Kentucky Dems Easily Beat Pat “The Hair” Bauer in Heavy Handed Tactics Department

When his committee wouldn’t approve a casino gambling amendment, Kentucky Democrat House Speaker Jody Richards sacked one member of the committee by fiat and appointed two new members sure to do his bidding.

From the Courier-Journal:

FRANKFORT, Ky. — A bill to legalize casino gambling survived a series of bizarre legislative twists yesterday that revealed a major split within the leadership of the House Democratic majority.

In the morning, two versions of the proposed constitutional amendment — which would authorize nine casinos and is Gov. Steve Beshear’s top priority — failed to win approval from a House committee.

But yesterday afternoon House Speaker Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green, led a rare move to change the membership of that committee and get the bill to the House floor.

Richards removed Rep. Dottie Sims, D-Horse Cave, because she did not vote for a version of the amendment that he supports.

Then he and two other House leaders added two new members to the panel — over the objections of Speaker Pro Tem Larry Clark, D-Okolona, who supports a different version of the amendment.

“I want to get that amendment out of committee, and we intend to do it,” Richards, D-Bowling Green, told reporters later.

But Clark called Richards’ move “the cheapest form of petty politics I’ve seen up here in 24 years — to take a member off a committee because she did not vote the way the speaker wanted.”

Sims was furious and almost in tears over her dismissal. “It’s communist,” she said of her ouster. “… The leadership is in disarray. They’re split.”

Depending on how you look at it, The Hair is either clever enough to think to pack his committees with loyalists in advance, or he’s not yet advanced to the whole dictatorial “sack the opponents and rig the vote” level just yet.

I’d bet on the former; yet another area (though an ignominious one) where Indiana is ahead of Kentucky.

This post is also available at Hoosierpundit.