There will be a constitutional amendment on the pardon powers of the governor being offered for Kentuckians to vote on this November. I have been getting a lot of questions about the amendment, so let me explain why a person would vote for the amendment and why a person might vote against the amendment. Why would you vote Yes on Amendment 1: Of course, any change to the Constitution is trying to solve a perceived problem. In this case, it's controversial pardons that are issued in the lame-duck governor period. This is when the elections are over and the governor only has a few weeks in office because they lost or are termed out. During this time, a governor could issue pardons without personally paying a political cost for doing so, while their party could have almost a year before the next election to distance themselves from the pardons. It's also a period when critics worry that pardons might be influenced by political connections and corruption. This is a bipartisan concern. The idea of this amendment was brought on by Bevin and, more recently, of course, Biden at the national level. They both issued controversial pardons after the elections. Pardons being bought and sold, or governors not being worried about the political consequences, is the reason to vote "Yes" on Amendment 1. Why would you vote No on Amendment 1: When the state Constitution was drafted, it is not as if they were unaware that a governor on their way out could issue some pardons that would be of concern. The state drafters, just as our Founding Fathers did when creating the federal system, knew there would be a period between an election and the transfer of power. They nevertheless chose to give the executive pardon power during that period. Clearly, the state drafters felt that perhaps having a time to issue pardons with lower electoral stakes was of some use and had merit. Sometimes, the cases where a pardon might be most deserving might require a period of lower stakes. Voters could still make a person or party pay even if the next election would come a year later. After all, part of the reason that Establishment leaders want this to pass is because they have felt like they were paying some price for Bevin's pardons. Somewhat funny, considering it was Establishment members that brought many of the controversial cases asking for a pardon to Bevin. It's not as if he was searching through prison records himself searching for these people. Some introspection on the part of Establishment Republicans might go a long way here. A belief that many times after-election pardons are some of the most needed and that there can still be some electoral consequences for bad pardons is why you vote "No" on Amendment 1. Ultimately, it will be up to Kentuckians to decide, but I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't pass. It hasn't really been sold or explained to the public, and people naturally will vote no on changing the Constitution if they don't understand what the amendment does.