9/14/2017 — Abortion Lawsuit and Budget Cuts
Proposed Cuts
On Friday, September 8, Governor Matt Bevin asked agencies in the executive branch to cut their budgets by a whopping 17%. Gov. Bevin said these cuts are necessary to deal with a revenue shortfall estimated to be $200 million, and because he wants to add money to the rainy-day fund. Listeners with good memories might remember that Governor Bevin called for a 9% cut right after taking office — these cuts would go on top of those. There were also large funding cuts that occurred during the Beshear administration after the Financial Crisis which have never been returned. State Rep. Rick Rand (D-Bedford), who, until being kicked out of the committee by the Republican majority, chaired the Budget committee, was quoted in the Courier-Journal predicting potential job cuts at agencies due to these cuts.
These cuts exempt certain items: SEEK (K-12 school funding), universities, Medicaid, Department of Corrections, and debt service. If they had been included, the size of the cuts would have been smaller, but those items are especially important. The cuts are expected to save the government $350 million, despite the fact that the projected hole is only $200 million. The rest of the money will go towards replenishing the “Rainy Day Fund.” The Bevin administration says that they expected to need to tap that fund at points this year, and that a $0 balance in it would hurt the state’s bond rating.
There is a law that says “No budget revision action shall be taken by any branch head in excess of the actual or projected revenue shortfall”. This has led to some, including KCEP, to question whether or not the Governor has the authority to seek a cut of $350 million instead of $200 million. Both Justin Bailey of KCEP, and House Minority Leader Rocky Adkins (D-Morehead), questioned the necessity of these cuts this soon into the fiscal year. Adkins is quoted by H-L saying “It would seem to me to be better and more responsible to wait until more months pass in the fiscal year to get a better reading of what the shortfall might be”. Bailey coupled this cut with Bevin’s announcement last week that local government would have to contribute more towards pensions a “clearly an attempt to create a sudden crisis”.
Andy Beshear agreed with Rep. Adkins and Mr. Bailey. On Tuesday, he said it was the opinion of his office that cuts to the budget to fund the “Rainy Day Fund” are illegal. The Bevin administration shot back that they were just asking for drafts of cuts…but you can see where this is headed, right?
Bevin only has the authority to cut the executive branch, but he has requested the other branches to make similar cuts. SCOKY Chief Justice John Minton told the Herald Leader that his branch is “considering the governor’s request to return $39 million of [their] budget”.
None of these cuts do anything about the Pension issue that has dominated discussion in the state over the past year.
http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article171997122.html
The Fate of the Lone Abortion Clinic
- A three-day trial ended last week about the the fate of Kentucky’s lone abortion clinic in Louisville. Attorneys will submit final written arguments to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky within 60 days of the close of the trial, and then it could be quite some time before we have a verdict
- The basic question is whether a statute regulating clinics is constitutional.
- The regulation in question is a state statute that requires abortion clinics to have transfer agreements with hospitals and transport agreements with ambulance services to obtain a state-issued abortion license.
- The statute became law in 1998, but has come up recently because PP’s licenses were denied by CHFS for having inadequate transfer agreements.
- Then in March, the state revoked the EMW clinic’s license for a deficient agreement, and this lawsuit followed. The clinic was granted an injunction to remain open until a verdict
- Evidence in the trial
- Plaintiffs had two experts
- A medical professor from Stanford and a medical professor from UL testified that these types of agreements are not necessary
- The defense called the chair of the EMS Dept at Drexel, who testified that these agreement were necessary to improve patient outcomes and safety. The defense did not cite any studies that might show that these types of agreements improve women’s care, and their expert testified that no such study had been done
- Inspectors from CHFS also testified that EMW had deficiencies in its license.
- The Vice President of Public Policy for Indiana and Kentucky’s PP also testified, that they tried to comply with standard and it becamse increasingly difficult, and regulations kept changing.
- The state argued that abortion rights would not be infringed upon because women could go to neighboring states
- The plaintiffs argue that the restriction is unconstitutional because it poses an undue burden and has no medical justificiation
- There was also testimony about UL hospital pulling out of the trasnfer agreement because of proposed budget cuts for entities affiliated with abortion providers
- The standard for whether an abortion restriction is constitutional is whether it poses an “undue burden” on the woman. That comes fro mthe SCOTUS case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey from 1992, but it’s been applied kind of weakly and inconsistently.Casey was about four different abortion restrictions, and the court upheld all but one.
- In Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt in 2016, SCOUTES struck down two parts of a Texas law, requiring doctors to have difficult to obtain admitting privileges and basically requiring clinics to have hospital-grade facilities.
- http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/2017/09/08/trial-wraps-up-over-challenge-ky-law-abortion-clinic-licenses/645510001/
- http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/08/us/ky-abortion-trial-wrap/index.html
- http://www.wdrb.com/story/36301588/trial-that-will-decide-fate-of-kentuckys-last-abortion-clinic-begins
QUICK HITS
- Governor Bevin told colleges and universities to think about shutting down majors that don’t produce jobs: “Find entire parts of your campus … that don’t need to be there, either physically as programs, degrees that you’re offering, buildings that … shouldn’t be there because you’re maintaining something that’s not an asset of any value, that’s not helping to produce that 21st century educated workforce.” Colleges and universities were dismissive.
http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/2017/09/12/governor-matt-bevin-cut-college-programs-dont-pay-off/659926001/ - The LRC has eliminated the “Jefferson County Caucus” in the state legislature and replaced it with the “Louisville (Metro) Caucus”. The new caucus has significantly more Republicans, and Democrats, including Rep. Jeff Donohue, are upset about it.
https://insiderlouisville.com/metro/move-to-switch-caucus-of-jefferson-county-state-legislators-with-regional-caucus-irks-louisville-democrats/
