critics of abusing their office by using state aircraft for overt political purposes — how exactly does this practice continue to the present day?
The plane (and helicopter) history
Kentucky governors dating to Julian Carroll in the late 1970s have faced criticism and scrutiny over their use of state aircraft for personal purposes.
In 1978, State Auditor George Atkins accused Carroll of illegally taking flights on state aircraft for his own personal use, such as vacations to the Bahamas and Miami and 46 in-state flights by his family members. Citing the attorney general’s opinion that such personal family trips were legal, Carroll continued taking state aircraft for such flights — as did every governor to follow him.
Atkins changed his tune a bit two years later when he was the state Finance Cabinet secretary in the new administration of Gov. John Y. Brown. Following reports that first lady Phyllis Brown was using state helicopters to travel to connecting flights for her job with the “NFL Today” program on CBS, Atkins said such use was appropriate because the network was reimbursing the state for these flights.
In December 1984, Gov. Martha Layne Collins supported new regulations for usage of state aircraft by the governor and lieutenant governor, allowing flights for personal reasons, as long as the state is reimbursed for their costs. The regulations also required that the purpose for each use of the aircraft be reported.
However, a report by The Courier Journal in 1987 showed Collins mostly ignored these regulations in the following two years, failing to report the purpose of 307 flights and not making a single reimbursement, with the claim that every trip was official business.
As Collins’ lieutenant governor, Steve Beshear, who would soon announce his first bid for governor, was also found to have used state-owned or state-chartered aircraft over 200 times at a cost of $119,000.
Unlike Collins, Beshear listed the official purpose for every flight — mostly parades, festivals or speeches to civic groups — saying that “people want the lieutenant governor to be accessible.”
After the BOPTROT bribery scandal of 1992 that led to the indictment and conviction of over a dozen state legislators, the General Assembly passed sweeping ethics laws the following year. They included a prohibition on constitutional officers using state resources for personal or political purposes.
In 1998, the legislature then put in statute a specific loophole for governors and lieutenant governors to use state aircraft for nonofficial business.
Under the law, state aircraft shall not be used for personal business, with the exception of the governor and lieutenant governor when “for reasons of security, protocol, ceremonial functions, or overall demands of times, require travel considerations not accorded to other officials.”
“In recognition of these realities,” the statute continues, “flights that may be solely for personal business, or partly for official business or partly for personal business, may be scheduled” for these office holders and their immediate families.
The statute goes on to say that the governor is responsible for paying for all portions of those flights that involve “personal business,” but does not clearly define that term or refer to political events and campaign fundraisers.
The landscape changed further in 2007, when Fletcher became the first governor to use such aircraft while running for reelection in a competitive race. Kentucky passed a constitutional amendment in 1992 to allow a governor to serve consecutive terms.
Fletcher was criticized in the lead up to his Republican primary victory in 2007 for using state aircraft to attend 35 political events, such as campaign fundraisers, often held in the same city as an official event or announcement. Despite maintaining that Fletcher was under no obligation to pay for those flights, his campaign was eventually pressured into reimbursing the state nearly $20,000 to cover a portion of the costs of those flights.
The campaign of his primary opponent, Republican Anne Northup of Louisville, blasted the governor’s use of the plane, calling it “a violation of the Kentucky law to use taxpayers’ money for political purposes” and an abuse of power.
After piling on for similar reasons in his successful campaign that year to oust Fletcher from office, Gov. Steve Beshear created a new policy in which any use of state aircraft for personal business must be paid for with non-state funds. The policy also specified that “travel for political purposes is deemed a personal activity.”
Much like Fletcher before him, Beshear took heat from political rivals and media scrutiny over his use of state aircraft for vacations, attending basketball games and filling up his reelection coffers at campaign fundraisers.
In a Courier Journal story from 2011 documenting Beshear’s use of state aircraft for trips that mixed official business with fundraisers, Republican Party of Kentucky Chairman Steve Robertson said the governor “is spending huge amounts of taxpayer money traveling around the state on political fundraising junkets. I don’t think Kentucky has ever seen state government sold to the highest bidder or politically hijacked the way it has been under Steve Beshear.”
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History repeated itself again this summer, as Gov. Matt Bevin bristled under questioning about his use of state aircraft.
Asked about a Courier Journal report in September documenting his unexplained out-of-state flights over the summer, Bevin said as long as his campaign or other outside organizations reimbursed taxpayers for such flights, the purpose of the trips was “none of their business.”
Following a week of additional scrutiny after that statement, Bevin’s office released what it called a “comprehensive list” of the governor’s “official” travel using state aircraft, though it made no mention of numerous flights within and outside of the state — many of which were for political events and fundraisers, or for reasons that are still not publicly known.
According to Beliles, such use of state aircraft for reelection campaign fundraising is a blow to the spirit of the ethics law he championed in 1993, which was specifically written to ensure “that the public has confidence in the integrity of its government and public servants.”
“The important thing is that the public knows that this is happening,” Beliles said. “I just think this is clearly damaging to the public having confidence in the integrity of its government and public servants. That’s what it’s about.”
Meanwhile, the flights are continuing.
In early October, Bevin took the state’s Lear jet to Wheeling, West Virginia, for a reelection campaign fundraiser hosted by the PAC of coal giant Murray Energy, raising $22,825.
Last week, the governor flew in the Lear to Washington, D.C., to attend a fundraising event at the office of a major lobbying firm, returning to Kentucky the next day.
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Written by Joe Sonka. Cross-posted from the
Courier-Journal via the Kentucky Press News Service.