Violence against Women in Kentucky: A History of U.S. and State Legislative Reform

9. Legislative Reform: 2000 through 2012

309 9 legislative Reform 2000 through 2012 During the first decade of the new century, destructive weather events would be imprinted into the memories of Kentucky families . In 2003 and again in 2009, ice storms descended on the Commonwealth , leaving a frozen tundra and death. In the middle of the decade and again in 2012, Kentucky would experience brutal summer droughts and stretches of record-breaking triple-digit heat. on primary election eve in 2008, tornadoes would blow through Kentucky , foreshadowing the spiraling tornadic winds of 2012 that would kill more than twenty Kentuckians and completely flatten the town of West liberty (Honeycutt & Warren, 2012; national Weather Service , 2012). The end of the 2000s would also bring spring flooding to western Kentucky, swamping fields and roads and leaving residents to fill thousands of sandbags in an attempt to hold back the rising water. In the sports world, Kentucky would become the first state with African American head coaches at all of its collegiate Division 1 football teams: Joe “Joker” Phillips at the University of Kentucky and Charlie Strong at the University of louisville. In fall 2010 the state would host more than half a million guests at the Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI) World Equestrian Games, the first time the games would be held in the United States. Sponsored by Alltech, the games would decide the world championships for eight equestrian sports, with fifty-seven countries represented by approximately 800 equestrians and their horses (Alltech, 2010). Although the World Equestrian Games were largely successful, they ended with controversy when it was revealed through tax returns that the foundation supporting the games had closed the year more than 310 Violence against Women in KentucKy $1.3 million in the red (Patton, 2012). one more major sports event would occur in 2012, to the delight of the so-called Big Blue nation (the name given to University of Kentucky basketball fans). The UK men’s basketball team, the Wildcats, won the national championship in new orleans, louisiana, besting the University of Kansas in the final game. It would be the eighth national title for the Wildcats, this one brought home by a talented group of underclassmen, most of whom cut down the nets and then took their talents to the professional basketball ranks (Schneider, 2012). The Wildcats’ win would not be the only story involving the state’s flagship institute of higher education. In September 2010 Dr. lee T. Todd Jr., who had served as president of the University of Kentucky for a decade, announced that he would step down effective June 30, 2011. Todd’s resignation led to a national search and the installation of UK’s twelfth president in the person of Dr. Eli Capilouto. on the legal scene, the U.S. Supreme Court would uphold Kentucky ’s lethal injection protocol, which led to the 2008 execution of Marco Chapman. Chapman had pleaded guilty to killing two children and wounding their mother and another child in their northern Kentucky home in a 2002 attack.1 tHe PoliticAl lAndscAPe The beginning of the new millennium brought the end of the Patton administration and the temporary end of Democratic control of the governor’s office. Although the Democratic Party had generally prevailed in state elections since the mid-nineteenth century, the 2000s would see a republican majority in the Kentucky senate and the election of Ernest l. Fletcher as governor (serving from 2003 to 2007)—the first republican to win that office in more than three decades. (The last had been Governor louie nunn.)2 Fletcher began his administration with a pledge of “no new taxes” and a promise to reform the tax code (Cross, 2004). In 2004 he sent a reform package to the General Assembly, but his proposals were not well received. (His tax reform legislation would fare better in 2005.) The 2004 session was also the second consecutive session in which the General Assembly failed to pass a biennium budget. (The first occurred in 2002 under Governor Patton.) This ultimately led to a 2005 Kentucky Supreme Court ruling that both the General Assembly and the governor had acted counter to the state’s constitution by failing legislative reform: 2000 through 2012 311 to pass a budget and by spending funds that had not been allocated by the legislative branch. notwithstanding the court’s decision, this would not be the last time the Kentucky legislature failed to...