Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Heiner, Comer: Republicans made us do it

Gubernatorial candidates James Comer and Hal Heiner told the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce last summer they would do nothing to shut down ObamaCare's Kynect program in Kentucky. This February, they both told National Journal the same thing. They've both bristled at criticism received for going squishy on this key topic, but at least until now they haven't blamed other Republicans for their bad decisions.

Enter April and the issues of pensions and guns.

Last week, Comer shocked and awed primary election voters when he was asked by the Courier Journal's Joe Gerth why he voted himself a half million dollar pension gift from taxpayers when he was a legislator:

When asked why he voted for the bill to begin with, Comer hesitated for eight seconds. “Well, you know, there’s, it’s, the a, that was a, clearly a bad vote,” he said, before noting that Senate President Robert Stivers and current U.S. Rep. Brett Guthrie voted for it.

When asked what he saw in the bill that made him like it in 2005, Comer said, “You know, ... I can’t remember that far back.”

That was last week. Then today, Heiner's campaign blamed a bad vote he made on banning guns on "ten other Republicans" who did the same.