Thompson, Yonts reflect on years in Frankfort

Jan. 02--State legislators Brent Yonts and Tommy Thompson won't be returning to Frankfort on Tuesday as members of the General Assembly. After almost 15 years in office for Thompson, and nearly 20 for Yonts, both were defeated in the November landslide that swept them and many of their fellow Democrats out of office.

Both Thompson and Yonts reflected on their long legislative careers, and said they believed they had made a difference in the lives of their constituents.

Thompson, of Philpot, is president of Thompson Homes. Thompson was first elected to the House in 2002, and was a member of the House's Democratic leadership for a time. Thompson was defeated for the House's 14th District seat in November by Republican challenger Matt Castlen.

While Thompson ran for re-election, he had been considering retirement from state government in the near future, he said.

"This probably would have been my last term anyway," Thompson said. "There are some things I've put off that I'd like to do. It ended two years premature, but no regrets. I have plenty to do.

"I served under four governors," Paul Patton, Ernie Fletcher, Steve Beshear and current Gov. Matt Bevin, Thompson said. "I particularly enjoyed working with Gov. Beshear. He was there the longest, and I built up a good relationship with him, which helped serve my district."

Thompson said in economic development, he is particularly proud of House Bill 3, which was passed into law in the 2009 session. Thompson was the bill's primary sponsor.

"We retooled Kentucky's economic development and incentive packages," Thompson said.

In preparing the bill, he said he spoke with officials who worked to recruit businesses to the state.

"As a result (of the bill), Kentucky has had some really nice job gains, because of that more targeted package," he said. "For two years, Kentucky received the so-called 'Governor's Cup' from Site Selection Magazine ... for having the most new and expanded facilities in America, and I'm sure that is the result of us retooling our economic development incentive package."

Another proud moment occurred in the 2004 session when legislators approved House Bill 4, a price-gouging bill.

"What we were finding was (after natural disasters), people who sell generators or gasoline ... would take advantage of consumers and artificially raise their prices," Thompson said. With House Bill 4, "we had a tool with some teeth in it, that has been used several times to go after vendors that preyed upon consumers."

Thompson said he also worked on a bill in 2005 that created a tax credit for small businesses to help them provide health insurance to their employees.

Thompson, whose district included Ohio County as well as part of Daviess County, said a significant moment occurred in 2015 when Beshear signed the "Anna Clair Taylor Law," which was named after an Ohio County toddler who was diagnosed with Krabbe disease, a degenerative disorder of the nervous system. Taylor died from Krabbe disease just a few days after Beshear signed the bill.

Thompson said Taylor's Krabbe disease could have been treated if doctors had known at birth the child had the malady. While children are tested at birth for several diseases, they were not regularly tested for Krabbe disease until after Beshear signed the law.

"I championed that bill, we got it passed and now, hopefully, there will never be another Kentucky boy or girl born who doesn't have much life expectancy" because of Krabbe disease, Thompson said. "There was some concern about the cost of testing, so it wasn't an easy sell.

"If we can save one life, it is worth it," Thompson said.

Thompson said he worked in a variety of areas over his career, including in education, transportation and infrastructure, and helped acquire funding for local projects such as the U.S. 60 extension and a museum for bluegrass music pioneer Bill Monroe in Ohio County. Not everything made it into law -- a bill to create incentives for movie companies filming in Kentucky didn't make the cut, for example -- but Thompson said he was able to do a lot for constituents during his long career in Frankfort.

"If I could improve (constituents') quality of life or enhance their economic opportunities, that gave me satisfaction," Thompson said.

Yonts, a Greenville Democrat, was first elected to the House in 1997. He was defeated in November by Republican newcomer Melinda Purdy.

"The thing I appreciate the most is the public re-elected me as their representative for 20 years," Yonts said in a recent interview. " ... I worked on everything I could stick my nose into," including economic development, criminal justice, worker's compensation and the state's pension systems, he said.

Muhlenberg County has a long history as part of western Kentucky's coal region. Yonts said one proud moment occurred when he championed House Bill 207 in 2007, a bill that focused on safety for coal miners.

"It was very controversial," Yonts said. "Some of the coal people thought it was requiring safety measures that did not need to be improved."

The bill was aimed at "making sure we don't have explosions, and have safety measures underground" for miners. "It was a way to protect coal miners."

Yonts said one concept he pursued was carbon dioxide capture and storage, where carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plant emissions is piped into the ground under a rock layer.

The bill was first put forward "as an idea bill, to see what response it got." Yonts said he received assistance from now-retired Congressman Ed Whitfield, who put Yonts in contact with an expert who helped write the bill.

"We were trying to look for a method to reduce" carbon dioxide, Yonts said. "The process (of carbon capture) is there, but it's expensive." There are no carbon capture sites in Kentucky.

The coal industry has declined in Kentucky because power companies have access to natural gas, which is currently cheaper than coal, Yonts said.

"Whatever is cheaper gets used," Yonts said.

While environmental regulations played a role in the declining fortunes of the coal industry, power companies switched to natural gas over more expensive uses for coal, such as converting coal to synthetic natural gas, he said.

He was also an advocate for raising the state's high school dropout age to 18, and was also active in the criminal justice field, sponsoring bills that focused on substance abuse and criminal justice reform, he said.

The "big issue" he hopes will be taken up in the 2017 session, he said, is changing certain non-violent, non-sexual class D felonies to either "gross misdemeanors" or "E felonies," which would not result people serving lengthy prison sentences. Yonts sponsored a "gross misdemeanors" bill last session for financial crimes, which he said would have allowed people charged with those crimes to be out of jail, working and paying restitution. The bill passed the House but not the Senate.

Making a class of E felonies "has the same outcome" as the gross misdemeanors proposal, Yonts said. It "saves $12 million immediately," he said.

Other proposed changes in Yont's bill gives juries, not prosecutors, the authority to designate a person a "persistent felony offender," which greatly increases a person's prison sentence.

Changes also need to be made to how the state Parole Board makes decisions, Yonts said.

"It gives inconsistent outcomes on similar fact patterns," Yonts, an attorney, said. "We have to do something about the overcrowding of our (prison) system."

A goal of Bevin's during the 2016 General Assembly session was addressing shortfalls in the retired teacher and state employee pension systems. Yonts said the pension shortfalls were largely caused by the faltering economy.

"The reason is a minor recession in 2002 and a great recession in 2008," Yonts said. As a result of the recession, government had to make drastic budget cuts. Contracting out services that were formerly done by state workers to private business has also hurt the pension system, because "fewer people are paying into the retirement system," he said.

State legislators had to make difficult financial choices in the years after the 2008 recession.

"Over Gov. Beshear's eight years ... we authorized him to cut $1.6 billion to keep the economy running," Yonts said. "If we hadn't dealt with the recession in the way we were led by Gov. Beshear ... I'm not sure where Kentucky would be if we hadn't made some changes."

House Democrats took a large hit in the November elections and control of the House passed to Republicans for the first time in decades. The election givens Republicans control of the state House, Senate and governor's office.

Kentucky Democrats, Yonts said, should move forward by "listening and paying attention to the policies they promote.

"For 20 years, I've had two full-time jobs," as an attorney and House member, Yonts said. "Being a state legislator is not a part-time job."

James Mayse, 270-691-7303, [email protected], Twitter: @JamesMayse

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