Opinion ID: 1684481
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: suspension of statutes.

Text: As earlier noted, the Attorney General initiated this action to prevent the Governor's anticipated suspension of 153 statutes. Among the statutes that the parties to this appeal claim were actually suspended in the Public Services Continuation Plan were KRS 18A.010(2) (number of state employees limited to 33,000); KRS 18A.355(1) (automatic 5% annual pay increases for all state employees); KRS 42.4585 (allocation of Local Government Economic Assistance Funds); KRS 61.565(2) (delegation of authority to Kentucky Retirement Systems Board of Trustees to determine employer contribution rates necessary to adequately fund the Kentucky Employees Retirement System). Section 15 of our Constitution provides: No power to suspend laws shall be exercised unless by the General Assembly or its authority. Since this provision is a part of the Bill of Rights, the Governor could not suspend statutes even if he possessed emergency or inherent powers under Sections 69 and 81. Ky. Const. § 26 (To guard against transgression of the high powers which we have delegated, We Declare that everything in this Bill of Rights is excepted out of the general powers of government. . . .). The suspension of statutes by a Governor is also antithetical to the constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Ky. Const. § 81. A fortiori, the suspension of any statutes by the Governor's Public Services Continuation Plan was unconstitutional and invalid ab initio. However, neither the parties representing state employees [5] nor the Board of Trustees of the Kentucky Employees Retirement System presently seek remedial relief from the suspensions of KRS 18A.355(1) and KRS 61.565(2), admitting that those issues were resolved during the 2004 extraordinary session of the General Assembly.