We are done with the long days of midnight sessions now, but bill pass like a whirlwind all in bunches, so my recollection of exactly what all happened is a whirlwind. Overall, lots of new and interesting bills came up for consideration.
SB 2 created a “guardian” program to expand the school personnel that could be trained and available to carry a weapon in defense of students. My contribution to the package was removing the reference to federal mental health administration guidelines which oppose current Kentucky law addressing gender identity issues.
We passed a handful of tax recall and petition reform bills this year to make it easier for taxpayers to get to the ballot with their issue. As an example, SB 58 would reduce some of the arduous requirements around how to collect signatures, so that it is more possible to do so in the current era.
HB 357 prevents credit card companies from tagging firearms purchases, so that people’s rights to purchase a gun are not hamstrung by the private market more than the government can directly inhibit someone from exercising their 2nd amendment right.
A really interesting bill to me was HB 386, to eliminate the annual cap on pseudoephedrine purchases. Back in 2012, my adopted senator asked me to research and speak up on the issue when they wanted to install the cap, and I ultimately opposed it and spoke against it in the committee hearing as he had hoped. He happens to be retiring this year, and finally got to see this bad law undone that we shouldn’t have made in the first place.
Another bill we did this year was SB 5 to undo a bad law created last year requiring people to have licenses to fish on their own private property if they own less than 5 acres.
A brand new bill that we passed this year is HB 53 implementing a sample hand count of ballots in all 120 counties after every election. This bill was a subsection and tweak from my biggest election bill over the past three years. Several counties nationwide are moving to a machine-free model like Europe, which is definitely the wave of the future. I ultimately voted no on the bill because it includes single-person control over access to the ballots instead of the historically bipartisan board, and does not specify that the “random selection” will be after ballots are cast, but in any event it is a step toward what we should have been doing the whole time.
SB 140 was a smart idea to help people affected by unemployment claims during covid. I have had many constituents get letters saying they were overpaid, yet they were following the guidance we all remember that was oral and changing daily. In previous years, I had gotten the deadline for appeals on unemployment to allow 30 days instead of 15. This bill ends up removing the deadline entirely for any of these covid overpayments so that people can get these cases resolved without missing deadlines.
SB 167 will require schools to teach cursive again. This is one of those bills that is either just getting fresh enthusiasm, or shame on us for not having thought of it before half a generation cannot read cursive and kids who are now adults are hamstrung for life.
SB 188 is another groundbreaking bill which attempts to equalize the big box stores with local pharmacies through more fair practices including insurance reimbursement that cannot be in the negative compared to the actual cost of the drug with the equivalent Medicaid-level dispensing fee.
Another bill in our eclectic collection this year was HB 278, addressing several child exploitation crimes including a new age verification requirement for porn websites. We were informed other states have seen porn sites leave due to their inability to service only over 18, which is incredible.
As you can see, we just do a little of everything in any given session, in addition to the large headline items you may have already heard about. Once the governor completes his vetoes by the end of April, we will know exactly how many different topics are becoming new law this year. Stay in touch with any questions meanwhile!
