Director, Commonwealth Policy Center

Imagine a scenario where a bill has over sixty co-sponsors. Imagine a deliberative body, the House of Representatives, that requires a simple majority to pass a bill. One would assume that with over sixty co-sponsors, a bill's passage would be quite easy, non-controversial, even expected. Stay with me. Then, imagine that this bill with over sixty co-sponsors is placed in a committee designed to purposefully kill bills. How? A small liberal minority of less than 10 can see to it that a bill with the support of over sixty legislators can be denied a floor vote by killing it in committee. Why? Imagine a Speaker of the House who has leveraged his position as Speaker by promising a craven, duplicitous, and anti-democratic minority of liberals that he'll send them all the bills that they don't like in order to kill them.

That's Kentucky's House leadership at work; Kentucky Democrats at work. This scenario wasn't just imaginative, but a real-live episode of how democracy is defined down—denying majorities and making deals.

The scenario? A pro-life bill that required a woman to receive an ultrasound prior to her abortion.

Kentuckians grow impatient with the tiny pro-choice caucus in Kentucky. But friends, take heart, the political winds of Kentucky are shifting, and the platform that allows such episodes to play out are coming to an end. Thank God. Literally.