Kentucky Government, Politics, and Public Policy

Introduction: Taking Kentucky Politics Seriously

1 Introduction Taking Kentucky Politics Seriously James C. Clinger and Michael W. Hail Kentucky politics has been a source of amusement for residents of the Commonwealth for generations, as illustrated by the famous Kentucky orator Judge James Hillary Mulligan , who wrote in his often quoted poem “In Kentucky” for the legislature in 1902, “The landscape is the grandest—and politics—the damnedest . . . . In Kentucky.”1 Citizens of other states, who only occasionally hear of the goings-on in Frankfort or in the city halls and county courthouses of the Bluegrass State, also seem to be somewhat entertained by the colorful, often scandalous, and rarely dull escapades of Kentucky politicians, partisans, and interest-group leaders. Those who teach Kentucky politics, either in high schools or in colleges and universities, often regale students with humorous and outrageous anecdotes about the Commonwealth’s government. Some of these stories are true. Nevertheless, it is the premise of this book that Kentucky politics should be taken seriously. Anecdotes, storytelling, or folklore can sometimes be entertaining , but they are not appropriate for serious students of politics. Systematic political science scholarship can and should inform citizens about the nature of their government , the consequences of their policy choices, and the implications of their political processes. As such, this book is intended to investigate the core institutions of Kentucky government and also to examine a number of particular political topics and policy issues of interest to Kentuckians and citizens of other states. The core task of this book is explanation, with explanatory political science that is broad in scope, ambitious in purpose , grounded in history, and theoretically informed. This is a book that seeks to explain trends, patterns, and the direction of political and policy change. The issues, institutions, and policy problems covered here are not likely to go away. The personalities and power brokers may change from one decade to the next, but the topics addressed herein will still remain with us. Many of these topics are not unique to Kentucky but are faced in other states throughout the nation. The comparative approach is used throughout the book to contextualize Kentucky government within the laboratory of federalism and to assess comparatively the issues addressed by political institutions. 2 Introduction This book is intended to fill a significant void in the study of Kentucky politics and to add to a tradition of single-state politics research within the discipline of political science. Like many studies of single states, this book emphasizes a sense of the unique place that is Kentucky. But that sense of place can be understood only in comparison with other places and times that have their own political institutions, public policy traditions, and cultural characteristics. Kentucky is a border state, situated at the northern rim of the southern states and carved out originally from the westernmost counties of old Virginia. It is in many ways southern in its political culture and in its framework of government. But the Commonwealth also borders the midwestern states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. Some major Kentucky cities on the Ohio River, such as Louisville and Covington, resemble Cincinnati and St. Louis in their layout and architecture more than they do the prominent cities of the Old South. Kentucky also shares a border with West Virginia, which, like Kentucky, was originally part of the Old Dominion. Eastern Kentucky is as characteristic of Appalachian traditions as is West Virginia and eastern Tennessee. Among the most significant and enduring studies of state political culture was that conducted by political scientist Daniel Elazar. Elazar categorized states by three ideal types: moralistic, individualistic, and traditionalistic. Political culture is defined as “the pattern of orientations toward government and politics within a society. Political culture generally connotes the psychological dimension of political behavior—beliefs, feelings, and evaluative orientations. A political culture is the product of historical experience of the whole society as well as the personal experiences that contribute to the socialization of each individual.”2 The distribution of political culture in the United States is understood as a historically conditioned process of value transmission and expression.3 Kentucky’s political culture is a hybrid: the eastern section is more individualistic , while the western section is more traditionalistic. The result is a combination of attributes that looks a lot like Kentucky’s mother state of Virginia. These political culture variables and the relationship to federalism and intergovernmental relations are discussed more fully in chapter 2. As a border state, Kentucky has been crossed by people...