Kentucky legislature pauses for veto period: 5 takeaways from a busy legislative session

FRANKFORT — Though the level of controversy in the Kentucky General Assembly never reached the height of last year, when people were arrested during protests over an anti-trans bill, GOP lawmakers managed to pass a number of high-profile bills that drew fiery critiques from Democrats and sometimes their own party members.

The session also featured some last-minute surprises, as bills in line with national trends in GOP-controlled states — like an anti-DEI bill — failed to get the needed support to pass.

Here are five takeaways as this year's legislative session draws to a close:

'War on Louisville' rages on

Tensions between state lawmakers and Louisville remained high this session, despite attempts by Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg to improve the city’s relationship with visits to Frankfort early in the session.

A bill that would reshape Louisville’s government by making mayoral elections nonpartisan and barring the city from changing its land use code for the next year got legislative approval, despite criticism from Greenberg. He said the provision will block the city’s affordable housing initiative, a cornerstone of his policy agenda.

Earlier in the session, lawmakers passed House Bill 18, which bans source-of-income discrimination bans such as the one Louisville’s Metro Council adopted in 2020. Democrats decried the measure as an assault on local control while Republicans said it was aimed at protecting property rights and preventing landlords from being forced into accepting federal Section 8 housing vouchers.

Jefferson County Public Schools also proved a lightning rod in Frankfort.

A group of Louisville-area Republican lawmakers filed a resolution to look at the question of whether JCPS should be split up into smaller units. That’s drawn criticism from Democratic lawmakers, who say that the study has a foregone conclusion — that the district should be split up — and it unfairly targets a district that needs more funding to thrive.

Abortion politics too divisive to touch

Abortion prompted many dramatic moments this session but no concrete legislative action. The divisive issue also appears to have stymied the progress of a few seemingly unrelated bills.

Take, for example, the "Momnibus" bill: A group of bipartisan lawmakers put aside differences on abortion to craft a wide-ranging proposal to improve maternal health in the state. That bill gained unanimous support in the House but hit a roadblock in the Senate when it picked up a controversial provision that would have required medical facilities to provide mothers with nonviable fetuses with palliative care services.

An earlier bill with the same proposal had prompted Democratic lawmakers to walk out of a committee hearing in protest. They said the proposal doubled down on the state’s abortion ban and that mothers carrying nonviable fetuses should have the right to an abortion.

Abortion-rights activists also failed to gain any traction in efforts to mitigate the state’s restrictive abortion law.

A bill that would have added exceptions to the abortion ban in the case of rape, incest or “lethal fetal anomalies” to Kentucky’s abortion law and a measure that would have shielded from prosecution Kentucky women who travel out of state for abortions both went nowhere.

Lawmakers introduced three bills aimed at protecting in vitro fertilization after a court found that the fertility procedure ran afoul of Alabama’s abortion ban. Two were sponsored by Democrats and a third was sponsored by abortion opponent Sen. Whitney Westerfield, R-Fruit Hill. Those measures also failed to get any traction.

School choice is back

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

That’s the strategy Republicans used this session when it comes to school choice. This year, the GOP put forward House Bill 2, also known as the “school choice” bill, to ask Kentucky voters if they want to change the constitution to allow the legislature to fund non-public schools, like private and charter schools.

The amendment passed the House and Senate after hours of tense debate and will appear on the November ballot.  The constitutional amendment is only the first step — and third attempt — to create a pathway for funding nonpublic schools. Republicans have tried to expand school choice for years, but have been stonewalled with court decisions.

In 2021, the legislature passed a bill creating a program that would have provided dollar-for-dollar tax credits for those donating nonpublic money for non school tuition. Later that year, though, Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd ruled the program was unconstitutional and blocked the law from going into effect.

Republicans then tried again in 2022 and passed a bill that would have created funding for charter schools. But the Supreme Court struck down the GOP’s efforts and ruled that public tax dollars must be spent only on common, interpreted as public, schools and cannot be diverted to private or charter schools.

The constitutional amendment needs to gain at least 60% of approval from Kentucky voters. If approved, it would open the door for Republicans to introduce a school choice program in the 2025 session.

No gun laws, but stiffer penalties

There was little appetite in this year’s legislative session for gun-related bills.

Although gun legislation used to dominate the legislative scene, the Kentucky Republicans shifted priorities to measures such as changing state criminal law — most notably the Safer Kentucky Act. Also known as HB 5, the bill was one of the highest-profile and most controversial pieces of legislation.

Sponsored by Rep. Jared Bauman, R-Louisville, the 78-page measure creates a “three-strikes” rule for Kentucky and a new crime of “unlawful camping” for sleeping on streets, sidewalks, under bridges and in parks and cemeteries. There are other measures unrelated to harsher penalties in the bill, including allowing shop owners and employees to use a "reasonable amount of force" to prevent someone from escaping in cases of suspected shoplifting.

Like past gun legislation, the bill had little bipartisan support. Supporters of the bill, though, say it will help increase safety. Democrats criticized the bill for criminalizing homelessness and say that measures like tighter gun control laws.

The party filed legislation for stricter gun control, but the bills made little movement in the legislature. Examples of bills include requiring background checks for the private sale of firearms and allowing local governments to regulate firearms.

Although individual gun bills made movement, a gun-related provision made it in HB 5. There is a provision in the Safer Kentucky Act that would allow a gun used in a homicide to be destroyed. But the gun could be destroyed only after it is auctioned off, and only if the purchaser wants that.

Republicans couldn't agree on an anti-DEI bill

Kentucky Republicans had two anti-DEI bills in the House and Senate that would have curbed diversity, equity and inclusion programs at higher education institutions.

Senate Bill 6 was the one that made the most movement, but it didn’t make it to the finish line before the beginning of the veto period.

Sen. Mike Wilson, the sponsor of SB 6, filed an original bill that would have prohibited Kentucky colleges and universities from requiring students and faculty to "describe the attitude or actions in support of or in opposition to specific ideologies or beliefs" to receive admission, employment, promotions or graduation. It also would require First Amendment training at student orientation.

A House committee substitute, though, transformed the bill into a condensed version of House Bill 9, which comes down harder on DEI policies.

The House’s version, with Rep. Jennifer Decker, R-Waddy, as the driving force, bans race-based scholarships and defunds DEI offices and officer positions. It also prohibits the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary education from approving degrees that require courses containing "discriminatory concepts."

The Senate never voted to concur with this version, signaling disagreement with the bill between the two chambers.

Senate President Robert Stivers said that SB 6 was “contentious within our caucus.”

Reach reporter Hannah Pinski at @hpinski@courier-journal.com or follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @hannahpinski. Reach Rebecca Grapevine at rgrapevine@courier-journal.com or follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @RebGrapevine.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky legislature pauses for veto period. 5 takeaways from session