FRANKFORT, Ky. — Kentucky lawmakers have advanced a proposal to limit a governor’s pardon powers.
It reflects the anger still burning over former Governor Matt Bevin’s flurry of last-minute pardons in late 2019.
The proposed constitutional change would prevent the former Republican governor’s successors from doing the same thing in their final days in office.
The measure won approval from a Senate committee Wednesday. It now advances to the GOP-dominated full Senate.
The proposal would amend the state’s Constitution to strip a governor of pardon powers for the month leading up to a gubernatorial election and for the time between the election and inauguration.
Governor Andy Beshear said in a press conference on Wednesday that he believes it's a conversation that should be had.
"I do worry about making major changes based on one governor using the power in a very terrible way," Beshear said. "The worst pardons that we have seen in the history of the Commonwealth of Kentucky to people who committed heinous crimes based on really faulty information, if not conspiracy theories."
He said that he thinks the solution though is to elect "reasonable people" into state offices and positions of power.
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