UPDATED: Here’s what the KY legislature passed on its last day for veto-proof bills
As the clock approached midnight on the 28th day of the legislative session, Kentucky lawmakers concluded a busy day of hastily rewriting and approving legislation that provides tax breaks, limits the governor’s powers, overhauls elections and much more.
At the end of the day, instead of turning into pumpkins, lawmakers lost the ability to override any vetoes issued by Gov. Andy Beshear for any other bills they pass during the remaining two days of the 2021 legislative session. The Republican-led General Assembly is scheduled to reconvene on March 29 and 30 to consider any vetoes issued by the Democratic governor and pass additional legislation.
With less than an hour remaining in the day, House Democrats suddenly found an interest in a bill dealing with the city of Corbin’s ability to annex new land, eating up scarce time the Republican majority had hoped to use passing other bills.
Their stalling efforts resulted in a small victory. The House wasn’t able to pass the transportation budget, which allocates money for road projects, before midnight.
Still, Republicans were able to pass dozens of bills. Here is some of what moved Tuesday:
COVID-19 orders
▪ The Senate passed an amended House resolution Tuesday night that spells out which of Gov. Andy Beshear’s emergency orders on COVID-19 would stay in place should the General Assembly win a legal argument against Beshear.
The House accepted the Senate’s changes, which added a line that said the resolution is not intended to impair Kentucky’s ability to receive federal stimulus money.
Beshear and the General Assembly are currently battling in court over three bills — House Bill 1, Senate Bill 1 and Senate Bill 2. The bills restrict Beshear’s executive orders to limit the spread of COVID-19 and prevent any orders he puts in place from extending beyond 30 days without approval from the General Assembly. Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd has temporarily stopped all three laws from taking effect while he considers their constitutionality.
House Joint Resolution 77 details which executive orders the legislature would extend beyond 30 days and is intended to take effect should a judge rule in the General Assembly’s favor on the three bills.
Neither the mask mandate nor restrictions on capacity at businesses are on the legislature’s list of orders to extend.
The General Assembly has not yet appealed the Franklin Circuit Court ruling that kept Beshear’s COVID-19 restrictions in place.
▪ The Senate gave final passage to Senate Bill 8, which would allow opting-out of mandatory vaccinations for a religious or conscientiously held belief.
It states that employees of schools, universities and health care organizations may still be subject to immunization policies set by their employer.
▪ The House of Representatives gave final passage to SB 148, which would prevent Beshear from issuing any orders limiting capacity at child care centers to an amount that is lower than pre-pandemic levels.
Democrats criticized the bill, saying it limits Beshear’s ability to respond to any new variants of COVID-19. Earlier Tuesday, Kentucky’s Public Health Commissioner announced that a new variant had recently spread through an Eastern Kentucky nursing home.
“We are putting politics in front of science,” said Rep. Mary Lou Marzian, D-Louisville.. “We’re all sick of covid... but we’ve got to keep folks safe.”
Education
▪ The Senate Tuesday night approved a worked-out agreement between House and Senate conferees on House Bill 178 that change the makeup of the State Board of Education. The Senate vote was 30-3.
The House did not have time to approve the agreement.
The House-Senate conference committee was created after the House knocked down changes the Senate made Monday to House Bill 178 that would have removed two non-voting members from the Kentucky Board of Education — a current teacher and student.
Both Democrats and Republicans spoke against the Senate’s decision to remove a teacher and a student from the board, particularly since they didn’t have voting power.
“I’m just bewildered to why that was necessary,” said Rep. Tina Bojanowski, D-Louisville.
▪ The House gave final passage to a bill that would allow all K-12 students an extra year of eligibility for extracurricular activities if they decide to repeat a school year because of missed learning opportunities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
While there were concerns about the bill being used to give students an extra year of eligibility in sports, the bill would not change the current age limits for participating in Kentucky high school athletics.
Capitol campus security
The Senate unanimously approved and sent to the governor Senate Bill 227, which would require Kentucky State Police to brief the leadership of the General Assembly and the Legislative Research Commission on security matters relating to the Capitol campus.
Crime and punishment
The Senate approved House Bill 126, which would raise the threshold for a felony theft requirement from $500 to $1,000.
It also says a person who commits multiple thefts in 90 days would be subject to a felony if the value of those thefts reaches $1,000.
The Senate vote was 25-11, with some members saying it was not fair to small businesses.
In supporting the bill, Senate Judiciary Chairman Whitney Westerfield, R-Hopkinsville, said the Kentucky Retail Association does not oppose the bill.
Election changes
▪ The Senate approved a 167-page bill that Senate Majority Leader Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown, said transforms Kentucky elections.
House Bill 574 would allow early voting on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday before an election, allow regional voting centers, phase in paper ballots and make permanent the online portal for requesting absentee ballots 45 days before the election.
It adopts some of the emergency procedures used in last year’s elections as COVID-19 spread across the state.
The House approved some of the Senate’s changes to the bill, which limited how long the online portal can be open and said school districts aren’t allowed to use taxpayer money to help pass a tax increase, but when lawmakers couldn’t explain what a Senate amendment did, they put the bill aside to take it back up later. It wasn’t revisited before the end of the day.
▪ The House also gave final passage to SB 228, a bill that would change how U.S. Senate vacancies are filled in Kentucky. Rather than allowing the governor to fill the vacancy, the governor would have to appoint someone from three names given to him by the political party of the senator who left office.
The appointment would only be temporary, as the bill sets up scenarios for different special elections, depending on when the vacancy occurs.
Democrats balked at the bill, calling it a “power grab” and suggesting that it was a way for U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, who has said he approves of the bill, to help get Attorney General Daniel Cameron elected to the Senate. Many consider Cameron to be McConnell’s top choice to take over his seat in the U.S. Senate.
