Supreme Court hears pension bill arguments

The fate of Kentucky’s pension reform bill is now in the hands of seven judges.

In a hearing before the Kentucky Supreme Court Thursday morning, Attorney General Andy Beshear and Steve Pitt, Governor Bevin’s attorney, made their cases for and against the bill the affects the retirements of thousands of teachers and first responders.

Pitt says the pension reform bill is constitutional as passed and that the legislature followed all the rules of the chambers when it gutted a sewage bill and replaced it with the pension language, passing it in six hours as opposed to the standard three days a bill would normally take to pass.

Beshear argues the General Assembly acted in a way that “intentionally excludes and hides its actions” from the public and that the final pension bill that was voted on was produced so quickly that there is no way any legislator could have read what they were voting on.

The bill was ruled unconstitutional by Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd who cited procedural issues.

This story is from the Kentucky News Network.