As budget debate looms, transparency dominates day one of Kentucky legislature

FRANKFORT — The biggest question of Kentucky’s 2024 General Assembly remains how lawmakers plan to build the next two-year budget. But the debate Tuesday, the first day of the session, centered around transparency.

Lawmakers in both chambers on both sides of the aisle spoke out amid a vote to maintain rules used in previous years to approve laws, with some questioning whether the current system is open to the public — and to those elected to represent the public.

Those concerns were outlined in a recent report by the Kentucky League of Women Voters that found lawmakers have "increasingly fast-tracked legislation in ways that make it difficult or impossible for citizens, journalists, and fellow legislators to review and comment on important and sometimes controversial bills" through methods such as replacing bills with substitute versions on short notice and fast-tracking the voting process.

Rep. Rachel Roarx, D-Louisville, and Rep. Savannah Maddox, R-Dry Ridge, were voices of opposition in the House after Speaker David Osborne, R-Prospect, put forward a resolution to keep rules used during the 2023 session in place. Roarx questioned why the League's report was not considered when the resolution was drafted, as the analysis "made it very clear" there were issues with current rules, while Maddox said discussing the “rules that are going to govern this process” is important.

In the other chamber, meanwhile, Sen. Reginald Thomas, D-Lexington, suggested that adoption of the Senate rules should be postponed in light of transparency concerns and proposed a few recommendations to change the process, including having three full readings of a bill before it is brought to the floor.

"We should not forget that we’re here on one purpose, and one purpose only — to serve the public,” Thomas said.

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Chamber leaders, though, pushed back. Osborne said the League's study was flawed due in part to a narrow selection of sessions that were analyzed, while Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, said current rules existed decades ago while Democrats held the majority.

“For some reason, the League of Women Voters decided they want to start complaining about it now," Stivers said. "I haven’t figured out where they were 25 years ago.”

The resolution passed overwhelmingly in both chambers, which will meet again Wednesday afternoon ahead of Gov. Andy Beshear's State of the Commonwealth address in the evening.

Budget expectations

Beshear laid out his state budget proposal in late December. But the House and Senate will approve the plan that eventually lands on his desk, and Osborne said it's still a work in progress that will likely be unveiled "within the next week."

Beshear's budget plan will be considered before the legislature puts together its proposal, Osborne said, and there will likely be some overlap in priorities. Stivers agreed, though he said there will be differences in what Beshear proposed and what will eventually pass through the chambers.

"We're going to pass a budget. Is it going to be everything the governor wants? Probably not," Stivers said.

The budget is the highest priority of the legislature this year, Osborne said — "as President Stivers always says, it is kind of the ultimate policy document." The GOP proposal could dip into the billions of dollars currently stowed away in the state's Rainy Day Fund, a potential move touted in a press conference earlier Tuesday by the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, but the goal is to keep spending at a reasonable level.

"We will continue to be very pragmatic, very fiscally conservative in our budgeting, but also understand that there are places that we can and should invest," Osborne said.

Constitutional officers sworn in

Before the House and Senate convened for the first day of the session, Kentucky’s new slate of constitutional officers took part in a ceremonial swearing-in event in the rotunda, with U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in attendance.

Five Republicans — Michael Adams (secretary of state), Allison Ball (auditor), Russell Coleman (attorney general), Mark Metcalf (treasurer) and Jonathan Shell (agriculture commissioner) — won their elections in November and have assumed office following the ceremony. Beshear, who defeated GOP challenger and outgoing Attorney General Daniel Cameron, was the only Democrat to win a statewide office in the 2023 election.

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Kentucky General Assembly 2024 schedule

Lawmakers will meet in Frankfort for a total of 60 days, ending April 15. Meetings are held Monday through Friday, with holidays on Martin Luther King Jr. Day (Jan. 15) and Presidents' Day (Feb. 19). The last day a bill can be filed in the House is Feb. 26, while the last day a bill can be filed in the Senate is Feb. 28.

The House and Senate are not scheduled to meet March 29 and April 9, but legislators have two days after that period, April 12 and April 15, to meet and potentially override any vetoes issued during that time.

The full 2024 calendar is available as a PDF on the Kentucky General Assembly website.

Reach Lucas Aulbach at laulbach@courier-journal.com. Reach Rachel Smith at rksmith@courier-journal.com.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky legislature: General Assembly meets to open 2024 session