Yeah, hi, sorry, here I come to ruin your weekend/end of spring break/almost end of veto period.
We do, for better or for worse, still have two days left in Kentucky’s 2026 legislative session. Lawmakers will be in Frankfort Tuesday and Wednesday to override probably all of Gov. Andy Beshear’s vetoes, and maybe pass a few not-super-crazy bills, and then go home for good.
We’re still waiting on a whole bunch of decisions from the governor’s desk, including what he wants to do with two bills aimed at JCPS and the main budget bill and the $1.7 billion one-time spending package.
As of Sunday night, Beshear has vetoed 15 bills this session — but the legislature has already overridden four of those. (Definitely expect more vetoes Monday.)
He’s also let 10 bills slip into law, either because time expired and it simply became law, or because he simply filed it with the Secretary of State’s office without signing it. It definitely feels like he’s using this option more than in the past, and my data from his first term backs that up.
So, while we wait and prepare our final Frankfort ‘Fits of session, let’s go through some of y’all’s questions!
Thank you so much to everyone who sent something in over the course of session — I’ll be doing as many as I can, and I’m trusting a random number generator to pick which questions get answered.
Off we go!
Why do you think some Democrats, particularly those involved in public education, voted for the JCPS Board shake-up bill?
The two Dems I consider closest to JCPS — active educator Rep. Tina Bojanowski and former JCPS board vice chair Rep. Lisa Willner — voted for Senate Bill 4, and I think that’s exactly why they voted that way: They knowJCPS, they want it to succeed, but they know its struggles both in Frankfort and in the Louisville community, and this might be the easiest option.
I believe both explained their rationale on the House floor during the March 20 floor vote, and Bojanowski later wrote on her Substack:
“I voted yes because I feel that we have reached a point where something needs to change in JCPS in order to allow the district to move forward without the continual pressure that the General Assembly is going to ‘break it up’ or, as designated in SB114, appoint all of the school board members in a partisan nature.”
Of course, after she wrote that, the bill underwent some changes, and I feel, as a journalist who gained national acclaim for her coverage of JCPS, that the end result is a lesser blow to the district than anything else suggested this session.
But it is worth noting both Bojanowski and Willner ultimately voted against SB 4’s final form on the last day before the veto period. The former did not explain her rationale in her Substack, which I highly recommend and wish more lawmakers did something similar during session.
Details on paid maternity leave vs. parental leave for state employees
S/O to the person who asked me to watch this very early in session — it is looking like nothing happened on this front.
All of the bills I’m finding around paid maternity, parental, family, etc. leave in general — and specifically for state employees — didn’t go anywhere.
I’m honestly not sure what that means for Beshear’s EO on the topic prior to session, or if maybe I’m missing it (I don’t think I am), but the bills didn’t go anywhere.
What happened with compression pay for state employees?
Babes, I’m gonna be so real with you right now: I don’t know what that means.
I looked through the budget bill, nothing; I Googled it, and I’m afraid I just got more confused because all I could find were context-free charts (I have a background in data journalism, I know how to present data to the public and I … don’t know how to interpret what I saw.)
Thankfully, KyPolicy wrote this on their breakdown of the budget: “It makes no mention of $67 million that had been appropriated in 2022 to address pay compression for state employees in recognition of many years without raises, which had been diverted to other purposes in previous versions of the budget.”
*multiple questions about state employee health insurance*
Me when I saw I got a bunch of questions for the mailbag newsletter: Yay!!!!
Me when I realized a solid chunk of them were about state employee health insurance: Oh… oh no.
I understand this a bit better than compression pay, though! (I think.)
Basically, the initial budget proposal put a 5% cap on the employer’s contribution increase — so, if health insurance costs are skyrocketing (“hehe, they are!” she chuckles in self-employed terror), and your employer can only contribute 5% more, you either have a sudden worsening in benefits or yourportion of the insurance will jump.
But the Senate version of the budget scrapped that, and the final budget doesn’t include a cap. From the KyPolicy folks: “The budget does not contain language from the original House version of HB 500 that capped employer contributions for health insurance.”
The final version of the budget says, “Employer and employee contributions made to the Kentucky Employees Health Plan Trust Fund for Plan Years 2027 and 2028 are sufficient to implement and carry out the provisions of 2024 Ky. Acts ch. 75 and 97.”
I hope this helped but I understand if it didn’t.
“The whole ICE - police arranged marriage thing?”
Who the hell dropped this Deux Moi-Gossip Girl-esque paragraph-long hot tea on ICE-related bills at the start of session?!
“My initial vibe was that the cops dont rlly want to be forced to date some asshole they dont even know (much less like) and usually the police union girlies always get their way but the gop is also crazy and since they are running out of other culture war issues they have nothing better to do than turn cops into deportation agents to own the libs” is crazy work for an anonymous submission to a Google Form for a Substack, and I welcome it.
Babes, you deserve an answer, so here it is. The two bills you mentioned — HB 47 and SB 86 — never went anywhere. Really, none of the ICE/immigration related bills went anywhere.
Except for SB 104 — the thing about hey leave working EMTs alone when they’re trying to save lives, but also ICE agents can totally squash your first amendment rights — and that is now law.
Beshear actually filed that one with the Secretary of State’s office without signing it Friday.
Can you talk about the dog shit that is SB252 pleaaaase?
To the person who asked this question: Did you really mean SB 252, Sen. Karen Berg’s bill that didn’t go anywhere around suing about conversion therapy? Or did you mean SB 251, the one on the death penalty? Just drop an anonymous line here and I can consider it for a future newsletter.
Could you please include legislation related to school health for K-12 schools?
I can do my best because I feel like there’s a lot of stuff that gets filed that broadly touches on school health or student health every year, and a lotimpacts student health.
But from what I can tell, unless something quietly got added to a different bill and I’m missing it, I’m not seeing anything around school health that passed or is close to passing in the last two days. At least, not anything directly related.
The bill around choking prevention stalled in the Senate, and so did a few bills around what school nurses can do and how school-based Medicaid programs can be used.
I truly feel like I’m missing something, so please, school health advocates, clue me in using this form or by responding to this newsletter!
On the calendar
Aight, the end is truly near, y’all.
Remember: Two days left. Tuesday and Wednesday. Anything that passes during those two days can still be vetoed by Beshear, and the legislature cannot override him. So, don’t expect anything crazy.
The Senate gavels in at 10 a.m. Tuesday, and the House follows at noon. Expect lots of veto overrides and not a lot else.
Start times for Wednesday — Sine Die, baby! — are TBD, but if it is anything like last year, we’ll probably be done before dinner.
Mmk, talk soon, toodles!
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Follow Olivia Krauth at The Gallery Pass.
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