FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) – An attorney for Gov. Matt Bevin has asked a judge to consider disqualifying himself from hearing a lawsuit over Kentucky’s new public pension law.
The Lexington Herald-Leader reports Bevin attorney Steve Pitt wrote to Franklin County Circuit Judge Phillip J. Shepherd that the outcome of the case may affect the judge’s financial interest because of his membership in the state judicial retirement plan.
But the Courier Journal said Shepherd issued an order late Thursday saying there are no judicial pensions at issue in the case and denying the request.
Pitt argued that unlike Shepherd, judges who took office after Jan. 1, 2014, don’t have the same pension and aren’t affected by the lawsuit’s outcome.
Bevin recently called Shepherd "an incompetent hack" after Shepherd denied Bevin’s request to take depositions of representatives of the plaintiffs.
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