Rep. Carl Rollins, chairman of Kentucky House Education Committee, resigns from legislature
This from the
Courier-Journal:
State Rep. Carl Rollins, chairman of the House Education Committee, resigned from the Kentucky House on Wednesday.
Rollins,
65, a Midway Democrat first elected in 2006, resigned to accept
appointment as chief executive of the Kentucky Higher Education Student Loan Corp. and executive director of the Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority.
Rollins
had been marketing manager of just the student loan corporation. But he
said his new job as the head the Higher Education Assistance Authority
places him within an executive branch agency — a conflict that he said
requires him to resign from the legislature.
Rollins
said in his letter of resignation to Gov. Steve Beshear that during his
five sessions as chairman of the House Education Committee “we proved
that by working in a bipartisan manner, we could make significant
improvements to public education for the children and citizens of the
Commonwealth.”
House
Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, called Rollins “a great colleague
whose leadership has been instrumental in moving Kentucky’s educational
system forward.”
Stu
Silberman, executive director of the Prichard Committee for Academic
Excellence, said: “Carl has been a champion for kids. ... He made his
decisions best for kids and the state and did it in a way that forced
those he dealt with to be collaborative.”
Brad
Hughes, spokesman for the Kentucky School Boards Association, said:
“This is a tremendous loss for public education. Carl Rollins devoted
himself to learning the minutia of education like no other legislator
I’ve ever known.”
Education
leaders credited Rollins for passage of the 2012 “Districts of
Innovation” law that allows school districts to get waivers from state
regulations in trying innovative ways to improve student learning.
Rollins
played a role in the 2009 passage of Senate Bill 1, which revamped the
state’s student testing and accountability process. He sponsored
legislation that allowed students to transfer from community colleges to
universities without losing credits and was a key player this year in
passage of a bill that is likely to result in increasing the mandatory
school attendance age to 18 from 16 within seven years.
Later Wednesday Beshear set June 25 as the date for a special
election to fill the vacancy in the 56th District, which includes all of
Woodford County and parts of Franklin and Fayette counties.
House Democrats now hold a 54-45 margin over Republicans with the Rollins vacancy.
The
Kentucky Secretary of State website shows 59 percent of voters in the
district are registered as Democrats, 34 percent are Republicans and 7
percent are other.
Kentucky
Republican Chairman Steve Robertson said county GOP organizations in
the district “are engaged in an active search (for a candidate) and I
feel confident it will produce a good result.”
But Kentucky Democratic Party Chairman Dan Logsdon said, “I’m confident we will hold that seat.”
One
Democrat likely to seek the office is James Kay, 30, a Versailles
attorney who works on the House majority leadership staff. “I’m going to
let the (nomination) process work, but it would be an honor and
privilege to run to succeed Rep. Rollins,” Kay said.
The
House Democratic majority will select a new chairman for the Education
Committee. Stumbo said he and other House leaders will be accepting
letters from members interested in the appointment.
Rollins
said among those he expected to be considered as his successor as
chairman are current committee members Derrick Graham, D-Frankfort, and
Wilson Stone, D-Scottsville.
Rollins
said his new job pays $170,000 a year. But he said the move will not,
and cannot, enhance his legislative pension because he said he has never
been a member of the legislative pension system.
Some
other legislators who have resigned in recent years to take high-paying
jobs in other branches of government have been able to take advantage
of a 2005 law that allowed them to significantly boost their pensions.
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