The Kentucky General Assembly convened today for the first day of the 30-day legislative session. Here are the highlights:
Bill Introductions and Actions
The Senate took procedural actions to give readings to six priority bills including SB 4 (campaign finance) and SB 5 (move state elections to even years), both of which will be heard in the Senate State and Local Government Committee on Wednesday. On Thursday the Senate Education Committee will meet to consider SB 3 which was also given a reading and deals with principal selection and site-based decision-making councils along with SB 8 which also was given its first reading and deals with teacher tribunal reform. Tomorrow we anticipate that the Senate will introduce SB 1, which will include recommendations from the School Safety Task Force.
There were 63 bills introduced in the Senate and 121 bills introduced in the House today. Many were prefiled bills, but there were some new bills. We have reviewed the bills and added them to lists by subject matter and those can be accessed at the links below, which will be updated with new bills and actions nightly:
Swearing In & House District 13
Today's action was highlighted by the swearing in of the 138 members of the General Assembly, as well as the formal election of the Speaker and Speaker Pro Tem in the House and President and President Pro Tem in the Senate. In addition to these expected procedural actions, the House dealt with a challenge to the election results in House District 13 (Owensboro). D.J. Johnson, the incumbent, challenged the election outcome where he lost to by one vote to Jim Glenn. Glenn was seated in the House today, but the House Leadership appointed a committee to make a recommendation on the challenge to the election results. The nine-member committee was chosen by a random drawing of names and resulted in six Republicans and three Democrats charged with making a recommendation to the full House. The committee met for the first time this evening and elected Rep. Jason Petrie as the chair. They are scheduled to meet again tomorrow.
Resources
As part of this Organizational Session, the legislature will be finalizing committee chairmanships and committee assignments as well as the committee meeting schedules. Here are a few of the resources available thus far:
We will update you with additional information as it's made available.
You're Invited!
Join us for our annual Welcome Back to Frankfort Legislative Reception Wednesday night from 5pm to 7pm at the Government Strategies office (229 Shelby Street in Frankfort). We hope to see you there!
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