UofL Law Students protest Sen. Mitch McConnell's presence at their graduation

Mitch, "you do not speak for us!"

Some University of Louisville Law students were not pleased with Sen. Mitch McConnell and protested during graduation exercises.

This from the Hillbilly Report:


And this from the Kentucky Law Review:

Dear Sen. McConnell,

As a few of the members of the Brandeis School of Law Class of 2009, we welcome you to our commencement. We know you don’t get to Louisville often, and certainly it is quite a feather in the cap of our school to secure the speaking services of one of the most powerful political leaders in the country. We have spent the past three years discussing at length, among other things, the civil rights and liberties granted by our Constitution. It is on those subjects we feel secure in telling you that when you are speaking at our graduation, you do not speak for us.

There is a phrase we hear often in law school when a professor wants to move on from a classroom debate: “Reasonable people can disagree.” But the fact is, there are some things that are absolutely unreasonable. The idea that some of us can be fired from a job because of who they love? That is unreasonable. Tapping the phones of U.S. citizens without judicial oversight is unreasonable. That immigrants are demonized for our nation’s problems is unreasonable. Your position on such basic issues is unreasonable.

The fact that you have vehemently and repeatedly opposed equality in any way shape or form for many of our citizens is unacceptable in this nation. It has nothing to do with partisanship, and everything to do with our rights as citizens and as human beings. There are Republicans who believe in civil rights, and quite a few Democrats who do not. Were it, for example, our current lieutenant governor speaking at graduation, we would be just as upset. There are things about which it is time for people to stop agreeing to disagree and to start calling what it is: prejudice.

Graduation day is going to be a day of celebration for our classmates, our families, and our friends. We have all worked hard, and regardless of our political persuasion, we deserve to have this day to enjoy free of disruption and disorder. However, we will not sit silently on a stage listening to someone who has time and again acted to prevent some of our classmates, and indeed community members, from achieving equality under the eyes of the law. We will each be wearing a button on our graduation robes to register our dissent. You may speak for a bare majority of Kentuckians right now, but you do not speak for us, nor do you speak for the future of where our state or country is headed.

The sign outside the school says Brandeis School of Law, not School of Justice or School of Fair. Certainly the law is not always just or fair. Still, it seems to us that justice is what the country has been moving toward in the law since our humble beginnings. On the day of our law school convocation, as law students and future attorneys, it is up to us to stand for justice and equality. Every time a law has been challenged to bring justice for someone who was previously not allowed full participation in society, it made us a better country. Sen. McConnell, you are on the wrong side of history here, for LGBT people, for women, for immigrants, for the poor, and for people who honor peace and civil liberties.

Our school’s namesake, Justice Louis D. Brandeis, said, “America has believed that in differentiation, not in uniformity, lies the path of progress. It acted on this belief; it has advanced human happiness, and it has prospered.” The day is coming, sooner than you can imagine, when it will be unthinkable for a school to invite someone who does not believe in equality to speak at a commencement. When that day comes, it will also be unimaginable that someone who works against the full rights and liberties of all Americans could ever speak for the citizens of the Commonwealth. Until that day comes, know that you do not speak for us.

Christopher McDavid
Rebecca O’Neill
Lucie Small
University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law
Class of 2009

C-J on Ramsey

This from C-J:

The right message

It's appropriate, at this point, to praise University of Louisville President James Ramsey.

However, before we do, it's important to review a little history.

Last March 30, in one of the most astonishing declarations ever published in these pages, Dr. Ramsey took the opportunity to praise the 2008 Kentucky General Assembly for its attention to higher education. He said the message sent by lawmakers was clear:

"Both chambers are willing to make tough decisions to make higher education and financial aid for college students a top priority. They understand our mission to double the number of Kentuckians with college degrees will transform lives and boost Kentucky's economy…. I want to say a heartfelt thank you to the General Assembly. Our legislators have decided we cannot afford the opportunity lost and instead have stepped up to support higher education."

In fact, as Dr. Ramsey later concluded, what the General Assembly did to higher education was "ugly" -- a 6 percent slashing that has left our public campuses littered with lost jobs, program cuts and tuition hikes.

