FRANKFORT, Ky.—Kentucky’s two most recent governors are feuding, but they can agree on one thing: the FBI is investigating.
While peaceful transitions of power are a longstanding U.S. tradition, the handoff in Kentucky from Democrat Steve Beshear to Republican Matt Bevin has been ugly. The two men have argued loudly over health care, voting rights, pensions and even the appointment of Beshear’s wife to a state commission.
Things were so tense recently that Bevin and Beshear both claimed the FBI was investigating the other. An FBI spokesman would not confirm or deny anything, preferring to stay out of the fight like many in Kentucky’s political circles.
The spat has intensified so much that Beshear has taken the extraordinary step of starting a nonprofit group that is paying for ads critical of Bevin and his policies. Bevin, in turn, has launched an investigation of the former Beshear administration, using a state law granting him subpoena power and public money to hire a private law firm to determine if the ex-governor violated state ethics and procurement laws.
Also nipping at Bevin’s side is Democratic Attorney General Andy Beshear, Steve Beshear’s son. The younger Beshear has already taken Bevin to court — twice — over his policies. The result is an old-fashioned clash in this Appalachian state pitting one of Kentucky’s most powerful political families against a Republican outsider intent on upending a power structure in which Democrats have controlled things for decades.
“This has got the makings of a real Hatfield and McCoy feud,” former Democratic Gov. John Y. Brown Jr. said. “I don’t think it’s good for Kentucky.”
The harsh talk from both sides — with Bevin accusing Beshear of telling a “straight-out lie” and Beshear calling Bevin “a bully” — is surprising to some. Bevin had repeatedly promised on the campaign trail to change the political tone in Frankfort if elected.
Yet the hostilities emerged before Bevin took office when he called Beshear “an embarrassment” for appointing his wife to an unpaid position on the Kentucky Horse Park Commission. He then leavened his December inaugural address with some veiled shots at Beshear as the former governor sat stone-faced just a few feet away.
