CHANDLER'S ANTI-DRUG EFFORTS DRAW CRITICISM AND PRAISE

FRANKFORT, Ky. - In his campaign for governor, Democrat Ben Chandler cites
his battles with fellow Democrats and various business interests in his
almost eight years as attorney general as proof he has the courage and
independence needed in the state's top job.

But Republicans and some of Chandler's own employees have faulted the way
he has managed his office and the principal law-enforcement challenges of
his tenure - huge increases in the manufacture of illegal methamphetamine,
mainly in Western Kentucky, and the abuse of prescription drugs, mainly in
Eastern Kentucky.

Chandler says he has set the right priorities, and his allies in efforts
against drugs - including some Republicans - defend him. Still, criticism
persists from GOP nominee Ernie Fletcher and his running mate for
lieutenant governor, former U.S. Attorney Steve Pence, who Fletcher says
will be his point man on crime if elected.

On a tour of Eastern Kentucky to announce their anti-drug platform last
month, Pence said Chandler "has been asleep on the job. On Ben Chandler's
watch, drug abuse has exploded."

Asked to reply, Chandler referred to Pence's work as a defense lawyer
before he became U.S. attorney in 2001 and since he left the office to join
Fletcher's slate this spring. "While Steve Pence defended the drug
criminals in court, no one has done more to take on the drug problem in
Kentucky than me," Chandler said. "My office has convicted more than 300
people on prescription-drug abuse since 1997."

Pence said this month that Chandler should have brought together local law
enforcement, schools, civic groups and county health departments to fight
drugs and create "a program to make sure people feel secure" in turning in
methamphetamine labs.

"We need to get a task force together that unites all of these and makes
the solution community-based" with state government's help, Pence said in
an interview.

CHANDLER NOTED that he helped create, and served on, a task force that Gov.
Paul Patton established in early 1996 to examine the growing
methamphetamine problem. The task force recommended several strategies,
including increased criminal penalties that the legislature passed in 1998
as part of Patton's package of criminal-justice reforms.

"What's the point of me convening a dueling task force if I'm involved in
the one the governor's convened?" Chandler asked in an interview.

Chandler said in announcing his anti-crime platform on Sept. 29 that he
would fight for even tougher penalties against meth and for giving local
authorities more resources to investigate and prosecute manufacturers. He
repeated his promise to designate a "drug czar" to coordinate anti-drug
efforts.

Chandler did not say how penalties should be increased. The 1998 law on
meth makes manufacture punishable by 10 to 20 years in prison, trafficking
by five to 10 years and possession by one to five years.

Replying to Chandler's announcement, Pence said, "I think it's extremely
hypocritical for him to come out five weeks before the election with a
program of having a drug czar to fight this problem when the state was
presuming he was our drug czar and he should have done this five years ago."

When he was U.S. attorney, Pence made it easier for state prosecutors to
refer meth cases for federal prosecution.

State prosecutors who have worked with Chandler defended his work on meth
and prescription-drug abuse.

"DURING THE time I was prosecuting, I never felt that there was a
deficiency in the attorney general's office for lack of publicity on the
problem of drugs," said Tom Handy of London, who was the Republican nominee
for lieutenant governor in 1995. He was the state's second-longest-serving
commonwealth's attorney when he retired this year after more than 25 years
in the job.

Asked how much blame Chandler should get for the increase in drug problems,
Handy said, "I don't think any one individual, any public official I know
of," is to blame.

"It was a drug that had its own life," Handy said. "I didn't know then, and
I don't know now, how you control the production of it."

Prosecutors of both parties in Western Kentucky said likewise, and gave
Chandler good marks for his work, including funding through the Prosecutors
Advisory Council that gave them staff and equipment.

"He's been a real friend to prosecutors," said Commonwealth's Attorney Jay
Wethington of Owensboro. "He gave us the ammunition we needed, the tools we
needed to fight it, rather than some PR campaign. The feds do a lot of
public relations and they don't do much prosecution. That's why you're
hearing that from Pence."

Wethington is a Democrat who is supporting Chandler and his running mate,
Charlie Owen, a Louisville businessman who began his public career as a
federal prosecutor and head of the old Kentucky Crime Commission in 1967-73.

A Republican prosecutor who's supporting Fletcher and Pence in an adjoining
judicial district voiced a similar view.

"CHANDLER'S OFFICE has done everything they could to keep the prosecutors'
budget as high as possible. They've kept us from having to do cuts," said
Commonwealth's Attorney Tim Coleman of Morgantown, the chief prosecutor in
Butler, Edmonson, Hancock and Ohio counties. "They have worked hard and
he's got good people."

Commonwealth's Attorney Rick Boling of Hopkinsville said he would give
Chandler a grade of "8 out of 10" for his work against drugs, with the only
fault a lack of success in getting the legislature to steer more money to
the problem. "The success is not within his control," Boling said.

Fletcher, who served two years in the state House, argues that he would
work better with the legislature, in light of Chandler's difficulties with
both Democratic and Republican lawmakers.

Boling, who said he is "a registered Democrat" who could still be persuaded
to vote for Fletcher, said Chandler and local prosecutors have done some
public-relations work on drugs in Western Kentucky, as Pence suggested.

Chandler said he left methamphetamine investigations to state police
because such investigations require special training and equipment, and his
major-crimes staff was being reduced because of budget cuts and duties such
as enforcing the "no call" list for telemarketers.

HE SAID HE was more active in the fight against prescription drug abuse,
creating a task force in 1997 that led to the creation of a prescription
tracking system that has reduced the time and effort needed for
investigations of doctors and pharmacies.

Both Chandler and Fletcher have called for improvements in the system.
Fletcher's anti-drug plan also calls for more drug courts, to be funded
largely by federal grants, and "community coalitions to demand
accountability from local officials."

Chandler has said he would start a program, financed through cuts in state
government, to help local police departments increase their officer corps
by 5 percent.

Chandler's personnel practices, meantime, have come under fire from
Fletcher and from Chandler's own employees, some of whom display bumper
stickers reading "Anybody But Chandler for Governor."

In both of their debates on Kentucky Educational Television, Fletcher cited
court decisions that called "seemingly fraudulent" a personnel maneuver
that Chandler's office made in order to pay a new employee what she wanted
without having to give her peers a raise.

Chandler's staff did that partly by keeping out of the loop the new
employee's immediate supervisor - who wanted to hire someone else and had
never interviewed the woman.

THE OFFICE used a paperwork procedure that calls for the supervisor's
signature, but Chandler's personnel administrator used a previous form with
the signature and changed the other identifying information to make the
form appear current. The administrator testified it was common in the
office, even before Chandler became attorney general, to use copied signatures.

John Cubine, then Chandler's top aide, defended the administrator when he
testified in the case. The state Personnel Board unanimously upheld the
action, but Franklin Circuit Court and the Court of Appeals ruled to the
contrary in a lawsuit filed by some Chandler employees.

In the debate, Chandler defended the actions, saying they saved the
taxpayers money.

Some of the same lawyers in Chandler's criminal appellate division who
challenged the personnel maneuver have faulted him for not delivering on a
promise of raises to match the pay of public defenders, against whom they
practice. On average, public defenders are paid about $6,500 more a year
than lawyers in Chandler's office.

One of the lawyers, Greg Fuchs, attended a Frankfort Rotary Club meeting
last month so he could question Chandler about the dispute. Chandler said
then, and in debates with Fletcher, that he couldn't justify double-digit
raises for the employees when other state workers' raises were only 2.7
percent.