A lawmaking session that started with a sexual harassment scandal and featured a monthslong fight over pension reform ended Saturday, leaving behind raw feelings after a public showdown between Kentucky teachers and their elected officials.
Here’s what happened with the key issues and controversial proposals the legislature debated during the 2018 session.
Pension reform
Republican leaders made it clear that enacting pension reform was a top (and tough) priority they intended to achieve this year. When state senators unveiled an initial pension reform bill, Senate Bill 1, educators and their unions quickly expressed concern with certain provisions, such as reduced cost-of-living adjustments for retired teachers.
Legislators made revisions, but SB 1 appeared to be on life support by late March. Then, on March 29, Republican lawmakers unveiled and passed an updated pension bill, prompting a massive protest by teachers and their allies in Frankfort.
The pension bill incorporated some things teachers wanted, like preserving the cost-of-living adjustments, but included other unpopular changes to educators’ pension plans. Gov. Matt Bevin, who criticized teachers repeatedly for protesting, ultimately signed it into law.
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Tax reform
Republican lawmakers released and passed a tax reform bill in a single day earlier this month. It institutes a flat, 5 percent income tax rate for individuals and companies in the commonwealth. It also levies sales taxes on a variety of previously untaxed services and raises the tax on packs of cigarettes.
Bevin vetoed the tax bill and said the reforms must be more comprehensive. However, the legislature overrode his veto Friday. Legislators approved tweaks to the billSaturday after Toyota and others raised concerns about some of its original provisions.
Democrats argued that the reforms will increase the tax burden on poor Kentuckians to give tax cuts to the wealthy. GOP legislators insisted the changes will benefit Kentuckians of varying income levels and said the reforms are necessary to ensure the state has enough money to cover the needs of public schools.
The state budget
Like pension reform, debates over the development of the state’s 2018-20 budget largely revolved around concerns about public education.
Teachers rallied in Frankfort not only to oppose changes to their pensions but also to urge lawmakers to protect public schools from significant budget reductions.
The legislature overrode Bevin’s veto Friday, ensuring its budget would become law.
Public education isn’t completely spared from fiscal cuts for the next two fiscal years, but the new budget increases the amount of per-student funding Kentucky schools receive and preserves the state’s current level of funding for school transportation.
Abortion
A bill to ban a type of abortion known as dilation and evacuation, or D&E, except in cases of medical emergency, was passed by the legislature and signed by Bevin. But when it passed, opponents warned that it was unconstitutional and wouldn’t withstand a court challenge.
The ACLU sued, and a federal judge has blocked the new law’s enforcement until a hearing in June.
The procedure is generally performed after 11 weeks of pregnancy and accounted for 537 of about 3,300 abortions performed in Kentucky in 2016, according to state statistics.
Two states — West Virginia and Mississippi — have bans on D&E abortion procedures that are currently in effect. Others have had their laws temporarily halted pending a final court decision or permanently stopped by court order, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Solar power
Few measures took more twists and turns than House Bill 227, which threatened rooftop solar power in Kentucky by rolling back reimbursements for homeowners who use the technology.
Utility companies lobbied for the measure, saying it’s unfair to allow residents to get a credit from companies like LG&E at the retail rate for any extra electricity their solar panels produce. Legislators worked on revisions, and a later version would have let the state Public Service Commission decide the rates.
Environmentalists opposed the bill, saying it would endanger Kentucky’s solar power industry as an alternative energy source.
The legislature did not approve HB 227 before it adjourned Saturday, leaving the controversial measure on the session’s cutting room floor. Legislators are likely to consider this issue again in the future, though.
Medical marijuana
House Bill 166 would have let patients diagnosed with certain medical conditions use marijuana. It was backed by a bipartisan group of lawmakers but stalled in committee.
Rep. Jason Nemes, a Louisville Republican who sponsored the bill and worked to tweak it in hopes of gaining more legislative support, said its proponents would redouble their efforts for the 2019 session.
“This is something that needs to pass,” he said. “Kentucky’s ready for it.”
Gangs
The legislature approved a controversial measure to crack down on gangs though opponents had called for a racial impact study.
House Bill 169 stiffens penalties for offenders if gang activity is shown to be a factor in their crime. It makes gang recruitment a felony rather than a misdemeanor for adults and requires gang members convicted of violent crimes to serve 85 percent of their sentences before parole is an option.
Sen. Gerald Neal, D-Louisville, said during the debate that ignoring his request for a racial impact study was irresponsible and that his colleagues are telling people those concerns do not matter.
The bill is now on Bevin’s desk.
Charter schools and school choice
One of the most hotly debated laws the legislature passed last year was a measure that allows publicly funded charter schools to open in Kentucky.
This year, however, lawmakers passed a 2018-2020 budget that does not include state money for charter schools. That move pleased many people who want traditional public schools to be fully funded but not school-choice advocates.
The legislature also didn’t approve a program that would offer tax credits to people and businesses that donate money toward private-school scholarships.
Supporters said these tax credits would help children from low-income households or foster care and kids with special needs make it to the front of the line for scholarship aid. Critics opposed using the state’s limited revenue in that way.
Guns in schools
January’s fatal shooting at Marshall County High School in Benton, Kentucky, happened in the midst of the legislative session. Two students died and 14 people were shot.
In March, students from Marshall County High and other schools rallied against gun violence at the Capitol and called for more regulations. New gun restrictions didn’t gain much traction in the legislature this year, but neither did a couple of proposals that would have allowed more guns on school campuses.
One bill would’ve let public school boards and private schools appoint school marshals who could store (and use) a gun on campus in order to protect other people, but it stalled in the Senate.
Another measure would have prohibited the state’s publicly funded colleges and universities from restricting someone’s ability to possess a gun on campus as long as that person has a license to carry a concealed deadly weapon. It stalled in the House.
State elections
A bill to change the election year for Kentucky’s governor and other state constitutional officers, such as the attorney general and secretary of state, shot out of the Senate in early January but stalled in the House.
Senate Bill 4 would have moved the election of state officers to even-numbered years to align them with presidential elections, starting in 2024. Because it would require a constitutional amendment, it needed 60 votes to get out of the House and would have gone on the ballot in November for voters to decide.
To make the transition, state candidates elected in 2019, including the governor, would have served five-year, rather than four-year, terms. However, the measure died in the House when the session ended Saturday.
Sexual harassment
Despite the sexual harassment scandal involving former Kentucky House Speaker Jeff Hoover, the legislature didn’t pass any measures to address the issue.
Senate President Robert Stivers said that the lack of new laws on sexual harassment doesn’t mean he and other officials are ignoring the issue. “We need to make sure that we understand the problems,” he said. “We want to get it right.”
Bevin indicated the scandal disrupted the legislature and its efforts to enact pension reforms. “The only reason we did not have a special session last year is because Jeff Hoover, a married man, was sexually involved with a very young, single member of his staff and was paying hush money to hide his actions … The result was chaos in the KY House that stopped everything,” the governor tweeted in April.
Hoover and the woman have denied any sexual relations, and Hoover denied ever having harassed anyone. He settled an ethics complaint in the case last week.
Under the terms of the agreement, Hoover acknowledged he had violated state statute in engaging in text message banter with the woman. He also will pay a $1,000 fine and receive a public reprimand from the legislature’s ethics board.
Reporters Tom Loftus, Mandy McLaren and Phillip Bailey contributed to this report.
Morgan Watkins: 502-582-4502; [email protected]; Twitter: @morganwatkins26. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: www.courier-journal.com/morganw.
