KY lawmakers reject any rule changes despite transparency concerns as legislature convenes

Kentucky lawmakers were back in Frankfort Tuesday to kick off the 2024 General Assembly.

The first day of any legislative session is often relatively uneventful, but Tuesday saw a fair bit of excitement as lawmakers argued over the rules of procedure.

Democrats in both chambers raised concerns about transparency in the legislature, citing a November 2023 study by the Kentucky League of Women Voters that highlighted the use of “fast-track maneuvers” to pass bills. But Republican supermajorities ultimately led to the adoption of rules identical to those of the 2023 General Assembly.

“If we are here to create good laws, then why don’t we want more vetting? Why don’t we want to hear from more people?” House Minority Whip Rep. Rachel Roberts, D-Newport, asked from the floor.

“We don’t pre-file bills anymore. I assume hundreds of bills were filed today, and that reporters and citizens and lawmakers and our staff will all sit up reading tonight to figure out what’s coming because we don’t even have time to prepare for it anymore.”

Speaker of the House David Osborne, R-Prospect, offered a different view of the League of Women Voters transparency report, calling it “a distortion,” “intellectually bankrupt” and “statistically unsound.”

Osborne took issue with the analysis including only every fourth legislative session, which works out to seven sessions in the past 25 years.

Additionally, he noted the “fast-track” measures studied have since fallen from their peak in 2014, when Democrats still controlled the Kentucky House.

“Now, I understand it’s difficult to allow facts to influence your feelings,” Osborne said.

The report analyzed the pathway of every bill that ultimately became law in every other 60-day budget session between 1998 and 2022. In 1998 and 2002, 5% or fewer of the bills passed used any of the four fast-tracking measures, but by 2014, that increased to 42% of House of Representatives bills and 29% of Senate bills passed.

As Osborne noted, the number of those measures used in 2018, which followed Republicans taking control of the House a year prior, that figure fell to 23%.

However, the 32% of House bills passed with a fast-track procedure in 2022 remains well above the 3% passed in a similar manner in 1998.

Roberts’ attempt to delay the rules vote failed, but five Republicans cast votes with the Democrats.

Those five — Savannah Maddox of R-Dry Ridge, Felicia Rabourn of Pendleton, Candy Massaroni of Bardstown, Steve Rawlings of Burlington and Josh Calloway of Irvington — were among the eight signatories of a December letter to House membership proposing several rules changes.

Their wish list included allowing more House members to have their bills heard, making it harder to remove members from their committees and giving lawmakers and the public more time to review proposed legislation before it passes.

Rabourn, speaking to reporters after adjournment, said the desire for change was spurred not by the transparency report, but by leadership’s decision to remove her and a few other Republicans from their committees.

“Because when retaliation is made by leadership, it certainly makes you pause and reflect on, ‘How did this happen? How do five people have the ability to make these decisions?’” Rabourn said.

“Leading into that, I received calls from more than 30 of my colleagues I served with, expressing concerns and the need to change rules so that we can pass legislation that will benefit the 4.5 million Kentuckians we represent.”

Maddox noted the proposed rules changes she supported have been available to her colleagues for a month, whereas the rules that passed Tuesday were not given to members ahead of time.

“Proposing rules changes, having a discussion in this body, having a conversation, is not an act of aggression,” Maddox said from the floor.

“It is something that we should be doing. It is something that each and every one of us, regardless of what county, what district, we represent, we should be coming together to have a discussion about the rules that are going to govern this process.

“The concept that it is somehow an insurgency or an attack to have this discussion, to propose rules, to have that conversation, is very detrimental to this process.”

In the Senate, Minority Caucus Chair Reginald Thomas, D-Lexington, unsuccessfully suggested members postpone approving the current procedures and consider steps that would allow for greater transparency.

Thomas’ proposal included:

• Lengthening the amount of time between when a committee votes on a bill, or when a committee makes a revision to a bill and when that same bill is voted on by members of the Senate.
• Making committee substitutes to bills available at least a day before they are heard and voted on by committee members, allowing lawmakers ample time to consider what they’re voting on.
• Allowing for at least three readings before a bill is voted on by members of the Senate.

Rushing these processes “forbids public opinion and public comment,” Thomas said.

“We’re here for only one purpose: To serve the public.”

Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown, chided Thomas for not bringing his amendments to members sooner and giving them more time to consider those changes.

“It would’ve been nice to have had a heads-up so we can consider this more clearly,” Thayer said. “I don’t think today is the day to do that.”

Reporter Alex Acquisto contributed to this story.

This story was originally published January 2, 2024 at 4:28 PM.

Tessa Duvall

Lexington Herald-Leader

859-334-0430

Tessa has been the Herald-Leader’s Politics and Public Affairs Editor since March 2024, after acting as Frankfort Bureau Chief since joining the paper in August 2022. A native of Bowling Green and a graduate of Western Kentucky University, Tessa has also reported in Texas, Florida and Louisville, where she covered education, criminal justice and policing.