These bad bills show how state lawmakers waste their time and your tax dollars
This coming Tuesday, we will know the holidays are really over by the trail of cars heading to Frankfort from all corners of Kentucky. It’s time to get down to the very serious business of the General Assembly.
Or it would be if we could take it more seriously. This is the legislative body, after all, that has done a fine bipartisan job of over the past two decades avoiding serious tax reform at the same time they watched their public pension system drip down the drain and one of most equitable school funding systems in the nation turn upside down. And don’t forget the de-funding of public colleges and universities.
To that end, this column is going to start a Bad Bill Watch, just to show you what legislators are working on when they could be addressing issues of substance and consequence. It’s not about party or philosophy, it’s an examination of the political pandering, self-dealing and downright nonsense that’s paid for with your tax dollars every year.
It’s true that we can be proud that no Kentucky legislator has yet filed a bill to require doctors to “reimplant” ectopic pregnancies, a procedure which is actually impossible except in the mind of one Ohio medical expert/lawmaker. But just to ease into it, we’ll look at two bills that manage to create legislative difficulties for universities and schools even though they are completely unnecessary. They do manage to pander to extremists who believe there are brown and transgender people, teeming around every turn, waiting to either take your college degree or use your bathroom. They add that little dash of cruelty, too, that some politicians find so appealing.
House Bill 1020 has the very grand title of the “Kentucky School Privacy Act,” known more commonly as the Bathroom Bill. In it, Rep. David Hale, R-Wellington, seeks to protect our precious lambs from the apparent hordes of transgender students clamoring to use the bathroom at school. The bill would uphold the very fine Republican tradition of favoring local control by ...oh wait, never mind. Actually, the bill would require that students use the bathroom of the gender they were born with. Because that’s what overworked and underpaid school administrators need to worry about. Remember back in 2016, what a well-credentialed Republican said about another bathroom bill in Kentucky?
“Why? Why would we? Why would anybody need it? Is it an issue? Is there anyone you know in Kentucky who has trouble going to the bathroom?” asked former Gov. Matt Bevin, who once in a blue moon would say something that actually made sense and didn’t insult anyone. “Seriously. Have you heard of one person in Kentucky having trouble taking care of business in Kentucky?”
Maybe Bevin was the only one paying attention to what happened when North Carolina attempted a bathroom bill. Remember when all those sports teams and big businesses decided to go elsewhere? Kentucky’s not exactly known for its inclusivity, thanks to Kim Davis, etc., but it doesn’t need any more help making people feel unwanted.
Bevin went on to say: “the last thing we need is more government rules.”
Except, of course, when politicians enact more of them to convince their constituents that some nonexistent threat lurks nearby. Generally speaking, the best people to decide how to deal with bathroom issues at a school are the students, teachers and administrators at that school, experts who will now have to travel to Frankfort to try to talk some common sense into the people who ostensibly represent them.
Rep. Hale has only signed on to two prefiled bills so far, and the next is House Bill 240, which is all about the nonexistent threat of “sanctuary cities.” Nonexistent because there are no “sanctuary cities” in Kentucky. The Trump administration actually ruled that Louisville was not a sanctuary city. In Lexington, for example, local police consult with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency on questions of immigration, although they only assist them in actual raids with a court order. (This information came from a story titled “Is Lexington a sanctuary city? No.) In 227 years, Kentucky has not had a sanctuary city, but now we’re going to write some burdensome regulation to make sure no one does in the future.
But there’s more. The bill would also block the paltry amounts of state funding that public colleges and universities receive if they don’t check and block the immigration status of all students. University of Kentucky officials declined to comment on the bill, but you can be sure they and others will be keeping a sharp eye to see if it moves anywhere at all. They’re desperately trying to increase student enrollment, not shoving aside some kid from Menifee County to make room for one from Mexico. That’s just not how it works.
I know people are scared of people who are different than they are, but I’d love to see the evidence of exactly how immigrants are hurting our jobs, our schools or our lives. Yes, we need better immigration laws at the federal level that let more people legally enter and work in this country. In the meantime, House Bill 240 is a total waste of time for legislators who could be worrying about our pensions, our schools, our water systems, the quality of the air we breathe. Or what if they asked why 54 defenseless children died from abuse and neglect last year even though they were part of the state’s child protective services? What if they did something about that?
Do you have nominations for the Bad Bill Watch? Send them along at lblackford@herald-leader.com.
This story was originally published December 31, 2019 at 11:30 AM.
