Take Back Kentucky Members Meeting with Trey Grayson in March 2009
August 30, 2009
On March 3rd of 2009, Norman Davis, Richard Lewis, and myself had the pleasure of meeting with Kentucky’s
Secretary of State, Trey Grayson. Our meeting was to be limited to less than
ten minutes, but during that short time we managed to educate Secretary Grayson about Senate Bill 62, and also to learn a
little bit about the Secretary himself.
Mr. Lewis started the conversation by asking the Secretary if he had ever read the Bill of Rights or the Kentucky Constitution. Though he had sworn an oath to the Kentucky Constitution in order to take his position
as the Secretary of State, Grayson responded that he had never read that particular document, stating in plain terms, “we
never had to read that in law school.” Although Harvard Law School may
not require its students to read each and every Bill of Rights of every state Constitution, it should be required reading
for anyone who takes office in their respective state.
Rather than dwell on the
oversight of the Secretary and those who elected him, Mr. Lewis continued to explain why we had paid a visit to Frankfort
and the Secretary. We told Secretary Grayson that Senate Bill 62 was being hurried
through the legislature, and he seemed to think that the bill would be a good thing for Kentucky, having participated in the
drafting of the bill with the Advisory Task Force for Development of the Registry’s Legislative package. Mr. Lewis asked him specifically if he remembered the previous versions of this bill. Secretary Grayson
responded that he did in fact remember the bill and also that he remembered Mr. Lewis’ previous testimonies against
the bill. However, this did not stop him from supporting the bill in previous
years, nor did it stop him from supporting this bill in 2009.
Mr. Lewis continued to
explain the ramifications of Senate Bill 62, and told the Secretary that this bill would nullify what was written in Section
8 of the Bill of Rights. Section 8 states that printing presses shall be free
to all people, but Senate Bill 62 removes the right of average citizens to have free printing presses and therefore freedom
of speech. At this point, Mr. Davis explained that this would create two classes
of citizens regarding the right to freedom of speech. Mr. Lewis then explained
that Senate Bill 62 would exempt the media from election laws while restricting the press rights of individuals or living
beings. The bill would give rights to legal persons, but restrict the rights
of living beings.
Secretary Grayson seemed
to understand what Mr. Lewis was telling him. In fact, he had a copy of the book
“The Fallacy of Campaign Finance Reform” sitting on his desk, which should have enabled him to understand what
we were explaining. We asked him to please do whatever he could to stop this
bill in committee, and he assured us that he would take our opinions into consideration.
Rather than stand by his word, however, he chose to side with the author of the bill, Senator Damon Thayer. He and Thayer stated during their testimony that this bill would not change any Kentucky law, but that
it would change the position of the language to “more appropriate places” in Kentucky law to make the law easier
to understand.
This is what occurred on March 3, 2009 at 12:35 PM
until about 12:53 PM. You may contact the following people for verification of
this statement.
Katie Moyer
Norman Davis
Richard Lewis
270-305-4057
270-242-6497
502-377-6330
