FRANKFORT — Yes, hi, hello! Greetings from the always majestic state Capitol Annex, where I have so boldly graced everyone with my presence for *two* days in a row now.
If you’re interested in how things are going, a source walked past me and said, I thought, that it’ll be a “light night.” Upon seeking clarification, I regret to share that I misheard and it will actually be a “late night — a very late night.”
Everything is *supposed* to be wrapped up by 11:59 p.m., but now there’s a growing rumor that since lawmakers never made up their snow day and therefore have an extra legislative day to play with, they could simply … keep going into the early morning hours.
The cafeteria closed at 2 p.m., the snack stand apparently no longer exists, the vending machines are perpetually not operational. I am running on the fumes of a Venti Vanilla Sweet Cream Cold Brew. (I also left all of my chargers at home.)
Here’s a recap of the general vibes as we head into crunch time in Frankfort. Please know things are, like, still happening.
We have some idea of what’s happening to JCPS
JCPS, as per usual, has been a target of Frankfort this year, and we now know the final form of Senate Bill 1 — aka the bill that sought to shift much of the power from the elected school board to the JCPS superintendent.
The House passed an altered form of SB 1 this afternoon, and the Senate signed off on their changes shortly after.
Under the new version of SB 1, the JCPS board would no longer be limited in how often they can meet. The superintendent would still get more financial decision-making power, but it would be capped and he would be required to brief the board on purchases at the next school board meeting.
It is unclear how Beshear feels about the bill, though. Between the impact on public education and the fact this is a retry of something the state Supreme Court struck down recently, I could see a veto in the future.
We still don’t know what is going on with Senate Bill 4 — the one that would create new JCPS board seat boundaries, add finance experts appointed by the state treasurer to the JCPS and Fayette County boards, and block active educators from serving on boards.
I know they’ve been working behind-the-scenes to get new, more accurate, potentially more diverse boundaries, but we have yet to see anything.
A budget!
Both the House and Senate have signed off* on the budget bills, but since they’re not online yet, I don’t really know exactly what they do.
*Actually, the House is *about* to sign off, but House A&R Chair Rep. Jason Petrie is actively yelling about how great of a budget it allegedly is after Dem Rep. Chad Aull said something obviously triggering.
The one thing I know, though, is that the funding for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is safe. I repeat: Dolly has been spared!
They even added language to expand the reach of the program, trying to bring in more low-income and foster care kids.
We haven’t, however, seen a copy of the $800 million one-time spending package. That one was the bill that never had specific allocations listed, so we truly have no clue what they’re doing with it.
Grooming, misconduct dealt with
After years of trying and failing to address teacher misconduct, lawmakers passed at least two bills dealing with the topic this week.
House Bill 4 would make grooming a crime, and House Bill 253 would prohibit NDAs to cover up sexual abuse of minors, along with closing a few loopholes that allow teachers accused of misconduct to skip town and start working in a new district.
The Senate also just passed a new version of House Bill 67, which did a lot around fixing last year’s Senate Bill 181, that came out of a conference committee, but they did not say what they did. Cool.
I (generally) have no idea what’s going on
And I don’t think most folks here know, either.
Tracking the final votes between the House and Senate, whether or not each one is agreeing with the other or receding or not, whether things have been formally sent to Gov. Andy Beshear or not is dizzying.
We’ll see if this is ultimately true, but it feels like there’s been more use of the conference committee set-up — so a lot of bills are being discussed behind closed doors. And you’re not seeing what they come up with and have everyone vote on because it isn’t online yet. And they’re not great about explaining in detail what they’re doing.
And then you have the standard end-of-session flood of committee subs and floor amendments, none of which are also online before the vote or even for hours after the fact.
And with the Capitol being closed and lawmakers being in one building and pretty much everyone else being in another, it is nearly impossible to grab a lawmaker or staff to get a physical copy of a new version of a bill.
(I can technically go into the temporary chambers because I’m a credentialed reporter. But I missed the group tour of the chambers last summer and never learned how to get into the chambers, and then where to sit once I’m inside, and now I’m too scared to figure it out now.)
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Follow Olivia Krauth at The Gallery Pass.
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