News and Music Discovery
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Kentucky Politics Distilled: Republicans’ First Budget

Henryk Sadura
/
123rf Stock Photo

This week in Kentucky politics, lawmakers retreated behind closed doors to begin hammering out a compromise on the state budget for the next two years; a bill that would shield personal cell phones and computers from records requests drew fire from open government advocates; and a common type of abortion would be banned under a bill that is nearing final passage out of the legislature.

The only thing lawmakers are required by law to do during this year’s legislative session is to pass a balanced budget detailing how the state will spend money over the next two years. 

And for the first time in state history, Republicans will be driving the budget bus—they’ve never had control of both chambers of the legislature at the same time during a budget year. Plus, Republican Gov. Matt Bevin will have to sign off on whatever they pass. 

Here’s Republican Senate Floor Leader Damon Thayer. “I hope it means that we get more conservative spending plan that recognizes our needs and not necessarily our wants in this current environment that we find ourselves in today.” 

But that doesn’t mean that all Republicans agree on what the budget should look like. 

There are major differences between the state Senate and House version of the budget. 

The House voted to raise about $500 million by increasing taxes on cigarettes and creating a new tax on opioid pain pills.

That helped them scale back on some of the cuts Gov. Matt Bevin had proposed making to higher education and K-12 transportation funds. 

But the Senate has been opposed to raising taxes at all. They kept Bevin’s six and a quarter percent cuts to higher education and most of state government. 

During the initial budget negotiations, House Budget Chair Steve Rudy said that before moving forward, lawmakers would need to come to an agreement on the revenue measure, called House Bill 366 

“We’ll need to figure out today in a pretty quick time if we’re going to be able to do anything with 366, which will predicate a lot of these discussions.” 

The House and Senate also fund the state’s ailing pension systems differently. The Senate would send about $1 billion less to the teacher pension systems, saying it should be put toward even-worse funded retirement systems for state employees and state police. 

That’s raised concerns for some that the teacher pension fund would have a cash-flow problem under the senate’s version of the budget. 

Senate President Robert Stivers downplayed the disparity. “I don’t think it’s in any way a slight towards one group or another, it’s just a different methodology of stabilizing a very weak pension system that is weak overall.” 

Lawmakers only have four more work days scheduled in this year’s legislative session, and, as usual, there’s a whole lot of activity right before the deadline. 

One proposal that popped up out of nowhere was a measure to shield government officials’ private cellphones and computers from open records requests. 

The language was attached to an unrelated bill that had already advanced through much of the legislature. 

Reporters asked questions about the bill after it was posted for a vote in the state Senate. But later in the day, Republican leaders shelved it. 

Senate Floor Leader Thayer said he had been “ambushed” by reporters. “I will protect if it’s the last thing I do here the right for private citizens to be able to communicate on this phone. Without being subject to open records requests.” 

A bill that would ban a common abortion procedure after the 11th week of pregnancy is on the verge of becoming law after a couple quick votes in the state Senate on Thursday. 

Similar measures have been challenged in other states. Critics of the Kentucky bill said it would cost the state millions to defend it. 

Senate Judiciary Chair Whitney Westerfield said the cost would be worth it. “If the whole argument for not passing legislation like this on any level is that the constitution already prohibits it, you want to name or go through a list of all the watershed moments there’ve been and the change in law over the history of this country that wouldn’t have happened if that was the philosophy we used?” 

Lawmakers have two more working days before Gov. Matt Bevin’s two-week “veto period.” After that point, they’ll have two more days to override any of Bevin’s vetoes or pass any more bills.

The hard deadline of the session is Friday, April 13th. 

Ryland Barton is the Managing Editor for Collaboratives for Kentucky Public Radio, a group of public radio stations including WKMS, WFPL in Louisville, WEKU in Richmond and WKYU in Bowling Green. A native of Lexington, Ryland most recently served as the Capitol Reporter for Kentucky Public Radio. He has covered politics and state government for NPR member stations KWBU in Waco and KUT in Austin.
Related Content