Surprise, Surprise

What a surprise, the politicians want to make it easier to stay in office. I find myself in full agreement with David Adams in his assessment of what's needed.

Comments

[Daniel]

I, too find myself in agreement on the issue.

[Steve Bittenbender (freelancehack@gmail.com)]

Every year, there are dozens and dozens of bills like this that get prefiled and never see the light of day.

Personally, I'd rather see the filing deadline for partisan races get pushed back to mid March (from mid January) or even later if we could get a summer primary.

Steve - The problem is taht legislators want to know whether they're going to have opposition before they get too far into the session which may affect -- God forbid -- how they vote!

[Daniel]

Steve, the downside of a summer primary, at least in presidential election years, is that by the time of the primary, the nominee has already been decided.

[Steve Bittenbender (freelancehack@gmail.com)]

The Presidential primary is meaningless in Kentucky (and frankly most states). I'd argue that Kentucky would be better off getting presidential candidates to campaign here during the gubernatorial election (If you help the governor win, you prove you can win in the South -- which is critical to both parties). That's another topic for another day.

I realize incumbents don't want to do anything that could cost them their power. Politicians are human, after all. I was merely suggesting that it would be in the best interests of Kentucky voters. Also, there will still be several districts that either will have no opposition or token opposition regardless of the deadline, thanks to the way many districts have been drawn.

beat stan lee

This proposal is ridiculous.

Some things that DO need to happen: push the filing deadline to May for all offices just not legislators; push the primary to August; allows registered Independents to pick a primary to vote in (could only vote in the R or D primary not both); require legislators to file campaign finance reports regularly during the legislative session, whether an election year or not. Those changes sure would keep legislators on their toes.

[yuck]

This is disgusting. Representatives are supposed to be close to the people. The reason why they only have a 2-year term is so that their votes will reflect the whims of the people. If you give them a 4-year term, they will vote the way the lobbyists and special interest groups tell them to for 3 years and vote with the people right before the election. It will be even worse with state senators if we give them 6-year terms - just look at the US Senate.

I'm sick of hearing about how overworked and underpaid legislators are. They are supposed to be public servants. You have to make some sacrifices in order to hold such an important position of public trust. I am 100% behind keeping our state legislature are part-time, citizen legislature with short terms. Honestly, the US Congress fails to get just as much accomplished as the KY General Assembly even though the KY General Assembly costs a whole lot less. We need small government that is accountable to the people.

I would favor extending the terms of state and federal representatives from two to four years. Having them come back and ask for votes (and raise money and bombard the airwaves, etc. etc.) every two years gets to be tiresome. If they were in for a four-year term they could worry about actually governing and not the next around-the-corner election.

[David Adams]

I'm with you guys on moving the filing deadline back, too. Watching the legislators sit on their hands through January is one tradition we can do without.