You’d think Republicans, who hold virtually all the power in Kentucky, would have stopped playing silly political games by now and would have turned their attention to the real problems that face our state.
The fact is that Kentucky ranks poorly in a lot of key areas.
According to U.S. News and World Report rankings, we’re 44th in health care, and it would be worse if former Gov. Steve Beshear hadn’t expanded Medicaid to hundreds of thousands of working poor.
The magazine ranks Kentucky 45th in fiscal stability, presumably because of our billions of dollars in pension liability.
One survey says we’re the sixth dumbest state in the country based on our percentage of high school and college graduates.
Child abuse is rampant. We have the highest cancer rate in the nation.
And what does the Republican Senate think is the most important issue it has to deal with during the 2020 General Assembly?
A bill that would require government workers to act as border patrol agents and enforce federal immigration laws and prohibit sanctuary cities in Kentucky!
Folks, this is not the most important issue in our state. Not even close.
Give state Senate President Robert Stivers a Stradivarius. At least he’ll be able to make beautiful music as our beloved commonwealth burns.
According to the American Immigration Council, fewer than 4% of Kentucky’s residents were immigrants in 2014 and only about 50,000 of them were here illegally. The ones who were here illegally paid $36.6 million in state and local taxes that year.
We know that many of those who are here illegally work in low wage jobs like farming and in the horse industry, doing jobs that many native born people refuse to do-
And the Senate’s #2 priority?
Requiring people to flash a photo ID before they vote.
Like the Senate’s first priority, its second priority is simply a solution in search of a problem.
There is absolutely no evidence that there are scores of people showing up at the polls to vote while claiming they are someone they’re not. It doesn’t happen.
When a Courier Journal reporter asked Secretary of State Michael Adams how many people have been prosecuted for doing that over the past decade, he couldn’t give an answer.
You want to know the truth? Kentucky has a long record of people voting illegally — particularly in certain rural parts of the state. But this ain’t the way they do it.
The problems with illegal voting in Kentucky generally stem from candidates paying people — either with cash or pints of booze — to vote for them.
So what in the world is the Senate doing?
It’s a bait and switch.
They can’t fix health care or schools or child abuse or pensions without additional revenue, and they refuse to raise taxes or approve expanded gambling or legalize marijuana to create new money.
And, so, to compensate, they try to convince you that you need them to go after the illegal immigrant or that there are hoards of people who would steal your elections from you and only they can stop them.
The great thing is, that since neither of these are real problems in Kentucky, the legislators can’t fail.
Pass a law that says no sanctuary cities? There aren’t any.
Stop this one specific type of voter fraud? It doesn’t exist.
The problem is, while they create and legislate these bogeymen, they aren’t dealing with the real issues that plague the state.
People will continue dying of cancer at unprecedented rates. They’ll keep getting poor health care. Children will continue being abused. Pension problems will go unsolved.
And we’ll be ranked in the bottom 20% in virtually every national ranking that matters.
But we will have cracked down on illegal immigrants who, in large part, aren’t even here. And we will have stopped the people who don’t exist from showing up at the polls to vote as people they are not.
And the legislature will claim victory. Over nothing.
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Written by Joseph Gerth. Cross-posted from the
Courier-Journal via the Kentucky Press News Service.