Indeed, this legislature sapped momentum at all levels of education.

This happened because the Republican Senate, operating on Sen. Mitch McConnell's advice and at President David Williams' direction, wouldn't raise taxes -- wouldn't even agree to a cigarette-tax hike the public overwhelmingly approved, and wouldn't even let the public consider expanded gambling.

Much to his credit, Dr. Ramsey now has called attention to this debacle by refusing a raise or a bonus. It was the right thing to do.

By contrast, University of Kentucky President Lee Todd refused an additional $50,000 he could have received but accepted a $95,000 bonus, which he will have to explain to faculty and staff who had their pay frozen or their jobs cut, and to students who were hit with another tuition hike, this time a brutal 9 percent.

This time, Dr. Ramsey is sending the right message. It's a message that Gov. Steve Beshear would do well to repeat daily on his upcoming tour of the state:

The legislature is not tightening government's belt. It is strangling Kentucky's future.

Foes agree: schools shorted, should sue

This from Pat Crowley at the Enquirer:

State Senate candidates say court may be solution

UNION - Republican candidates in Kentucky rarely support filing lawsuits to change policy. U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the titular head of the state GOP, is even poking fun at litigation as he campaigns for re-election.

"The Democrats want to tax, regulate and litigate everything," the four-term senator says in his stump speech. "It's in their DNA."

The Republicans running for a Northern Kentucky Senate seat say the courts may offer the only remedy for changing the state's public school funding formula.

John Schickel and Charlie Walton, the Union Republicans squaring off in the state Senate 11th District primary May 20, concede school districts here and elsewhere in Kentucky may be forced to file suit to change what they and many others claim are inequities in the funding formula.

"I don't feel like the solution is political," said Schickel, who is retired from a career in law enforcement, including serving as Boone County jailer. "So when you can't do something politically ... you seek relief in the courts."

Walton, the principal of Florence Elementary in Boone County and a former state lawmaker, said if he is elected to the four-year term, he will first try a legislative approach for changing what is known as the SEEK formula.

"When I get down there I'm going to tell (legislators) I'll work with you for two years, and we'll try to do the right thing," said Walton, a career educator. "But then I'm going to recommend that the school districts file a lawsuit against the state."

Schickel and Walton say funding is not adequate or equitable for school districts that are fast-growing or property-rich. It favors smaller, poorer and rural districts.

Legislators from Northern Kentucky and other urban and suburban districts have tried for years to change the formula. But lawmakers from regions that benefit from it - which is most of the state - have successfully killed those attempts.

So the two Republican candidates are suggesting changing the formula the way that it was originally enacted, through a lawsuit.

Support Excellence in Education (SEEK) was developed as part of the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 (KERA.).

KERA came about after the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled that the state's method of funding education was unconstitutional because it was not fair to poorer school districts. The ruling was prompted by a lawsuit filed by several poorer school districts, including Dayton Independent Schools in Campbell County.

Before KERA, schools relied on revenue generated from local property taxes and a subsidy from the state that was roughly the same for all districts.

Since KERA and the establishment of the SEEK formula, school districts still raise money locally, but the poorest districts receive more from the state.

Part of their subsidy comes from revenue taken from the wealthier school districts, including Boone County, Fort Thomas, Beechwood and other Northern Kentucky districts.

"Now you have inequity with the larger districts and the growth districts," Walton said.

So Walton suggests those districts use the same strategy the poorer districts used in the 1980s: file litigation challenging the funding formula.

"The poorer districts did the right thing when they weren't being funded," he said. "(Filing suit) is not what you want to do, but unfortunately it might be what we have to do."

Schickel agreed, saying more funding could help cut the number of Boone County students - about 4,400 - that spend at least part of their day in trailers converted to classrooms.

"The current decision was an interpretation of what fair and equitable is under the constitution and it was relief for the poor districts," he said. "But now we need relief in our growth districts. We have children in trailers; we need relief."

Boone County Board of Education Chairman Ed Massey said he appreciates the candidates' concerns and strategies, but he said a lawsuit would take years to litigate and do little to help with the district's explosive growth. For the past several years the district, the third largest in Kentucky, has grown by enough students to build a new school a year.

