Kentucky Lt. Gov. Jenean Hampton filed a lawsuit on Thursday against Gov. Matt Bevin, a fellow Republican and her nominal boss, that argued that his administration illegally fired two of her senior aides this year. This is the latest, but most severe, fight between the two former allies in the last year, and it comes only a few months before Bevin faces the voters in November.
Bevin picked Hampton to be his running mate back in 2015, but the two have had a bad relationship for a while. While Hampton said that she wanted to run for re-election on Bevin’s ticket this year, the governor spent months talking about finding a new number two. In late January, just before the filing deadline passed, Bevin finally announced that state Sen. Ralph Alvarado would be his candidate for lieutenant governor rather than Hampton.
Hampton’s term lasts until December, and it’s created quite a toxic situation in the state capitol. In late January, days after Bevin replaced her on the ticket, Hampton hit the like button on a tweet reading, "I hope Matt Bevin's car won't start tomorrow morning and he's locked out of his house with nowhere to go. Yeah, I said it. #ThankUNext." The like immediately attracted attention and stayed up for an hour and a half. After removing it, Hampton herself tweeted, "For the record, I UNINTENTIONALLY hearted a tweet that was derogatory to @GovMattBevin. I don't pile onto mean-spirited tweets! #FatThumbs."
Around that same time, Hampton’s chief of staff Steve Knipper received a notice from a Finance Cabinet official that fired him without giving a reason. Knipper had just filed to seek the GOP nod for secretary of state, a move that defied Bevin’s directive that required any appointed members of the administration to resign if they run for office. Hampton attempted to reappoint Knipper, but Bevin’s Personnel Cabinet ignored her wishes. Knipper ended up taking a distant third in the primary.
In late May, Hampton’s deputy chief of staff Adrienne Southworth was also fired by the Bevin administration for no stated reason, a move that left the lieutenant governor with just one remaining staffer. Hampton was furious, and she tweeted in response, “CALLING PRAYER WARRIORS: Yesterday, person(s) unknown initiated unauthorized personnel action ending employment of my talented, stellar Deputy Chief Adrienne Southworth, against my wishes. Pray for me as I battle dark forces.” This time, Hampton did not blame #FatThumbs or delete her message.
What Hampton did do, though, was tell administration officials that only she had the authority to hire and fire her staff, but she was no more successful in getting Southworth reinstated than she was with Knipper. Blake Brickman, Bevin’s chief of staff, later said he’d authorized the Finance Cabinet to sack Southworth for performance reasons.
Hampton even went to Attorney General Andy Beshear, who is Bevin’s Democratic opponent this year, to ask for a legal opinion. Last week, Beshear’s office concluded that Hampton was right and that she had the power to hire and fire her own staffers. On Thursday, Hampton filed her lawsuit against Bevin that asked the court to declare that Knipper and Southworth’s terminations were “wholly and legally ineffective.”
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