Opinion ID: 2277556
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: The Word May.

Text: This desire to preserve the General Assembly's flexibility to determine which state officers must be subjected to the confirmation process also explains the use of the much-discussed word may in the 1992 amendments to § 93. [49] The Governor contends that since the word may is permissive and nonexclusive, the provision in § 93 providing that appointees may be subject to confirmation by the Senate is properly construed as being illustrative of how confirmation can occur. Although we agree with the Governor that may is generally a permissive term, we disagree that the use of that word in § 93 means that the House has the right to confirm appointees. Of course, as the Governor correctly points out, the word may generally signifies something as being permissive in nature in contrast to the word shall, which generally signifies something being mandatory. [50] It is also evident from the Constitutional Debates of 1890 that a proposed section of the Constitution requiring senatorial confirmation of all inferior state officers was deleted in favor of the more general language in § 93 (as originally enacted) in order to provide the General Assembly with as much leeway as possible to determine which state officers would be subject to senatorial confirmation. [51] The most logical conclusion, therefore, is that the term may in § 93 signifies only that the General Assembly has the permissive discretion to choose which gubernatorial appointees must be subjected to a confirmation. In other words, absent some constitutional prohibition against doing so, appointees, like Fox, may be subject to confirmation if the General Assembly so directs, or appointees may be permitted to serve without ever having to be confirmed, if the General Assembly has not directed to the contrary. Either way is generally permissible under § 93. But we have not been shown evidence that the use of the term may in § 93 is evidence that the House has the constitutionally authorized ability to confirm nominees. Indeed, the relative silence of our present Constitution, as originally enacted, regarding how (or if) appointees such as Fox would be confirmed led to Kraus v. Kentucky State Senate [52] the court case that likely was the impetus for the 1992 amendments to § 93.