FRANKFORT — In Steve Beshear’s first weeks as governor, his staff openly talked of forcing the legislature to make “some hard choices.”

They talked of the structural imbalance in the state budget, created by lawmakers’ (and previous governors’) reluctance to pay for all the services and rising personnel costs of government while bonding popular projects. Their attitude toward lawmakers was dismissive. Two years later, the structural imbalance is bigger; the governor has failed to deliver on expanded gambling and a deep recession has reduced state revenues drastically. His attitude toward legislators has gone from dismissive to disgust – and lawmakers feel much the same about him.

They say Beshear makes no attempt to work with them, not even bothering to round up votes for his gambling-dependent budget proposal. Now Beshear has gone out of his way to take a shot at lawmakers with sarcastic comments about lawmakers’ investigation into causes of a prison riot last August at the Northpoint Training Center. Despite denials by the administration that poor food quality was a primary cause of the disturbance, the Department of Corrections’ report indicates it played a role. The report wasn’t given to lawmakers until they threatened a subpoena.

On Thursday, Beshear said lawmakers should focus on “our real problems” rather than catering to criminals “who wish they could go to Wendy’s.” That doesn’t sound like a governor trying to mend fences. Predictably, lawmakers aren’t pleased, especially Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, whom Beshear helped to supplant former Speaker Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green, but who some Democrats now see as an alternative to Beshear.

Even now some of his staff deride lawmakers for their reaction to Beshear’s budget and his gambling proposal. They say lawmakers will have to take the blame for any pain caused by budget cuts. But lawmakers, especially Stumbo and Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, might outmaneuver Beshear once again. They talk of forcing executive branch agencies to manage on less money – and leaving the hard choices to the agencies on how to make it through the end of the biennium (translation: hard choices = layoffs). Stumbo said the legislature might appropriate limited funding and tell those agencies if they can’t manage on that amount, “Then it’s up to you whether you lay people off or not.”

This is how it might work: lawmakers front-load the first year of the budget; tell agencies and Beshear they have a year to prepare and then push most of the cuts into the second year when there will be no federal stimulus money. Legislators would by then be past their election year but it’s the year Beshear will be on the ballot for re-election. They might even try to restrain the executive branch from laying off frontline workers, forcing any layoffs to come from non-merit and management levels in Frankfort.

Such a strategy would also allow the legislature to take a second look at the budget next January when tax reform – or gambling – might be more palatable after the November elections. They might do a bit of both downsizing government and increasing revenues.

Should they pull it off, they not only will have increased their power relative to Beshear but they will have shifted more institutional power from the governor’s office to the third floor. It might also shift blame for those hard choices to the governor. Lawmakers, treated with such disdain by Beshear, may think that’s not such a hard choice.

RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com. Follow CNHI News Service stories on Twitter at www.twitter.com/cnhifrankfort.