Northern Kentucky will be front and center when Gov. Andy Beshear takes his second oath of office during the state’s 62nd inauguration on Tuesday, Dec. 12.
Administering the oath will be Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Michelle M. Keller, now in her second full term as Justice for the 6th Supreme Court District, including 13 counties in and around NKY. The public swearing-in ceremony (a private one at midnight Tuesday morning will be administered by Kentucky Court of Appeals Judge Pamela R. Goodwine) will take place at the Kentucky Capitol on Tuesday at 2 p.m.
According to Keller’s staff, Tuesday will be the first time a justice from NKY has administered the gubernatorial oath for at least 45 years, possibly longer. A recent exception was in 2019 when Keller administered the private oath of office to Beshear in his first term.
“I think it’s good for Northern Kentucky,” said Keller, an NKY native. “I believe it’s good for Northern Kentucky to have a prominent presence.”
And it’s a personal honor. Keller said Beshear called her about a week after his reelection and asked if she would handle the official duty. She told LINK nky, “I gladly said yes, and I’m honored and proud to do it.”.
Behind the oath
The oath of office that Keller will deliver Tuesday is the same one administered to every elected official in Kentucky, including nearly every Kentucky governor since the state’s first – Isaac Shelby – first took the oath on June 4, 1792 in Lexington.
There have been 59 Kentucky governors in total, but only two hailing from NKY and Covington specifically (although both men were born out of state).
One of the two was Gov. John White Stevenson (1867-1871), who served in both the Kentucky House of Representatives and U.S. House before running for Lt. Governor on a Democrat ticket with Gov. John Helm. Stevenson succeeded to the office of governor after Helm’s death and then won an election to fill out Helm’s term in 1868.
The other NKY governor was the infamous Gov. William Goebel, who holds the distinction of being the only American governor to be assassinated. An attorney and Democrat like Stevenson, Goebel reportedly practiced law with the former governor and former U.S. House Speaker John G. Carlisle in Covington at times. But Goebel had a reputation for violence; for example, he shot and killed banker John Sanford in front of the First National Bank in Covington on April 11, 1895, according to the New York Times.
Goebel himself would die of a gunshot wound on Feb. 3, 1900, just three days after taking the oath of office after a brutal race with Kentucky Attorney General William Taylor.
Oath reflects rough Kentucky beginnings
Violence in politics wasn’t altogether unusual in 18th and 19th century America. Keller called that period a “time of great reform but also a time of some violence and unrest” as Kentucky grew from frontier into the 15th state in the Union.
To set the commonwealth out on the right foot, Kentucky’s constitution made its expectations of civility among its elected officials clear in the oath of office. To quote the oath:
“And I do further solemnly swear (or affirm) that since the adoption of the present Constitution I, being a citizen of this State, have not fought a duel with deadly weapons within this State nor out of it, nor have I sent or accepted a challenge to fight a duel with deadly weapons, nor have I acted second in carrying a challenge, nor aided or assisted any person thus offending, so help me God.” (Section 228 of the Constitution of Kentucky, 1891)
According to Keller, “I think what’s so beautiful about our oath is it has remained unchanged for all these years and at the time that it was drafted, it represented our commonwealth going from what was a pretty rough frontier to what they hoped would become a fully-functioning state in the Union. They wanted to put the days behind them when people would settle their disputes with violence.”
Even more important, she said, are the initial lines of the oath that require an elected official to:
“solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be) that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of this Commonwealth, and be faithful and true to the Commonwealth of Kentucky so long as I continue a citizen thereof, and that I will faithfully execute, to the best of my ability, the office of Secretary of State according to law;”
Says Keller, those words are “the paramount idea” behind the oath.
A full schedule of tomorrow’s inaugural events published by our partner paper, the Kentucky Lantern, can be found here.