We are now at the midpoint of the legislative session. I am sitting here on the senate floor starting to type this update. Today we also only have 1 bill to vote on, SB 151, which is to help kinship families acting in lieu of foster homes still access resources we would ordinarily provide to foster families.
Last week the news went a bit wild around my Voter ID bill, SB 80, which eliminates credit cards from approved IDs and removes student IDs from the primary government-issued ID list. The funniest part about the whole week was when we were voting on the senate floor, and I called out the media that sits inches away from me as “fake news,” as they had been misrepresenting the bill all week since I had presented it in committee. I challenged the media sitting right in front of me to quote me calling them fake and to fix their reporting. After the floor debate and passage, the Courier-Journal DID quote my whole statement calling them “fake news” and every news outlet I have seen has reported with 100% accuracy ever since!
A couple of senators asked me today about some of the bills I have already filed. One was the emergency powers bill, SB 133. Everyone remembers the covid era shutdowns, and then our solution in 2021 was to limit it to 30 days. But we did not protect much within the first 30 days, and there is really no basis to allow most of the extreme items that are in the law that even covid did not use. This bill eliminates the property seizures, curfews, bans on food sales, and more that most people do not even realize is in our current law because they have never seen anything so draconian.
Another bill I got asked about today is my poultry farm production, SB 156. This would allow local farmers to actually make a profitable business by cutting their costs in half through on-site production.
Speaking of animals, I co-sponsored a bill today allowing Murray University to have a Veterinarian program. They have talked about the lack of veterinarians for large farm animals, and currently no schools in Kentucky offer training in this field.
We have an agreement with Alabama to allow in-state tuition to our students we send to Auburn. Clearly this is well past a need, considering that our state has many large animals in it! In fact, in my district, Henry county is proudly the home of more cattle than people!
A project I helped facilitate starting yesterday was wordsmithing a constitutional amendment relating to freezing property tax for seniors over the age of 65. One thing I think has not been done well up here is getting the ballot language smooth and easy for the readers and the courts both. Attorneys like to write things so that a court cannot read it any differently. However, that has created many confusing clauses for general reading, and that is not a good situation when our government is made of, by, and for the people. I cannot take the credit for coming up with the language that is currently being worked on, but I am happy to see that what we really should be doing is actually going on. This vote has not happened for nearly 2 weeks because of the wording confusion, and although it has greatly improved, we know it can be better. This should be a pattern for all constitutional drafting because the constitution really is a different universe than regular drafting of laws.
I am happy the traffic of visitors has picked up this last week or so. Please let me know when you would like to visit! And always reach out on any issues at Adrienne.southworth@lrc.ky.gov.