Beshear sues over ‘latest power grab’ law that would restricting Kentucky governor’s regulatory power

House Bill 6 blocks state agencies from taking action that isn’t explicitly authorized by the Kentucky General Assembly if it costs more than $500,000 over two years. The bill was the top priority this year for Americans for Prosperity, a prominent libertarian-leaning advocacy group affiliated with the multibillionaire Koch family.

Beshear’s suit was filed Friday in Franklin Circuit Court and assigned to the circuit’s chief judge, Phillip Shepherd.

The governor’s lawsuit seeks to temporarily block the bill from implementation — it took effect March 31 because it included an emergency clause — and to eventually declare House Bill 6 unconstitutional.

The bill could hamstring several different Cabinets. The sponsor, Earlington Republican Wade Williams, said the bill targets only a handful of existing regulations.

Beshear, in his veto message as well as the lawsuit, disagreed. He and Cabinet officials paint a broad picture of all the functions of the executive branch that he won’t be able to carry out.

Even laws that were easily passed by the General Assembly with little issue could be threatened by the sweeping $500,000 threshold, he said. The lawsuit cites a bill passed to create a Parkinson’s disease registry as an example of something that would exceed the cost threshold.

“Preventing the executive branch from issuing administrative regulations ‘unconstitutionally limits and interferes with the Governor’s mandated duties,’” Beshear’s attorneys wrote. “... House Bill 6 hands control of an executive function and power — promulgating regulations to faithfully execute the law — to the legislative branch.”

The lawsuit named Emily Caudill, the regulations compiler for the Legislative Research Commission, as the defendant as opposed to the regularly named defendants like the House speaker or Senate president. That’s because, Beshear’s lawyers said, Caudill has the power to “determine whether or not regulations meet the legislative conditions in HB 6.”

Legal fights between Beshear and the Legislature have been a hallmark of the governor’s time in office. It’s possible they could continue, especially given Beshear’s role in advocating for newly elected Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Pamela Goodwine.

There’s evidence that the governor’s team thinks it could help him if a lawsuit makes it all the way to Kentucky’s highest court.

A Wednesday fundraising email from Beshear’s political action committee, In This Together, touted that the group “spent heavily to help elect Pamela Goodwine to the Kentucky Supreme Court, shifting the court’s ideological balance.”