FRANKFORT — The Kentucky Senate passed a controversial bill Thursday to strip the governor of the authority to appoint a transportation secretary. Instead, the bill hands that power to a 10-member board.

It passed — after a heated debate — along party lines, 25-8, with Democrats voting "no."

Supporters of Senate Bill 4, whose sponsors include Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, said it will make transportation decisions, such as building or improving roads, less political and more transparent.

"We owe it to the people of Kentucky, whose lives and livelihoods depend on this infrastructure," said Sen. Jimmy Higdon, R-Lebanon, who introduced the bill on the Senate floor.

But Sen. Morgan McGarvey, the Democratic minority leader, said that's just a cover story by Senate Republicans.

"This is a power grab by the legislature," McGarvey said. "I think we should give this governor and his transportation secretary a chance."

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Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, appointed former Lexington Mayor Jim Gray as his transportation secretary in December.

Beshear's office criticized SB 4 Thursday in a statement from spokeswoman Crystal Staley.

“Gov. Beshear has been working to create a new tone in Frankfort where people stop attacking each other and instead find common ground," it said. "Senate Bill 4 is a return to the conflicts of the past, and a clear attempt to remove authority from a new governor. The bill will lessen accountability, essentially having a $1 billion operation managed by a committee. Moreover, that committee would be made up of persons who have direct financial interests in how the money is spent."

Road decisions have long been a source of political favor in Kentucky, and recent criticism has focused on former Gov. Matt Bevin, the Republican whom Beshear defeated. Stivers recently accused Bevin of "hoarding" road funds to dole out near the end of his term as he ran for reelection.

Stivers specifically alleged Bevin hoarded his discretionary funds in 2017 and 2018, then blew through those funds in his final months in office with press conferences where he handed out checks ranging from $500,000 to $800,000 to local officials to add blacktop to local roads.

But he said after Thursday's vote that it has long been a problem.

"There's been plenty of instances where other governors have misused this," Stivers said.

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SB 4, which now goes to the House, would create a new Kentucky Transportation Board. Its nine voting members would nominate three candidates for secretary, and the governor would choose from the three.

The Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, Kentucky League of Cities and Kentucky Association of Counties would have a say in who served on this new board, providing a list of nominees from which the governor would choose.

The secretary would serve at the pleasure of the board.

Stivers, arguing for SB 4, said it would reduce the role of politics in making highway decisions that have been used in the past as rewards or punishment for local officials.

"Politicism and weaponization can be taken away," he said,

But McGarvey argued it simply transfers the political power to groups that nominate members to the board, including the Chamber of Commerce.

"This bill doesn't eliminate the contest in which decisions are made," he said. "It just transfers and complicates the inevitable politics that will occur."

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Reach Deborah Yetter at dyetter@courier-journal.com or 502-582-4228. Find her on Twitter at @d_yetter. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/subscribe.