These 10 GOP bills are being fast-tracked in the KY legislature. Here’s what they do.
Republican lawmakers in Frankfort kicked off the 2021 legislative session this week with a push to quickly pass 10 bills. The measures are largely targeted at limiting the power of Gov. Andy Beshear, but they also deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, abortion and the courts system.
On Thursday, nine of the 10 bills passed in their respective chambers, putting them track to pass by Saturday should Republican leaders choose to alter the legislative calendar.
Most of the bills will likely be vetoed by Beshear, but with super majorities in both chambers of the General Assembly, Republicans have the ability to override any vetoes.
Here’s what they do:
House Bill 1
House Bill 1 is the Republican legislature’s response to Beshear’s COVID-19 restrictions. Over the course of the pandemic Republican lawmakers have chafed at the capacity limitations and safety requirements Beshear has placed on businesses, schools and churches, with the latest round of outrage coming after Beshear closed restaurants and bars to in-person dining in the last weeks of November and ordered schools to switch to remote learning until January.
The Republican solution: businesses and schools can stay open as long as they “meet or exceed” guidance issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, detail their plan and post it on their door. Lawmakers have not specified which CDC guidelines must be followed, and the CDC’s page is built to offer tips on how to keep employees and customers safe more than to set standards for reopening.
The Kentucky Chamber of Commerce pushed a provision in the bill that would waive interest and penalties on employer’s unpaid unemployment insurance bills until 2022.
There also are provisions in the bill to allow family visitation for children in foster care during an emergency (the Beshear Administration prevented those visitations in November when cases were spiking, but they have resumed) and would allow residents of nursing homes to have one designated “essential personal care visitor” who would be exempt from any orders preventing visitation in nursing homes.
House Bill 2
House Bill 2 is a repeat of a bill that was vetoed by Beshear in the 2020 legislative session (the legislature was unable to override Beshear’s veto because it had adjourned for the year). It transfers the power to enforce Kentucky’s abortion laws from the Cabinet for Health and Family Services over to the Attorney General’s office and allows him to seek civil and criminal penalties for any violation of the law.
It also defines abortions as “elective” procedures — a response to the COVID-19 shutdown last spring when elective surgeries were suspended but abortions were deemed essential procedures and were allowed to continue.
House Bill 3
For many years, Republican lawmakers have bristled over the fact that most lawsuits pertaining to state government must be filed in Franklin Circuit Court, essentially funneling all such lawsuits through two judges: Phillip Shepherd and Thomas Wingate.
Instead, House Bill 3 would spread the cases around the state by creating three judicial districts. The chief justice of the Supreme Court would select one judge from each of the three districts to convene as a panel to hear the case.
The first district includes 54 counties in Western Kentucky, the second district includes 13 counties in Central Kentucky and the third district includes 53 counties in Eastern and Northern Kentucky. Both Fayette and Jefferson Counties, the state’s two largest counties, would be in the second district.
Rep. Jason Nemes, R-Louisville, who was formerly the executive director of the administrative office of the courts, has questioned whether the bill is constitutional.
House Bill 4
House Bill 4 is a constitutional amendment, which means it would require approval from voters in the next election in 2022. Currently, the constitution says the General Assembly must finish their legislative session on March 30 in odd-numbered years and on April 15 in even-numbered years.
The proposed constitutional amendment would strike those set dates from the constitution, effectively allowing the legislature to come in at any time of the year and would allow lawmakers to have 10 extra days each year if approved by three fifths of each chamber of the General Assembly.
House Bill 5
House Bill 5 strips the governor of the ability to temporarily reorganize executive branch cabinets, boards, agencies and commissions when the legislature is not in session. It would keep existing law that requires legislative approval of any changes to the organizational structure of the executive branch.
Senate Bill 1
Senate Bill 1 would place a 30-day expiration date on any executive order from the governor that restricts the in-person meeting of schools, businesses and religious organizations unless the order is extended by the General Assembly. Local executives are given more flexibility under the bill for any emergency order they institute.
Should the governor hope to suspend a statute through executive order during an emergency the action would require approval from the Attorney General.
The bill also requires the governor’s office to give a report every 30 days about the contracts issued and revenues received while the state is under an emergency order. It attempts to prevent the governor from circumventing the legislature by issuing a new emergency order after 30 days on the same “or substantially similar” facts and circumstances of the original order.
The bill was amended in a House Committee Friday to change the statute that allows the Governor and the Secretary of State to determine how elections are conducted during emergencies, granting the power to the legislature instead. Under the bill, the Governor and Secretary of State would only be allowed to change the time and place of an election, not the manner in which it’s conducted.
Senate Bill 2
Senate Bill 2 gives the legislature more oversight over emergency administrative regulations (one method Beshear used to issue orders after his executive orders were challenged in court), allowing legislative committees to amend the regulations or find them deficient. It also creates provisions allowing public comment on the regulations.
Senate Bill 3
Senate Bill 3 removes the lieutenant governor as a member of the Kentucky Council on Agriculture and shifts authority over the Kentucky Agricultural Finance Corporation and the Agricultural Development Board to the commissioner of agriculture.
Senate Bill 5
Senate Bill 5 provides liability protections for businesses operating during emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The bill seeks to protect businesses from being sued if someone catches the virus at the business.
It would not protect a business from “wanton, willful, malicious, grossly negligent, or intentional failure to adhere to executive actions while the declared emergency continues.”
Senate Bill 9
Senate Bill 9 is the “Born Alive Infant Protection Act,” another abortion bill that was vetoed by Beshear at the end of the 2020 legislative session.
The bill requires that physicians “give medically appropriate and reasonable life-saving and life-sustaining medical care and treatment to all born-alive infants” and requires any abortion provider to take any appropriate steps to protect the life of a “born-alive infant” and makes it a felony if the provider does not comply.
This story was originally published January 7, 2021 at 2:52 PM.
