With the stunning failure Tuesday night of Gov. Matt Bevin’s special session, the Louisville Republican cemented his place in the history books as the most inept, most arrogant and one of the weakest governors in Kentucky’s history.

It was his ineptness that caused him to pick fights with the General Assembly that didn’t need to be fought.

It was his hubris that caused him to call the legislature into session without its consent.

And it was his weakness that allowed the General Assembly — of which his Republicans hold supermajorities in both houses — to walk out on him after being in session less than 24 hours.

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There hasn’t been a weaker governor since the Democratic legislature stripped powers from Republican Gov. "Flim-Flam" Flem Sampson in the 1920s and gave them to a three-member commission composed of Sampson and the Democratic lieutenant governor and attorney general.

Bevin still has considerable power that comes with being governor — especially in a power vacuum created when the legislature goes home — but compared to other governors, he's now the 97-pound weakling in an old Charles Atlas ad.

He’s weaker now than former Democratic Gov. Paul Patton was following the revelation in 2002 of an affair with a Western Kentucky nursing home operator that almost toppled him during his second term.

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Weaker even than former Democratic Gov. Brereton Jones was after he appeared on KET during the 1994 legislative session to denounce Democratic leadership when his budget and health care proposal appeared dead.

This really didn’t have to happen like this, either.

Bevin brought the legislators back to Frankfort to pass a pension bill just four days after the Kentucky Supreme Court struck down the pension reform legislation that passed the legislature earlier this year.

He should never have called this session.

Leaders in the House and Senate both warned against it and told him their members didn’t want to come to Frankfort on such short notice with no real plan in place.

Bevin called them in anyway, forcing many of them to hug their kids, kiss their spouses and immediately hit the road for Frankfort. The power-drunk dictator gave them just four hours to get there.

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But when they got there, there was no plan. Or an agreement to pass anything.

The governor admitted on Tuesday night that he hadn’t even read the pension bills he wanted the legislature to pass when he called them back to Frankfort a day earlier.

Did someone mention hubris and arrogance? Wow.

He should have learned from the experience of former Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher, who was weakened by scandal back in 2007 when he tried to call the legislature into session to deal with 67 items just months before he was up for re-election.

The Democratic House, which had said the session was merely a stunt to boost his sagging poll numbers, told him not to call the session. And when he did it anyway, the Democrats gaveled in and gaveled out the same day.

Bevin’s ill-fated session lasted longer. But not by much.

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The difference was this: When Fletcher’s session failed, it was the other party that did him in. For Bevin, it was a Republican-powered bipartisan coalition that stuck in the shiv.

One must suspect that Bevin is now reconsidering the harsh words he had for former House Speaker Jeff Hoover just over a year ago when he called on Hoover to resign after the Courier Journal reported he had paid hush money to a woman who had accused him of sexual harassment.

It was Hoover, a Russell County Republican, who banded with Democrats to call for an end of the session before it even got going, and who led his group of GOP renegades to inflict a deep wound in Bevin.

This spectacular failure, which cost taxpayers an estimated $130,000, now opens the door wider for a primary challenge to Bevin next year — perhaps from U.S. Rep. Jamie Comer, Hoover’s buddy who lost to Bevin by just 83 votes in the 2015 primary after a former girlfriend accused Comer of striking her and taking her to a clinic for an abortion.

Bevin will likely now blame Democrats and the Hoover Republicans if the state’s bond rating is lowered in January in large part because of the failure to fix the ailing pension system.

The state's festering budget crisis was built over decades by politicians of both parties, and is by no means solely Bevin's fault.

But the feckless and arrogant decision to call legislators into session without their consent — just one week before the Yuletide? That's all Bevin's.

Merry Christmas.

Read this:Why call a special session? Bond ratings — or a 'temper tantrum'

Joseph Gerth's opinion column runs on most Sundays and at various times throughout the week. He can be reached at 502-582-4702 or by email at jgerth@courierjournal.com. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal/josephg.