Impeach Matt Bevin Petition: Is He Cutting Courts Or Saving Kentucky’s Elderly Teachers


The action to attempt to impeach Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin has expanded since it was initiated on February 18 with the petition by Change.org reaching almost 9,000 signatures as of February 24 at 12:30 A.M.

Kentucky voters signing the petition to remove Governor Matt Bevin from office may be viewed by outsiders as angry over his attempts to sue Planned Parenthood, as described by WBKO, for what Bevin claims are illegal abortions.

Regardless, Kentucky voters opposing Matt Bevin through petitions are mainly concerned about what they say a corrupt governor running their state and ruining decades of hard work by previous Kentucky politicians.

On top of accusations that Governor Matt Bevin is guilty of election fraud, there are other issues of corruption that are concerning Kentuckians even more… and now there is a third complaint.

The main issue outside of election fraud was that Matt Bevin was reducing the budget in certain ways that would allow government watchdog groups to go underfunded.

Naturally, as previously reported by The Inquisitr, if the watchdog cabinet of the Kentucky state government was not able to watch Matt Bevin, the petition said in an update on February 20 that he would have unbridled power to do whatever he pleases.

Now, there is another corruption scandal looming because it is being pointed out that Matt Bevin is making changes to the budget that will reduce the number of available courts to try cases and lawsuits in Kentucky.

Senator Mitch McConnell does not support Kentucky governor Matt Bevin, but he has not announced that he wants him impeached.
Mitch McConnell is a known non-supporter of Matt Bevin, but is not actively supporting the petition to impeach the Kentucky governor. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

According to the WKYT, “Kentucky Chief Justice John D. Minton Jr. has told a legislative panel that [Matt Bevin’s] proposed budget cuts would effectively shut down the courts temporarily.”

Adding to this, WFPL quotes Justice Minton responding to Matt Bevin’s proposed budget cuts (and estimated three weeks of court closures) with the following.

“We’re a lean branch of government with no more fat to cut. Losing nine percent of our budget for the next two years would potentially decimate our ability to do what we’re constitutionally obligated to do.”

Sadly, this is not the only alleged line that Matt Bevin has crossed, but corruption would be the only way to un-elect or remove a leader in a state that does not have the recall vote option.

In the end, Matt Bevin stands on the ground that all of his budget cuts are in the favor of pension holders in the state of Kentucky.

Repeatedly, Matt Bevin has stated that there would be a lot of unhappy changes, but ultimately, as governor, he would have to cut the budget drastically in order to make up for a multi-million dollar deficit that would need to be addressed between now and 2018, according to Kentucky Magazine.

Matt Bevin says he is making budget cuts to protect teacher pensions but the petition to have him impeached cites corruption as their reason to have him removed from office as Kentucky State Governor.
Kentucky governor Matt Bevin claims that the budget cuts he is making are about teacher pensions, but voters signing a petition want to impeach him for other matters such as corruption. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Supporting Matt Bevin’s drastic budget cuts is Kentucky State Budget Director, John Chilton. WEKU quoted Chilton on February 23 stating the following.

“Are these severe? Yeah. But the amount of liability that needs to be paid at some point is huge.”

Nevertheless, the general reply to Matt Bevin’s severe budget cuts has been outrage, and this includes the previous Kentucky governor, Steve Beshear. Supporting Beshear, in another petition on the same website, signatures are being gathered to save the Kentucky healthcare program, KYnect.

Although national headlines may continue to focus on Matt Bevin and his battle with women’s rights groups that are protesting him in Kentucky, Matt Bevin could also be seen as one of the good guys for slashing the budget to protect retired teachers — and the situation may be more insidious than first suspected.

In a tweet from February 23, a user writes “I’d say that @MattBevin and Kentucky Legislature have BIG pension issues to deal with” and “Kentucky pension systems fighting to keep fees to outside managers secret.”

The tweet about “secret” outside managers of the Kentucky pensions systems referenced a Reuters article from February 23 that stated the following.

“Kentucky’s troubled public pension funds are fighting a bill requiring them to disclose performance fees paid to outside asset managers and use more transparent methods when selecting those managers … Between the two pension funds, according to their official reports, Kentucky’s state pension systems have liabilities of at least $30 billion, and are among the worst funded in the nation.”

While his choices for budget cuts may be debatable, there is a petition to “save our pensions” that Matt Bevin may have been addressing as his first action as Kentucky state governor.

Initiated around the end of January, the petition asks Matt Bevin to replace money that the state of Kentucky “borrowed” out of the Kentucky Teacher’s pension fund in 2008. According to the petition, the teacher’s retirement fund “will be exhausted by 2036” if Matt Bevin does not start replacing that money.

[Picture by Win McNamee/Getty Images]

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