*Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has reportedly compiled a list of successors in his home state of Kentucky, and Attorney General Daniel Cameron tops the list.
According to reports, McConnell may not finish out his term in office, so the senator is said to be actively working behind the scenes to eliminate a state statute that allows Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear to choose his replacement. The governor is a Democrat and McConnell wants his seat to go to another Republican.
Here’s more from The Intercept:
The new legislation, Senate Bill 228 — dubbed by some inside the state Legislature as the Daniel Cameron Election Bill — was filed on February 10, 2021, during the Kentucky General Assembly’s 30-day “short” session. The bill alters current state statute that allows the governor to appoint a replacement in the event of a vacancy to the U.S. Senate. If the bill becomes law, the appointment to fill a vacancy will be selected from a list of three names submitted by the state executive committee of the same political party as the senator who held the vacant seat. According to the bill, the appointee from that list will then serve until a successor has been elected by voters. The legislation goes on to list instructions on when elections take place in the event of a vacancy.
READ MORE: AG Daniel Cameron Hires Armed Security, Responds to Grand Juror’s Statement
Under current law, the power to appoint McConnell’s replacement falls to Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear. But new legislation McConnell is pushing in the Kentucky General Assembly would strip the governor of that power and put it into the hands of the state GOP.
— The Intercept (@theintercept) March 4, 2021
McConnell, 79, has held his Senate seat since 1985 and won a seventh term last November.
Per NewsOne, Cameron served on McConnell’s legal counsel team for two years where he took on a “legislative portfolio that dealt with a wide array of matters coming through the GOP leader’s office including the federal judiciary, law enforcement and criminal justice matters, patent and trademark issues, and Kentucky telecommunications and broadband access initiatives,” a 2018 USA Today report reads.
Cameron, the first Black attorney general of Kentucky, came under fire last year after refusing to pursue murder charges against the officers involved in the killing of Breonna Taylor. He did not offer the grand jury the option to indict the officers on charges related to Taylor’s death in her own home. As reported by TMZ, he made the decision to present charges “that could be proven under Kentucky law.”
Cameron was forced to hire armed security after citing “detailed threats against the attorney general, his wife and members of his family,” in the wake of his handling of the Taylor case.
“The attorney general’s protective detail determined that given the credibility of such threats, additional personnel and resources were needed to provide the appropriate level of security,” Elizabeth Kuhn, a spokeswoman for Cameron, said in a statement in October.
The $300,000 retroactive security contract was approved by legislators and began at the end of August and ended on Dec. 31, Yahoo reported.
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