Former Republican Kentucky Lieutenant Governor Jenean Hampton visited Murray State University Tuesday to discuss her experience in the Bevin administration, while also giving thoughts on the former governor's controversial pardons.
Hampton left office last year after Governor Matt Bevin chose to seek re-election with Winchester Senator Ralph Alvarado. She said she tried to warn Bevin about the danger of losing the election if she was dropped from the ticket.
“Last year, in last year’s election, the governor opted to run with someone else and they lost,” Hampton said. “I tried to warn them.”
Bevin and Alvarado lost to then-Attorney General Andy Beshear and educator Jacqueline Coleman in the election. Before leaving office, Governor Bevin issued hundreds of controversial pardons to convicted criminals in the commonwealth. Hampton said she wasn’t aware of those pardons.
“I wasn’t involved with that,” she said.
Hampton said she has “mixed feelings” about the power of the governor to issue pardons. A constitutional amendment proposed in the 2020 regular session of the Kentucky General Assembly would limit the pardon power.
Hampton said since she knew her term of office would end in December, she began the transition months before Coleman took office. She said she left Coleman a note and a baby book. Coleman became the first sitting lieutenant governor to give birth to a child last month. Hampton said she hasn’t seen Governor Matt Bevin since two days before Beshear and Coleman’s inauguration. Despite reports of their strained relationship, she said she made that conversation friendly.
“I intended to make it friendly. I wasn’t going to be anything other than that. I just basically went to wish him and his family a Merry Christmas.”
Hampton said since leaving office, she has been catching up on reading and taking care of her elderly mother.
