Trumpian cruelty comes for Kentucky civil rights through new GOP bill | Opinion
Just last week, I was thinking about how the GOP supermajority had been relatively restrained so far — more commonsense policy legislation like school finances and nuclear power, less general skullduggery and culture war flaming.
Another Pollyanna sent to the corner. On Wednesday, the GOP sent out a bill to basically decimate all environmental regulation to follow in the steps of their Dear Leader. And also following the spirit of Trump, they passed the bill of Rep. Daniel Elliott, R-Danville, which purported to do one thing while it actually did many more things besides.
I’m speaking, of course, about the House Judiciary Committee’s passage of House Bill 468, which reporter John Cheves wrote about in his own inimitable style:
“Elliott initially described his bill to the committee as an effort to update the Kentucky Civil Rights Act so that it reflects new language used in the federal Americans with Disabilities Act,” Cheves wrote.
“The bill does that.
It also — as Elliott acknowledged when questioned — would severely erode the authority of the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights and the 22 local human rights commissions in places like Lexington, Louisville, Richmond, Berea, Frankfort, Paris, Danville and Georgetown.”
The bill would allow the commissions to exist in name only. But it would take away any power to adjudicate discrimination claims. For that, Elliott said, just take it to court.
“The reason that I am proposing this is I believe that the right to a jury trial, which is enshrined in the Kentucky Constitution and enshrined in our Seventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, is the appropriate forum for these complaints,” the bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Daniel Elliott, R-Danville, said Wednesday in committee.
Sure thing. Let’s not mince words: this is our new Trumpian reality, where LGBTQ people, people of color, poor people or anyone marginalized should be stripped of as many protections as possible. If systemic racism doesn’t exist, as Republicans insist, then why should people have local recourse to fight against it?
“Accessing the courts is a very expensive proposition,” former legislator and retired Fayette Circuit Court Judge Ernesto Scorsone told me. “To say that’s the only way you can find relief for a violation of your rights is really bad public policy.”
In retirement, Scorsone works in court-order mediation, the idea that many disputes can be resolved outside of a courtroom.
“It’s a valuable process to try to avoid the expense, trauma and delays that are inherent in the legal system,” he said. “We try to avoid and mediate and resolve issues. The human rights commission is a wonderful tool to deal with these matters in a more efficient, less expensive process.”
Daniel Elliott is a lawyer, so he knows this perfectly well. In addition, I can’t imagine the courts are going to welcome more cases in their already overwhelmed dockets. But then again, in these political times, the cruelty is the point.
The bill passed committee in a 16-to-0 vote, with two Democrats “passing” on the vote (which seems weird), especially as one of them, Rep. Pam Stevenson, D-Louisville, asked a pertinent question: “So where do people go who have no money and no ability to navigate the system?”
The answer, Scorsone said, is clear.
“As a practical matter,” he said, “if you don’t have an avenue to protect your rights, then your rights really don’t exist.”
This story was originally published February 26, 2026 at 12:24 PM with the headline "Trumpian cruelty comes for Kentucky civil rights through new GOP bill | Opinion."
