[Beshear:] It says I appoint all state officers when there’s a vacancy. The question is, does that apply to federal offices? Well, before there was ever a law in Kentucky on how this would work, multiple appointments were made by governors, assumingly under that provision.

Until Beshear sues and wins (or at least until he files a suit), I’m going to be bold enough to challenge that. The wording clearly does not support what Beshear’s saying. First, I’ll note preliminarily that the section covers all elective offices*, so this is all we need to read from:

Except as otherwise provided in this Constitution, vacancies in all elective offices shall be filled by election or appointment, as follows:

* Notably, the “except as otherwise provided in this Constitution” is referring to the section on judicial vacancies. To my knowledge, these are the two sections that cover vacancies (show me I’m wrong if I am).

Next, we have a bunch of stuff covering city, town, county, district, and State offices. We can safely skip that (skip down if you think we can’t). This brings us to:

Vacancies in all offices for the State at large, or for districts larger than a county, shall be filled by appointment of the Governor; all other appointments shall be made as may be prescribed by law.

First, “State at large” is defined in the KY Constitution (sections 69–96) and does not mean federal offices. And then it says all other appointments shall be made as may be prescribed by law.

Microanalyzing that sentence in case you think there’s room for doubt: “as may be prescribed by law” means that the law can prescribe how the appointment is made but that a law doesn’t have to exist – where “may” is opposed to “shall”. I.e. if there is no law, which there doesn’t have to be, do whatever the fuck you want, but if there is one, follow it.

The obvious reason other governors were appointing their choices is because there was no law in place to say otherwise, and “may” meant there didn’t have to be one until Republicans decided to ratfuck Beshear.

Lastly, if he’s trying to assert that “state offices” cover federal ones, I mean, good luck, I guess. That’s a dumb, ad hoc argument that’s likely to fail given there’s literally a section that differentiates between State office and Federal office.

If the governor himself™ actually sues, then fair game, and we’ll see who wins. Otherwise, dead serious: I think he’s completely misreading the law and Republicans are correct on this – not morally, of course, but legally. I invite you to read the linked section and point out where I’m wrong.

---

TL;DR:

• The section covers all elected offices (with judicial being the exception).
• It spends a bunch of time covering city, town, county, district, and State offices (incl. a special excerpt for “State at large”, which per the KY Constitution is not federal).
• It then says “all other offices” may be prescribed by law.

I’m going to be ballsy enough to say this: if you can read this plain English and still take Beshear’s word on it, that’s fine, but it’s strictly an argument from authority. Andy Beshear’s word is not a legal consensus that there’s ambiguity. Please, read it for yourself and try to challenge me based on what it says.

(Didn’t downvote you, btw; I appreciate you linking this.)