Kentucky Governor Steve
Beshear has failed to respond to a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of
his most potent political weapon, economic development incentives. The suit was
filed on July 2; Beshear and Attorney General Jack Conway were served on July
3.
"Governor Beshear has
raised abusing this illegitimate power of picking winners and losers in the
marketplace to an art form," David Adams, plaintiff in the lawsuit,
said.
"The flimsy legal case
for doling out 'incentives' in Kentucky hinges on something called 'public purpose,'
while the results of decades of this practice show that if we were really
interested in serving the public we wouldn't be screwing around like this.
The Kentucky Constitution literally demands that we stop the corporate
welfare nonsense and lower regulatory costs on job creators if jobs are what we
want to create."
