Bevin misuses police in pension flap

A good editorial from the Herald-Leader:

Talk about overplaying your hand. Gov. Matt Bevin’s office last week deployed the Kentucky State Police to threaten with arrest the state pension board chairman whom Bevin is trying to oust.

...(Louisville banker Thomas) Elliott told reporters that he was taken into a room by Bevin’s chief of staff Blake Brickman and Personnel Secretary Thomas Stephens and told that troopers were standing by to arrest him if he defied Bevin’s April 20 executive order removing him from the board.

...The dispute over whether the governor has the legal authority to oust Elliott before his term expires arises from conflicting interpretations of state law. Every day courts around Kentucky hear such disputes in civil, not criminal, proceedings. That’s the way this conflict should be resolved, not by misusing the KSP in a tactic worthy of a tin-pot dictator.