Northern Kentucky Tribune: Al Cross: Voting with their faces and making deadly decisions; the real issue is lack of political courage
By AL CROSS
When I was covering Kentucky politics for a living, I started a file folder labeled “Gutless Wonders.” It was about legislators and their lack of courage, which usually stemmed from an unwillingness to do things that they knew were worthy but might cost them their seats in the next election. I didn’t keep up the file very long; there were too many examples, and most of them were petty.
A more edifying (and thinner) file would have been examples of courage, such as the bipartisan group of seven state representatives who lost their seats in the 1990 elections after voting for the Kentucky Education Reform Act and the taxes to finance it. Cynics would say that courage was forced, since the Supreme Court of Kentucky had ruled the state’s school system unconstitutional, effectively mandating a tax increase. But KERA was about a lot more than taxes; it remade the school system from the bottom up, and there was a backlash from some local politicians.