“This bill reeks of Mitch McConnell,” said Rep. Mary Lou Marzian, D-Louisville.
The bill will go to Beshear for his signature or, more likely, veto.
Additions to budget bill
The Senate added more money Tuesday to the state budget the legislature approved Monday.
In a committee substitute for House Bill 405 introduced for the first time at an 8:30 a.m. meeting, the Senate set aside money for several items and sent it back to the House of Representatives. About 14 hours later both the House and Senate gave it final passage, sending it to Beshear.
Along with giving the Attorney General at least $4 million to hire additional personnel and $2 million to investigate COVID-19 related crimes, the bill adds further restrictions on how the governor can spend money from the American Rescue Plan.
If any of the federal funds are “allotted, expended or appropriated” without the permission of the General Assembly, the bill says, the Governor’s Office of the Budget Director would have to forfeit $902,200 into the state’s budget reserve trust fund.
“The intent is simply to make sure the governor works within the constitutional confines of drawing moneys only when approved by the General Assembly,” said Sen. Chris McDaniel, R-Taylor Mill. “It’s just a statement that we expect to be worked with.”
They also included $37 million in federal dollars to provide grants to detect, diagnose, trace and monitor COVID-19 infections in congregate and vulnerable population settings, $10 million in state dollars to the School Facilities Construction Commission for schools recently damaged by flooding, $12 million in state dollars to the Department for Community Based Services to provide a $2 per-child increase in the Child Care Assistance Program provider reimbursement rate.
It also set up a study group on public school funding.
Sen. Reginald Thomas, D-Lexington, said the measure “ties the hands of the governor” and amounts to micromanaging the executive branch.
Broadband
Lawmakers decided to dip into the $2.4 billion in federal aid coming to Kentucky under the American Rescue Plan to increase broadband access in the state.
The Senate voted 36-0 to designate $250 million of the federal money for an expansion of “last-mile” broadband services in hard-to-reach areas, stipulating that no more than $50 million of that could be spent before April 2022.
The funding measure was in a committee substitute to House Bill 320. The House later agreed with the changes and sent the bill to Beshear for his signature or veto.
Senate President Pro Tem David Givens, R-Greensburg, said the 2022 General Assembly, which begins next January, could decide more about the broadband funding.
“We’re saying the money is there to get things rolling, to plant the seed, knowing that we are going to be back in January,” he said.
He noted that funding proposals for the project have been up and down in recent weeks.
“Suddenly the federal government says we got money,” he said. “Let’s get people doing it right before we start over-funding and funding in ways that cause potential mischief or poor investment.”
Senate Minority Leader Morgan McGarvey, D-Louisville, supported the amended bill but noted that the legislature on Monday approved a state budget without specifying where the $2.4 billion in federal aid would go.
He said he was concerned about “the piecemeal approach” of using the federal dollars.
Tax Breaks
The Senate added more tax breaks to House Bill 372, which originally was written to give an exemption on sales and use taxes to corporations like Amazon, Facebook and Google if they open data centers inside the state.
That language remains in the bill, which was approved in a 30-4 vote by the Senate. The estimated cost to the state budget would begin at $15 million a year and likely rise, depending on how many data centers opened in the state.
But senators also added language to the bill to create income tax credits and property tax rebates for Kentuckians who work remotely in their homes for out-of-state companies. The credits could be worth up to $5,000 a year for up to five years, plus a rebate on state property taxes on the remote workers’ homes.
The altered bill now goes back to the House, which must decide whether to accept or reject changes made by the Senate.
Both the Senate and House also approved an amended House Bill 249, which would make Kentucky’s film industry tax credit refundable again.
The Kentucky Center for Economic Policy said this would amount to a $75 million annual hit to the state budget. It contends film tax breaks are an ineffective and extraordinarily expensive giveaway, which is the reason Kentucky made its credit nonrefundable during the administration of former Gov. Matt Bevin.
The bill also gave a $30 million tax break to an undisclosed hotel to renovate a building on the National Register of Historic Places that is bigger than 300,000 square feet.
Fish and Wildlife controversy
In a rebuke to Beshear, the Senate gave final passage to and sent to the governor a bill that would give the state Fish and Wildlife Commission sole authority to appoint a commissioner and set that person’s salary.
House Bill 394 stemmed from an argument between Beshear and the commission.
The commission has argued that it has sole authority in hiring Rich Storm as its commissioner and setting his salary. Beshear disagrees.
In January 2020, the board unanimously voted to give Storm, who became commissioner in January 2019 during the administration of former Gov. Matt Bevin, a new two-year contract at $140,000 a year.
The Beshear administration offered Storm only a one-year contract, noting that the legislature in 2020 enacted only a one-year state budget. When Storm did not accept it, the administration stopped his salary July 15.
The fish and wildlife board voted 7-0 last Aug. 12 to pursue a lawsuit. It said the administration had approved more than 900 contracts that extend beyond one year and that money to pay Storm’s salary would not come from the state’s General Fund but from fees and federal funds.
Franklin Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate dismissed the commission’s lawsuit last October but the commission, with support from Attorney General Daniel Cameron, has appealed to the Kentucky Court of Appeals.
Insulin costs
The Senate gave final passage to House Bill 96, which would cap cost-sharing requirements for prescription insulin at $30 per 30-day supply for state-regulated health plans.
Sponsors of the bill said the cost of insulin, which is needed to treat diabetes, is making some people to choose between paying rent and buying medication.
The Senate backed off its changes to the bill before approving it 36-0 and sending it to the governor. Beshear has voiced concern about the high costs of insulin.
This story was originally published March 16, 2021 at 11:32 AM.
