Every legislative session, a wide variety of bills get filed. Some never even get assigned to a committee, or get assigned then never get heard. If a bill actually gets called up by a committee chair, there is a good chance it is going to get passed on by the committee for votes in the chamber. And, if it passes one chamber (“crosses over”), it has a good shot at becoming law.
In this article, we’ll look at five bad bills that are, nevertheless, on the move. The bill number links to the bill on the LRC site. The Sponsors field list how many sponsors the bill has, and whether they are all Republican or Bipartisan.
Do you agree or disagree with our assessments? Let us know in the comments.
HB 312 – Allow 18-year-olds to conceal carry
| Status: Crossed Over | Sponsors: 28 (Rep) | Primary Sponsor: Savannah Maddox |
Of all the misguided and stupid bills ever filed in our always-amazing General Assembly, this one has to be near or at the top of the list. Allowing teenagers to conceal carry a gun? After the school shootings we’ve witnessed? I mean, what could go wrong – teens are always level-headed and never let their emotions get the best of them, right?
And unlike some of the other Bad Bills this session, this one is actually dangerous. There will, no doubt, be a shooting incident at a high school, or at a sports event, or at some sort of gathering of teens, and someone will get wounded or killed. And the sponsors of this bill will drone the old mantra of “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” – ignoring the fact, of course, that they made it possible for this particular teen-aged people to actually have a gun in the first place.
If this bill passes and becomes law, I hope the parents of the first teenager to be killed by another teenager with a gun made legal by this bill will sue the pants off everyone involved, starting with Savannah Maddox.
Good grief.
HB 103 – Make water flouridation optional
| Status: Crossed Over | Sponsors: 35 (Rep) | Primary Sponsor: Mark Hart |
The jokes really write themselves, don’t they? It’s bad enough that most of the rest of the country thinks “stupid hillbillies” when they hear the word “Kentucky.” Now we’re going to make it easier for them to add “toothless” to that moniker.
The sponsor says this is all about “local control.” So if a local government chose to put carcinogens into the drinking water, would that fall under “local control”? How about making food inspection optional? Or requiring a license to practice medicine? (“We decided to let Joe down the street do surgery on people. It’ll be fine.”)
There are definitely times and issues where local control has its place. Public health is not one of those. This bill is full of decay, and needs to be pulled.
SB 72 – My religion overrules your healthcare
| Status: Crossed Over | Sponsors: 8 (Rep) | Primary Sponsor: Don Douglas |
Everyone things this is about abortion. Except, abortion is no longer allowed in Kentucky, remember? So what other healthcare situation could hurt the fee-fees of our healthcare practitioners?
<raises hand> “Ooo, ooo, I know – treating gay people!”
“Very good, Johnny. Anyone else?”
“Prescribing or selling birth control!”
“Right, Susie. Any other ideas?”
“Treating someone in the emergency room on a Sunday!”
“Good answer, Jimmy.”
“Anything I don’t want to do!”
“Congratulations, Don – you gave the best answer.”
This is another bill that is actually dangerous. And, as Senator Karen Berg noted, not one healthcare institution has asked for it.
This is just some “I’m holier than you” Republicans sucking up to the Christian right. If this passes, I wonder how they will feel when an atheist nurse refuses to change their bed pan?
SB 178 – Roll back environmental protections
| Status: In Committee | Sponsors: 2 (Rep) | Primary Sponsor: Greg Elkins |
This is one of those technical bills that often don’t get as much attention as they should. In essence, it says that Kentucky cannot have any environmental regulations that are stricter than what the federal government has. And, since the EPA is being gutted by the Trump administration, that means that pretty much all our environmental protections are going to disappear.
Politicians love to talk about the beauty of our state. It puzzles me, then, as to why they would not want to protect that beauty – not to mention the health of their voters.
Oh, that’s right, I forgot – the beauty and the voters don’t pay for their campaigns. The polluters do. So, the politicians get paid, and we slowly get sicker.
HB 490 – Remove tenured faculty for “finacial reasons”
| Status: Crossed Over | Sponsors: 2 (Rep) | Primary Sponsor: Aaron Thompson |
Academic tenure – a type of academic appointment that offers its holder a semi-permanent position at an institution, protecting them from being fired or laid off for their personal beliefs and practices.
All across the country, tenure in our colleges and universities is under attack. It’s part of the Right’s dislike of academics in general, and the fact that the People In Charge can’t just fire any professor they don’t like.
This bill supposedly says an institution can terminate a tenured professor for “financial reasons.” Guess what – every college I know claims to have financial problems all the time. And if they need to make some up in order to get rid of a particular professor (or a whole group of them), the powers that be can certainly cook the books to justify it.
Tenure is one of those workers’ rights that was fought for over many decades. In the midst of the dumbing down of America and the attacks on our institutions of higher learning, we need to be protecting this right, not abolishing it. This bill is what needs to be fired.
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Thoughts on this? Leave them in the comments below.
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