834. Senate Bill 3 from the 2008 General Assembly - the Filing Deadline, the opposite of this year's House Bill 172

The first piece of legislation to make it through both chambers of this year's session of the Kentucky General Assembly had nothing to do with the budget or healthcare or education or clean drinking water or highways or coal severance taxes or even pensions.  We can only hope that our legislators will eventually address these important topics at some point during the 2022 Regular Session.

No, the first piece of legislation to pass both houses and advance to the governor's desk, and one which he has already signed into law, was House Bill 172 moving the filing deadline from today to January 25, 2022, solely for this year.

Kentucky's regular filing deadline for elective office has for several years now been ridiculously early, falling on the first Friday of January at 4:00 p.m.  It has moved around over the years.  This current temporary move under HB172 is closer to the last Tuesday or last Friday in January, both of which have previously served as filing deadlines.  Many years ago, from the 1970s to the 2000s, it was in mid-March.  

But, as mentioned, the current deadline is the first Friday of January, unless, as what happened today, the General Assembly moves it for their own purposes.  Or, as in the case ten years ago, the courts move it, as Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd did moving the deadline for some offices to January 31, 2012 and others to February 7, 2012.  The reason in both this year's move and that of a decade ago was the late passage of the House and Senate (and Congressional) boundaries for the elections, redrawn after the decennial censuses.  As of this writing, those new lines have been presented, but not passed.  The new lines for judicial circuits, which haven't been redrawn in decades, have been passed to my understanding.  In other words, the dates must be moved due to the late actions (or inactions) of the members of the General Assembly themselves.

This brings me back to Senate Bill 3 from the 2008 General Assembly.  Then-Senator David Williams, someone with whom I rarely agreed, introduced a bill which would have moved the filing deadline to the last Tuesday in April and the Primary to the first Tuesday after the third Monday in August.  I completely supported Senator Williams's proposal.

It would have moved all of the filing and campaigning until after the General Assembly had done its annual destruction in Frankfort and while the destruction would still be fresh in the minds of the voters.  As it is, a session ends sometime in March or April and all is forgotten in a few weeks and then we have a filing deadline immediately after the holidays.  Also as it is, Kentucky's filing deadline is the first in the nation and the period between the filing deadline and the actual primary and election is longer than any other state in the nation.

While this year's move is for this year only, the General Assembly should take a long hard look at moving everything until later in the year as Senator Williams proposed fourteen years ago.  He was right.  Perhaps Secretary of State Michael G. Adams could take this up as a cause.  He seems to have some gravitas within both parties and elections are the province of his office.  

Hope springs eternal.

Happy Orthodox Christmas.

© Jeff Noble, Louisville, Kentucky, January 7, 2022.