Leaders of the Kentucky legislature waste time in even-year legislative sessions for two painfully obvious reasons, both of which hurt Kentuckians.
The spans the month of January and involves politicians taking up as few controversial issues as possible in order to get past the candidate filing deadline without attracting opponents who might unseat them. The second follows toward the end of the session when leaders write the state budget in secret as time runs out and without appropriate public scrutiny.
A potential help to the problem of paying legislators to lollygag around wasting time and money and protecting their political backsides comes in the form of a proposed constitutional amendment from Sen. Jimmy Higdon.
The bill will be SB 22 in the 2012 session. It proposes to change the 60 day budget session into a 30 day budget session. We could surely do with a lot less of watching our politicians kill time with self-congratulatory speechifying. They have one job to do in even-numbered years and that is to pass a budget. They should focus on that and nothing else until it is done. Cutting the time for the budget sessions in half would surely encourage more of them to shut up and work.
The gubernatorial candidates would do well to weigh in on this bill right away.