Massey urges legislators to continue working on a political and policy solution. "I appreciate the concept (of litigation) and if we have no other choice we'll do what we have to do," said Massey, a lawyer. "But that gives no immediate relief as we continue to grow every year. A lawsuit has to be a last resort because it will be expensive, we would have to join other districts in doing it and it could take 10 to 12 years."

The candidates defended using litigation as a remedy.

"I don't think it's Republican or Democrat," Walton said. "It's the next step when you have tried to do everything you can legislatively."

Schickel said pursuing legal action is "in line with my political views because it is a Constitutional remedy."

"I speak for myself, and not the (Republican) party," he said.

The 11th Senate District includes Boone and Gallatin counties and Kenton County precincts in Crescent Springs, Crestview Hills, Erlanger, Fort Mitchell and Lakeside Park.

The seat is being vacated by Sen. Dick Roeding, R-Lakeside Park, who is retiring. There is no Democrat in the race.

C-J Points Fingers at...pretty much Everyone

This from the Courier-Journal:

Blame these folks

...University of Kentucky students, and eventually their counterparts at other state campuses, will be taxed. That's what a 9 percent increase in tuition is -- a tax on students and their families, made necessary by lawmakers' refusal to raise new state revenue.

As education advocates across the state, led by Commissioner Jon Draud, are warning, elementary and secondary schools will be hit so hard that they can't really aspire to reach "proficiency" by the legal due-date of 2014. Kentucky School Boards Association spokesman Brad Hughes expects more "direct impact on classroom learning than at any time in recent history." The Prichard Committee's Bob Sexton says lawmakers have failed the state's kids...

...Money has been filched from the fees paid by professionals, including doctors, nurses and dentists, which means licensing and oversight agencies won't have the money to do their job, which means the public could be endangered. And the outrage expressed by members of the 35 boards and commissions that have been robbed of funds has fallen on deaf ears.

We have directed much of our criticism for this sorry state at affairs at Senate President David Williams, and he richly deserves it.

He brushes off complaints about his control of the Frankfort agenda by airily suggesting that, instead of new state revenue, what's needed is a little belt-tightening, when in fact the belt is around the neck of those who need state government's help and support.

But David Williams is not alone to blame. He didn't hatch without help. He doesn't keep his power without enablers.

If you want to hold someone responsible, start with U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the creator of today's Kentucky Republican Party and the chief advocate of its basic operating principle: never, ever let yourself be responsible for raising taxes. Thank, also, the Republican senators...Dan Seum, Ernie Harris and Julie Denton -- for supporting Mr. Williams' leadership and letting him run roughshod over the public interest.

Thank Senate Democrats who supinely, and silently, accept the outrage that is Mr. Williams' leadership...our public university presidents, who gave him cover by praising 3 percent cuts on top of 3 percent cuts...other public stewards who failed to protest publicly...[and] yourself, for considering this politics as usual … politics as inevitable.

Taxes. Oops, I said it again.

Truth be told, I'm not particularly well studied on taxes.

But I do know this: Basing the funding of public schools on property taxes is a bad idea because of its inherently inequitable nature. One community's property will always be worth more than another's...yet the children are all worth the same. Or at least, in the eyes of the law, they ought to be.

Property taxes have always been and always will be - unequal.

That said, Larry Dale Keeling offers this:

...casino gambling, if and when it comes, won’t add stability to the state’s revenue stream, at least not the kind of stability that can help soften the landing the next time the economy tanks.

Besides, getting a casino gambling amendment through the General Assembly remains an iffy proposition. Its success or failure this year depends largely on whether U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell and state Senate President David Williams think its presence on the ballot will bring conservatives out in force to help McConnell win another term and Williams retain control of the Senate.

So, Beshear should move casino gambling to Plan B and come up with a new Plan A for providing the real tax reform that was missing from his predecessor’s “tax tinkerization” package.

Real reform would link Kentucky’s revenue stream to the fastest-growing sector of the economy by extending the sales tax to selected services – the kind that can’t be exported. Real reform should also do Kentuckians’ lungs a favor by including a hefty increase in the cigarette tax...