Baker, Girdler talk 2024 Kentucky legislative session

Jan. 5—This year's Kentucky General Assembly has been in session since Tuesday. But so far, they're down one senator from Somerset.

Family comes first, and after a December car accident in which he broke his foot, State Senator Rick Girdler has been busy taking care of his wife Sara, who suffered more substantial injuries in the wreck, and has not yet made the trip to Frankfort.

"I told them I'd be there the 16th," said Girdler, who serves Senate District 15, including Pulaski, Clinton, Cumberland, Russell and Wayne Counties. "I'm having to get her to the doctor and back. ... They know that (in Frankfort). They said to take care of her before you take care of anything else."

Girdler said that when he arrives, he'd like to introduce legislation allowing retired military veterans to take a brief training course that would allow them to become School Resource Officers.

Also, said Girdler, he has a bill in the works that would allow LLC (Limited Liability Companies) to represent themselves in matters of eviction.

This year is the long session for Kentucky legislators — 60 days, as opposed to the 30-day sessions that take place in odd-numbered years. It will last until mid-April and likely focus heavily on the state budget.

Somerset's Shane Baker, the District 85 State Representative who serves portions of Pulaski and Laurel Counties, has been in Frankfort for the start of the session, and said that the first week is often filled with "a lot of busy work," going over required annual trainings and making preparations to file bills.

So far, Baker has filed two pieces of legislation. One, he said, was on behalf of the Somerset Police Department (SPD), addressing mandatory minimum sentences for fleeing and evading police.

"That's become a bigger issue in recent years," said Baker. "I found out during this process (of working with SPD on the bill) that there was a young child killed (elsewhere in Kentucky) last year when someone was fleeing the police."

The other piece of legislation was a resolution to name a road in Laurel County in honor of a recently deceased World War II veteran named Dan Hale; "He was a really good guy," said Baker.

He's also working on "a couple of different things," some of which may take more time than this session allows.

"I'm trying to work on some things to make the teaching profession more fruitful and enjoyable, taking some of the burdens off our teachers," said Baker. "There have been a lot of conversations about shortages in education, health care and law enforcement, and that's prompted me to start looking at some different things to determine what we can do to take away some of the red tape and some of the busy work that's put upon on our teachers all the time, to free them up to actually just teach. If they can focus on teaching and safety, I think they'll be more satisfied in their jobs, and believe the children will have better outcomes."

Other bills in the works from Baker deal with age verification for adult content websites and protection of children in an educational setting, he said.

Baker noted that the budget will be "priority one" this year but everyone in the GOP-controlled legislature has their own individual priorities as well.

"I think 'expect' may be a strong word," said Baker when asked if he expected things this time to go smoothly. "You always hope that things go smoothly, and there will always be some bumps."

Added Girdler, "The session will go good. The things that will get done, the budgetary items are very important and that's what you'll see more of than anything."

The theme in Frankfort in recent years has been the loggerheads between the governor (Democrat Andy Beshear) and the legislature and every constitutional state office, all Republicans. A common Republican theme on the campaign trail during last year's elections was that economic gains in the state that had been achieved through legislation were claimed by Beshear as his own accomplishments.

Beshear delivered a State of the Commonwealth address on Wednesday and talked of this being a "chance to push away the division" in state government. However, neither Baker nor Girdler felt that was likely to happen.

"I think it's going about like expected," said Girdler of the legislative session. "I didn't listen to the governor's speech but I pretty well knew what was going to be said there. He was gonna take credit for things that he had nothing to do with and say that we're in this together."

Girdler added that while he agrees that "we are in this together," he followed by showing frustration that even while Beshear said that, the governor put together a task force to address anti-semitism that Girdler felt was lacking in Republican representation.

Baker offered a similar take: "I think the Republican legislature will pass good legislation, I think the commonwealth will be better for the things that we do — and there's some things that I'm sure that will happen that I don't really agree with. And at the end of the day, the governor will take credit for all of it."