TURF BATTLE

Stumbo Diverging From State Anti-drug Team

Attorney General Greg Stumbo certainly has a right to restructure the
various agencies in his office.

Within limits, he also has a right to plug whatever names he chooses into
the slots of his new organizational chart.

What Stumbo ought not do, though, is to start an unnecessary turf battle in
this state's war on illegal drugs.

Unfortunately, that appears to be what Stumbo is doing by reorganizing
several divisions of the attorney general's office into something he calls
the Kentucky Bureau of Investigation and by making drugs the main focus of
the new agency.

Make no mistake about it. Kentucky has a drug habit, a very bad drug habit.
We're hooked on painkillers, methamphetamines and cocaine, just to mention
a few.

And the attorney general's office has a role to play in helping the state
kick that habit. But it's a role as a team player, not a grandstander.
Therein lies the problem with the KBI.

Earlier this year, a drug summit was convened in Kentucky. Its final
product was a plan that includes expanded drug courts, more treatment
programs and coordinated enforcement.

As a player in that coordinated enforcement, Stumbo could implement some of
the better ideas in his KBI agenda, such as pursuing distributors of large
quantities of chemicals used in meth labs.

Obviously, Stumbo isn't interested in being a team player, particularly in
an effort led by Lt. Gov. Steve Pence, who may one day be Stumbo's rival
for the governor's office.

So, Stumbo chose to reject coordination and go it alone by creating the
KBI, an agency that not only will duplicate other drug-fighting efforts but
also could confuse the public about the investigative function of the
Kentucky State Police.

And while Stumbo wastes time and manpower grandstanding on the drug issue,
we suspect short shrift will be given to the very real but less sexy duties
of the attorney general's office in such areas as consumer protection,
child support enforcement and environmental law.