Lisa Autry

Kentucky’s attorney general is being asked to investigate a recount for a disputed seat in the state House of Representatives. 

Democrat Jim Glenn won the 13^th District House race in Daviess County by one vote in last year’s election, but a recount over the weekend resulted in a tie with Republican DJ Johnson. 

In a letter to Attorney General Andy Beshear dated Feb. 6, Representative Glenn’s attorney, Anna Whites of Frankfort, asks for an immediate investigation into the February 2recount in Owensboro.  Whites argues that Johnson's attorney illegally meddled in the recount by asking the Daviess County Board of Elections to review a ballot they previously rejected. 

An election contest board will meet on Friday and could decide who finally will occupy the 13th District seat in the Kentucky House of Representatives.

Over the weekend, a recount resulted in a tie between Democrat Jim Glenn and Republican DJ Johnson, both of Owensboro.  Johnson requested the recount after losing his reelection bid to Glenn by a single vote last fall.

Over the weekend, the Daviess County Board of Elections recounted more than 12,000 ballots by hand.  Glenn came out ahead by three votes, but after an appeal by Johnson's attorney C. Michael Shull III, the board voted to give one of those votes back, leaving Johnson down by two votes.  The panel then decided to count five of 17 rejected absentee ballots.  Three were in favor of Johnson, one went for Glenn, and one was blank, resulting in a tie.

Kentucky has one of the nation’s fastest-growing organ donor registries, but a change in driver’s license rules could hamper that growth. 

Most organ donors register when they receive or renew their driver’s license.  When Kentucky begins rolling out new standard licenses and voluntary travel IDs in March, drivers 21 years and older have the option of renewing their licenses every four or eight years. 

As the partial government shutdown nears the two-week mark, one study suggests Kentucky is not among the states most impacted. 

When government operations cease, certain federal employees work without pay or are furloughed, including law enforcement officers, IRS workers, and NASA employees.  According to the Kentucky Center for Statistics, the commonwealth had 35,618 federal workers as of June 2018.

Andy Beshear is looking back on the past year as Kentucky’s chief law enforcement officer.  Much of it was spent in the courtroom with the most high-profile legal action taken against Governor Matt Bevin’s controversial pension reform law. 

The Attorney General also took on the pharmaceutical industry and some public universities, including WKU.  Beshear sat down with WKU Public Radio for an interview on those legal challenges and what he wants to accomplish in his last year in the AG’s office.