Incoming KY legislative leader says GOP to revive anti-DEI efforts in 2025 session
Incoming Senate Majority Floor Leader Max Wise says his even-keeled approach and the “diverse” policy portfolio he has built in his near-decade in office will lend itself well to the new leadership position.
“When I ran for office, I had somebody tell me, as a candidate, ‘Max, you’re like trying to nail Jell-o to the wall,’” Wise said in his legislative office in Frankfort Tuesday.
“I’ve tried not to be pigeon-holed in one certain area. I don’t think I fit a certain mold, and I think that can be good, especially for a position like floor leader, to fit with a lot of different personalities.”
Wise was chosen by the Senate Republican caucus last month to succeed outgoing Sen. Damon Thayer of Georgetown as floor leader, who was first elected to the leadership position in 2013, making him the longest-serving Republican floor leader in state Senate history. Wise, of Campbellsville, has served in the Senate since 2015.
Though filing his own bills will likely be put on the back-burner this upcoming session — the role, instead, involves “a lot of managing people and their expectations” — Wise said one of Republican caucus’ areas of focus will be to curb or restrict diversity, equity and inclusion practices at schools in Kentucky.
“DEI, in terms of momentum, is probably at the forefront,” Wise said.
Anti-DEI policy at public colleges and universities was a priority of the Republican supermajority in last year’s General Assembly, but the final version of a bill that emerged at the end was never voted on during the final day of session.
“I think you had a lot of members of our Senate caucus leave here last session thinking there wasn’t a lot of transparency in terms of where we started the process of that bill and where we ended up,” Wise added. “I do think it’ll come back, but I don’t know what form of fashion it will take, if it goes more conservative or if it stays more vanilla bland.”
Caucus momentum behind adding exceptions to Kentucky’s near-total abortion ban — another controversial policy area Republicans have devoted time to in recent years — is less clear.
Wise said, from his perspective, the issue was more “on the minds of voters” in 2022, with the overturning of federal abortion protections in Roe v. Wade and the failure of a ballot initiative in Kentucky that would’ve further restricted access to the procedure.
With the election of President Donald Trump in November, who is largely credited with helping to overturn Roe with his appointing of three conservative Supreme Court justices, Wise said he doesn’t know if adding abortion exceptions is a priority for Kentuckians, or a “consituent-motivated issue.”
Though Kentucky Republican Attorney General Russell Coleman has explicitly said more exceptions should be added to the state’s ban, Wise said, “I don’t know if that carries sway with the legislature.
“What we’re guided by here is the policy the supermajority Republicans would want to put forth, and I don’t really have a temperature right now for what that would be.”
Wise rose to statewide in prominence in 2023 when he ran as Kelly Craft’s running mate in her bid for Kentucky governor — a major learning experience, Wise said Tuesday.
Craft, a billionaire mega-donor who donated more than $9.2 million to her campaign and former United Nations Ambassador to Canada during Trump’s first term, came in third in the Republican primary. She and Wise ran a campaign that emphasized the harm wrought by the drug epidemic, the decline of the coal industry and “wokeness” in public schools.
“It was fascinating just to be able to travel to parts of Kentucky that I’ve never been to before,” Wise said of being on that ticket, and learning. “I learned a lot also about losing, (and) sometimes you learn more about the losses than the wins.”
During much of that campaign, Wise was the lead sponsor of the controversial Senate Bill 150, an omnibus bill that outlawed gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth in Kentucky — a policy proposal Craft vocally supported and one Wise at the time said “protects our children.”
In addition to banning puberty-blockers, hormone therapy and gender-affirming surgeries for kids under 18, the law also ban lessons on gender identity and sexual orientation, prevents trans students from using the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity and stops school districts from requiring teachers use a student’s pronouns if they don’t align with their sex assigned at birth.
The law, still in place today, is currently being challenged in court. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments this week on a similar ban in Tennessee in order to ultimately decide whether such bans violate the Equal Protection rights of trans individuals.
Senate Bill 150 was among the more controversial pieces of legislation Wise has sponsored during his tenure in public office, and it made him “a legislator with thicker skin.”
“A lot of people look at Senate Bill 150 and say it’s polarizing,” Wise said. “At the same time, it represents my conservative beliefs and the district I represent.”
Policy priorities for the supermajority in the 30-day 2025 session, in addition to DEI, will likely include artificial intelligence, housing, childcare, and minimizing barriers to workforce participation, especially for those who are in recovery from addiction — proposals Wise sees as “bipartisan issues we can come together to work on.”
This story was originally published December 3, 2024 at 3:31 PM.
