Steve Henry (politician)

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Steve Henry (1953 - ) was a Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky from 1995 through 2003.

Henry was born in Daviess County, Kentucky. He went to Western Kentucky University and then became a surgeon in Louisville, Kentucky. While in Louisville he was elected to the Jefferson County, Kentucky Fiscal Court (now abolished) as A District Commissioner as a Democrat.

In 1995 Paul E. Patton, then Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky, selected Henry as his running mate for Patton's campaign for governor. Due to a 1992 amendment to the Kentucky Constitution, 1995 was the first year in which candidates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor ran together as a slate in Kentucky. Patton and Henry won the election with 500,605 votes (50.9%) to 479,227 (48.7%) for the Republican nominees, Larry Forgy and Tom Handy. During the 1995 campaign, due to complaints that Henry ran up charges for telephone calls related to his campaign that were made out of his county office, Henry repaid the county for those calls.

In 1998 Henry ran for the United States Senate seat being vacated by Wendell H. Ford. Henry finished third in the Democratic primary with 156,576 votes (27.6%) to 166,472 votes (29.3%) for former federal prosecutor Charlie Owen and 194,125 votes (34.2%) for eventual nominee Congressman Scotty Baesler. Baesler narrowly lost the general election to Republican Jim Bunning.

In 1999 there was considerable speculation that Patton would drop Henry from the ticket, but the two ran again and won re-election with 352,099 votes, 60.6% of the total in a very low turnout, defeating the Republican ticket of Peppy Martin and Wanda Cornelius.

In 2002 Henry advocated legislation that would mandate healthier lunch options for Kentucky schoolchildren and limit junk food in public schools.

In 2002 and 2003 it emerged that the United States Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky was investigating Henry for fraudulent Medicare and Medicaid billings while he taught at the University of Louisville Medical School from 1996 through 2001. Then United States Attorney Steve Pence had previously stated that he would not seek an indictment in regards to a criminal case, but the federal government pursued a civil case to attempt repayment. Henry countersued claiming that University of Louisville employees had verified his prescence at the procedures before he had signed the papers. In 2003 Henry settled the federal lawsuit by paying the federal government $162,000.^[1]^[2]

Henry served as Lieutenant Governor until late 2003, when Steve Pence was elected on the Republican ticket and succeeded Henry.

In a 2006 editorial by the Courier Journal, the newpaper questioned Henry's past record of billing errors. In 2000 and 2001 Henry repaid the state for numerous improper charges. He blamed a Kentucky State Police trooper for his hotel stay during a beauty pageant in Atlantic City, New Jersey being charged to a state credit card. Henry was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 2000; Henry ended up repaying $4,327 to the state for personal expenses of his that were charged to the state for he and his wife. Later, he repaid the state $491 for personal telephone calles he made from his state office. Henry also repaid the state $1,804 for almost 1,000 photos and video tapes made of him over a nine month period, including his wedding, that were made by state employees. He also repaid the state $1,800 for press packets for his wedding that were made by state employees at taxpayer expense. Henry also charged a four night stay during two beauty pageants in a Lexington, Kentucky hotel - just 30 miles from the lieutenant governor's mansion - to the state. Also mentioned was the 2006 Medicaid and Medicare billing controversy that Henry had settled when Henry claimed that a woman who embezzled from an office at the University of Louisville was the cause of his billing problems. Both the prosecution and the embezzler explained otherwise and the evidence in that case demonstrated that the woman's actions had nothing to do with Henry's false billings.^[3]

Henry has stated that he wants to be a candidate for Governor of Kentucky in 2007 and he has been working to line up support for the Democratic nomination.

Henry is married to 2000 Miss America Heather French Henry.

[edit] References

Preceded by Paul E. Patton	Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky 1995–2003	Succeeded by Steve Pence
Preceded by Paul E. Patton	Democratic nominee for Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky 1995–2003	Succeeded by Charlie Owen