The Democratic minority in the Kentucky House made a point on Friday, and the Republicans didn’t like it.
HB 475 is a constitutional amendment that gives the General Assembly the ability to allow new forms of local taxation. (It doesn’t put any new taxes in place; it just gives the legislature the right in the future to approve new types of taxes, when then local governments could institute.)
As a constitutional amendment, it requires 60 votes in the House to pass, rather than a simple majority. And since it had 55 co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle, it seemed certain to have those 60 votes.
Until it didn’t.
Having grown increasingly frustrated with being frozen out of various discussions, including the ones on the budget, a number of House Dems didn’t vote at all on the final vote, including some of the bill’s sponsors. Thus, the bill only got 49 votes, and failed to pass.
To be clear, there are enough Republicans in the chamber to have passed the bill with no help from the Dems. But, since some of the Repubs opposed the bill, the bill’s chief sponsor and the House leadership were counting on the Dems to vote with them to get the bill passed. When the Dems abstained, almost to a person, there was shock and anger in the chamber.
Joni Jenkins, the minority leader, made it clear what the problem was. She noted that multiple Republicans had told Democrats in the chamber that their votes didn’t matter, didn’t count. Her response? “We do count. EVERY member counts.”
There was also some indication that the Democratic caucus had warned the Republican leadership that they weren’t going to have the votes, and shouldn’t bring the bill up for a vote. They did anyway, then proceeded to be angry that it failed.
Under parliamentary rules, the bill can be called again IF one of the people voting against it asks for it to be voted on. (The Aye side cannot bring it up again.)
You can see the final vote tally, by legislator, here.
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