Opinion ID: 2277556
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Historical Analysis of Confirmation Process.

Text: According to the Governor, the historical arc of the constitutional treatment of confirmation of state officers shows that the 1992 amendments were meant to depart from a Senate-only confirmation process. We disagree. The Governor correctly points out that the framers of our 1891 Constitution rejected a proposed section that would have required all non-constitutionally mandated state officers to have been confirmed by the Senate. More specifically, the framers deleted a proposed section that would have provided, in relevant part, that the Governor shall appoint, with the advice and consent of the Senate, all state officers who are not required by this Constitution, or the laws made thereunder, to be elected by the people. [43] The Governor argues that this deletion shows that the framers of Kentucky's most recent constitutions have departed from a framework in which exclusive Senate confirmation is constitutionally required of all inferior state officers. We are not convinced. The Governor is correct when he notes that the delegates to the 1890 Constitutional Convention did vote to delete a proposed constitutional section that would plainly have required senatorial confirmation of gubernatorial appointments. [44] But the Governor has pointed to nothing concrete that shows that deletion was aimed at allowing the House to have confirmation powers. Rather, as we have recognized in an earlier case, the section requiring senatorial confirmation was deleted only in order to permit the General Assembly to determine[ ] by legislative enactment [which inferior state officers] should be subject to such senate consent. [45] As Delegate Charles J. Bronston of Fayette County pointed out to his fellow delegates in 1890, the section requiring senatorial confirmation of all appointees, which was later deleted, was originally intended only to permit the Governor to appoint the state Librarian. [46] The delegates instead wanted to retain the more general language of what ultimately became § 93 in order to allow the General Assembly to have flexibility in determining whether inferior state officers should be elected or appointed. As Delegate Bronston argued, requiring legislative confirmation of all appointees would disturb that settled principle which, we believe, has been approved by the people, that as to all these subordinates, it should be left to the power of the General Assembly to say whether they should be elected or appointed.... [47] So we disagree with the Governor's argument that the delegates to the 1890 Constitutional Convention clearly wanted to take the confirmation power from the Senate alone; instead, the official records of that Convention show that the delegates voted to delete the section requiring senatorial confirmation only to give the General Assembly flexibility in determining which inferior state officers must be subjected to confirmation at all. We also do not agree with the Governor that the current version of § 93, as amended, reflects a conscious desire to move away from a Senate-only confirmation process. The language of § 93 belies such a construction. Although when it was originally adopted, § 93 did not contain a clause directly pertaining to senatorial confirmation, the 1992 amendments to § 93 added the Senate-only confirmation language to our current constitution. So even if we assumed, solely for purposes of argument, that § 93, as originally adopted, did not vest the Senate with the exclusive right to confirm gubernatorial appointees, the 1992 amendments to § 93 were an unmistakable about-face from any purported retreat from Senate-only confirmation power. Since Fox convincingly argues that Kentucky has never in its constitutional history afforded the House confirmation powers, it logically follows that the framers of § 93 would have used clear language specifically permitting the House to have a role in the confirmation process if the framers had intended to enact such a sweeping change. Perhaps the clearest indication that there was no intent for § 93, as originally enacted, to afford the House a role in the confirmation process is the General Assembly's enactment of legislation (since repealed) in 1893hard on the heels of the adoption of the present Constitutionthat provided, in relevant part, that [u]nless otherwise provided, all persons appointed to an office by the Governor, whether to fill a vacancy, or as an original appointment, shall hold office, subject to the advice and consent of the Senate, which body shall take appropriate action upon such appointments at its first session held thereafter. [48] Nothing in that statute afforded the House the right to confirm nominees. In reality, the opposite is true because the statute clearly contemplated confirmation only by the Senate.