Lawmakers vote to move cases out of Franklin Circuit Court
By BRUCE SCHREINERJanuary 14, 2021 GMT
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) Kentucky lawmakers gave final passage Wednesday to a bill that would curtail the statewide influence of a circuit court traditionally assigned high-profile cases involving state government.
The measure sent to Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear reflects a long-running goal of many Republican lawmakers to steer cases away from Franklin County Circuit Court. By bypassing that circuit, the bill would dramatically change the way lawsuits involving state government are handled.
Under the bill, cases dealing with the constitutionality of state law, executive orders or administrative regulations would be heard in the plaintiff’s home county. Those cases now are traditionally tried in Franklin Circuit Court, in the state capital of Frankfort.
House Bill 3 would have set up randomly selected panels of three judges.
That panel would hear cases involving state government or the Kentucky constitution.
Instead, the revised version requires those legal challenges must be filed in the home county of the plaintiff not the defendant. If the plaintiff is not a resident of Kentucky then the case would be filed in Franklin Circuit Court.
The revised bill has been approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The changes come after Kentucky Supreme Court Justice John Minton expressed he was strongly against the original version of the bill last week. He nicknamed the bill the “Rube Goldberg bill” and said it “needs to die.”
GOP bills to strip power from Beshear advance, though chief justice slows courts bill Joe Sonka, Louisville Courier Journal
FRANKFORT The Republican supermajority of the Kentucky General Assembly on Friday sped through more bills aimed at shifting power away from Gov. Andy Beshear.
That includes the Senate s top priority bill, which could be one of several given final passage and sent to the governor s desk Saturday just five days into the 2021 session.
Senate Bill 1, which would limit a governor s powers under a declared emergency such as Beshear s many COVID-19 orders to 30 days unless authorized by the legislature, was amended Thursday to go even further, requiring the governor to receive the permission of the attorney general to suspend any statute during an emergency.