Beyond thrilled to share I survived the final pre-veto period hours of #KYGA26.
Lawmakers wrapped up everything and went home super late last night, and I’m still piecing together exactly what they did in the time between my dinner break newsletter and adjourning.
I wanna make this quick because I’m exhausted, I don’t have much new to share, and I’m sure everyone else is tired/tired of hearing from me/already mentally on spring break.
So, how about we start with everyone dropping a question or bill or topic they want me to check in on/talk about in an upcoming newsletter with the button below?
And then I’ll give a few updates from last night and I’ll set everyone free to enjoy the weekend! Note: I most likely won’t have my typical Sunday night newsletter, so if you don’t see me, don’t be alarmed.
Mmk, right, so last night
We know even more about what they wanna do re: JCPS!
Gotta say, after all of the anger aimed at JCPS and Fayette County over the last several months, they kinda got let off easy — especially Fayette County.
The final versions of both SB 1 (which I explained last night) and SB 4 are watered down compared to the initial proposals, especially if you think of SB 114’s idea of simply making both boards appointment-only as the precursor to SB 4.
The final version of SB 4 dropped the idea of having two finance experts appointed by the Republican state treasurer to both the FCPS and JCPS boards entirely. So, all local school board seats will be locally elected.
But it does still shrink JCPS’ board from seven to five seats (just like all of the other boards in Ky.), and creates new board seat boundaries for the 2026 election. All five board members will need to run again this fall, regardless of if they were initially supposed to be up for election or not.
I am still traumatized from trying to map the initial board boundaries proposal, but LPM’s Justin Hicks mapped the new boundaries and they look like this:
The boundaries would just be for the 2026 election; JCPS would get to redraw their maps after that.
The bill also prevents full-time educators and district employees from serving on the school board where they live … but only for folks living in Jefferson and Fayette counties. AKA, so, it literally targets just the FCPS Chair Tyler Murphy.
And, because the free conference committee process is a bizarre world of compromise, SB 4 now also makes the McConnell Center at U of L an independent academic unit, creates a similar concept at UK, and requires both to create a curriculum around American history and civics. (???)
Oh, so we got money, huh?
Remember that one-page bill that was like, yeah, we’re gonna spend $800 million on stuff but we don’t know what yet?
Right, we now know what will get funding, and also, it is $1.7 billion now.
I’m still working through both that and the final budget, but I wanna make it clear that the Kentucky legislature believes it is perfectly OK to randomly decide how $1.7 billion will be spent behind closed doors, and rush it through with mere hours left on the clock, with no meaningful opportunity for public viewing, let alone discourse.
No, seriously, we’ve got a transparency issue
More than a dozen bills ended up in free conference committee yesterday alone — meaning they’re bills they can’t agree on, so now they can do anything to ‘em in closed door convos held in the temporary chambers with no public access, and you don’t know what has made the final cut until its too late.
So, take SB 4. They added in the random civics/McConnell Center language. They can literally add whatever to get something passed. Rules around piggybacking and whatnot appear to not matter or not exist.
And there’s no easy way to see exactly how many or which bills ended up in conference committee, or see all of their final results in one spot.
All of this to say, they can just kinda send a bill to free conference the last day before the veto period, dump in whatever they want, and pass it.
Yikes.
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Follow Olivia Krauth at The Gallery Pass.
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