Every general assembly, the Kentucky House and the Kentucky Senate release bills numbered one through five that are supposed to reflect the priorities of the leadership in each chamber. The majority party gets to do that because they are in charge, and those numbers are traditionally reserved for the bills they think are the most important.
Last year, for example, one of the top bills was a bill addressing school safety. There was no funding for it, since it was not a budget year, but at least it was a comprehensive look at dealing with safety within our public schools. Most people felt that even if the bill had some flaws, it was a worthy bill to be labeled Senate Bill 1.
This year, in contrast, we see cynical, election-year politics taking precedence over the problems of our state.
- Senate Bill 1 in this year’s General Assembly, put forward by the Republicans as their TOP priority for this year out of ALL the possible problems they could address, is to prevent cities from enacting sanctuary policies – even though we have no sanctuary cities in Kentucky. When asked about it, the sponsor of the bill said “Well, we just want to be sure to prevent it from happening.”
- Senate Bill 2 is a voter ID bill to prevent in-person voter fraud — even though the Secretary of State admits there have been no recorded instances of in-person voter fraud in Kentucky.
- House Bill 1 is a bill designed to limit and cut back benefits for poor people, and includes lifetime bans on ALL benefits if you break a rule in ONE of them. So, break one rule at 18, and when you are 70 and need Medicaid to pay for your nursing home, you can’t get it.
There is no way that anybody with a grain of sense can believe these are the top problems facing our state. What about our schools and colleges? What about the opioid crisis? What about raising more revenue? What about the climate crisis, or rural unemployment, or growing inequality?
Apparently, none of those issues are important to the Republicans in Frankfort.
Instead, it is obvious these bills were put forward by Republican leadership for two very simple reasons:
- To give Republicans a chance to vote FOR the bills so they can prove to their base that they are “good” Republicans;
- And, to force the Democrats to vote AGAINST the bills, so their vote can be used in campaign commercials and ads this fall.
Now, make no mistake – these bills aren’t just for show. They are real bills, that can cause real harm, and could actually become law. HB 1, for example, has been compared to the draconian HB 3 of last session, and if passed would have far-reaching negative consequences.
The frustrating thing, of course, is that while we work to stop these bad bills, the REAL problems facing our state are not being addressed. We only have 60 working days to deal with 946 bills (and counting), AND craft a budget. Why in hell are we spending time on sanctuary cities and voter ID when we can’t repair our roads or fund our colleges?
I am not one of those people who believes that all Republicans are all bad, all the time. There are some good bills working their way through the process, and some of them are sponsored and championed by Republicans.
But the level of cynicism shown in these Republican priority bills is depressing. Given a chance to address real problems, Republican leadership instead chose to use their priority bill slots to make political statements and set up “gotcha” votes.
They put their campaigns over their constituents, and wasted time and money to play political games.
No wonder everyday citizens are increasingly cynical about politics and public service. They are merely following the lead of the leadership in Frankfort.
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