It looks like the fine governor of Kentucky faces a variety of charges, all of which leave our state with a black eye with the rest of the country. The Herald Leader currently has a decent story and Mark Nickolas' Bluegrass Report has some great insight into the matter.

The indictments are the culmination of a long investigation by the Attorney General's office into violation of the law involving hiring and not following the rules of the merit system.

Right now, none of the top state Republicans are talking about any of this.

An interesting little side note:

Fletcher becomes the third sitting Kentucky governor to be indicted and the first since Flem Sampson was charged in 1929 with receiving improper gifts.

Some other notes about the situation:

The indictments came exactly a year after a transportation personnel official, Doug Doerting, walked into Stumbo’s office on May 11, 2005, and dropped off boxes of e-mails and documents showing questionable hiring decisions, which started the investigation.

But the timing was more than symbolic.

The one-year window to charge someone with violating or conspiring to break state merit employment laws was set to expire Saturday.

That’s the anniversary of the May 13 firing of transportation cabinet inspector Mike Duncan, who claims to have been terminated once administration officials learned he had supported Fletcher’s Democratic opponent in the 2003 governor’s race.

His firing was the last in a string of personnel decisions alleged to be politically motivated.

Fletcher was specifically charged yesterday with political discrimination in connection with that move.

The indictment says the governor “willfully ordered, directed, approved or otherwise participated” with previously indicted Transportation Cabinet Secretary Bill Nighbert, Deputy Secretary Jim Adams and former Administrative Commissioner Dan Druen to fire Duncan, a merit employee.

It's a sad day when this happens in Kentucky. IT goes to show though that Fletcher was a lousy leader in Kentucky. He made poor choices for advisors and instead of supplanting the Republicans into power, he managed to injure the party for years. The question is how long will this last. Of course he could pardon himself.



Technorati Tags: Kentucky, Ernie Fletcher, culture of corruption, Republicans

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