Kentucky

Kentucky Democratic legislators have passed legislation to try to maintain that state's Kynect health care exchange and its Medicaid expansion, the Courier-Journal's Tom Loftus reports. However, the legislation doesn't have a chance of passing the Republican-controlled state Senate.

Republican Governor Matt Bevin is doing away with Kynect and shifting to the federal healthcare insurance exchange. Bevin is also asking for a waiver from federal regulators for how Kentucky runs its Medicaid expansion.

The Kentucky Supreme Court has ruled that judicial candidates can identify themselves as Republicans or Democrats, but identifying themselves as conservative or liberal "runs afoul of rules to keep politics out of judicial campaigns," The Associated Press' Bruce Schreiner reports.

The court majority further said that a judicial candidate's declaration that he or she is a liberal or a conservative violates the state constitutional requirement that judicial elections be nonpartisan in "'truth and substance.'"

Kentucky's ban on same-sex marriage has been struck down by a state judge on the grounds that there is no rational basis for the prohibition, the Lexington Herald-Leader's John Cheves reports: "Judge Thomas Wingate ruled for two Lexington couples who were denied marriage licenses by the Fayette County Clerk in 2013 because Kentucky's constitution was amended by voters to define marriage as exclusively between one man and one woman."

When a Kentucky federal judge struck down Kentucky's ban, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit restored the ban on appeal. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear the issue April 28.
 

Even though Kentucky bans same-sex marriage, Jefferson Family Court Judge Joseph O'Reilly granted a divorce to a same-sex couple married in Massachusetts, The Courier-Journal's Andrew Wolfson reports: "O'Reilly said that barring same-sex couples to divorce here violates the state constitutional guarantee that all people should be treated as equals."

The latest state-level ban on same-sex marriage has fallen after a Kentucky federal judge ruled yesterday that "'even sincere and long-held religious beliefs do not trump the constitutional rights of those who happen to have been out-voted,"' UPI reports. Judges now have overturned marriage bans in 20 states, UPI also reports.

There have been more positive developments this week in favor of same-sex marriage and LGBT rights:

One, Virginia's ban on same-sex marriage was struck down, Christian Science Monitor reports. The ruling is the first in the south to overturn a voter-backed prohibition on same-sex matrimony as unconstitutional.

Two, the Associated Press reports that a federal judge ruled this week that Kentucky must recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. The judge struck down the clause on recognizing out-of-state same-sex matrimony as imposing a traditional or faith-based limitation without a sufficient justification for it, the AP also reports.

Three, the Southern Poverty Law Center has filed a lawsuit challenging Alabama's same-sex marriage ban, the Washington Blade reports. The issue involves a same-sex couple in which one spouse was killed in a car accident and his widower is barred from receiving the majority of any settlement money in a wrongful death action. Opposite-sex spouses get that privilege in Alabama.

The Lexington Herald-Leader has this good yarn about a Kentucky Supreme Court justice who denies seeking campaign donations from a lawyer facing investigations, as well as a fraud lawsuit, over allegations he steered clients to an administrative law judge at the Social Security Administration:

"In early 2012, Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Will T. Scott repeatedly drove to the Floyd County office of disability benefits lawyer Eric C. Conn, which is a chain of interconnected trailers along U.S. 23, fronted by a one-ton, 19-foot-tall statue of Abraham Lincoln. Scott, who represents Eastern Kentucky on the high court, was on his way to raising $332,390 for a bruising re-election battle that fall. Conn was a multi-millionaire facing at least two federal investigations and a fraud lawsuit for allegedly rigging medical records and steering hundreds of his check-seeking clients to a judge who improperly approved their claims. A U.S. Senate committee spent five hours last week criticizing Conn's law practice at a nationally televised hearing. The men thought they could be useful to each other."

The lawyer ended up pleading guilty to a misdemeanor for making straw donations to the justice's reelection campaign in the names of his employees, The Herald-Leader also reported.