A priority bill that’s moving through the legislature talks about hundreds of millions of dollars, but it doesn’t actually do or spend anything — at least, not yet.
The bill moved relatively swiftly and largely unchanged through both chambers of the General Assembly. It easily passed through the Senate Wednesday with little discussion.
Here’s the catch: at the moment, it can’t actually be implemented.
“We could appropriate and lock funds off for particular purposes, but that would be no practical wisdom or no practical use for us,” said sponsor Rep. Jason Petrie, a Republican from Elkton.
House Bill 900 states that it is the “intent” of the General Assembly to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on things like water infrastructure, economic development and local investments, but it doesn’t actually appropriate any funds. Petrie, who chairs the House appropriations committee, said that more details can’t be fleshed out until the Senate weighs in.
Well, the Senate weighed in last Wednesday by passing an equally empty version, this time with an extra $10 million vaguely appropriated.
Lawmakers say they’ll decide what to specifically put in it later — in private, likely through a free conference committee.
It’s an unusual example of a “shell bill.” Shell bills (also called “mule bills”) are legislation that’s really meant as a placeholder for future language. It’s a workaround that allows lawmakers to introduce new bill language toward the end of the legislative session, long after the deadline for filing new bills has passed and often with limited opportunity for the public to engage with it. Lawmakers filing the bills say they’re necessary to maintain flexibility late in the session.
A Kentucky Public Radio analysis identified nearly 150 shell bills filed this year in the House and Senate. They’re mostly bills that add gender neutral language, or change the spelling of Web site to website or some other insignificantly technical correction. Of the more than 1,270 bills circulating through the House and Senate this year, roughly 11% are shell bills.
Read the rest at LPM News.
Comments
