BY ANNIE ANDERSEN KENTUCKY
FRANKFORT– With the legislative session just a few days from starting in Kentucky, House Democrats say their caucus is united and ready for the coming session.
In the House, Republicans hold a super majority and have a set agenda of priorities. Democrats, on the other hand, do not.
However, Minority Leader Representative Rocky Adkins says Democrats will be working hard throughout the session. “In the minority, you have a role to play and we’re going to play that role with a very firm voice and with very firm actions. We’ll have an agenda to continue to speak up for public education, teachers, those that work in the education community, public employees. We’ll continue to speak up loudly for working families across this great Commonwealth that people need to be paid a good wage to be able to put food on the table, a roof over their head and continue to build a strong economy.”
The Democrat from Rowan County says Democrats will be passionate about stopping any possible funding for charter schools, saying it doesn’t make sense to take money from public schools where they are already having budget issues.
Adkins says while bills that have been sponsored by Democrats may not get much attention, he does’t have a big problem with that since he says the short session isn’t for passing large numbers of new bills. “Short sessions, when they were passed by the people several years ago, basically were put in place to make modifications and adjustments. Wasn’t meant to be like the 60 day session, the budget session,” explained Adkins.
However, there are some issues he hopes to work with Republicans on, including infrastructure. Majority leader, Representative John “Bam” Carney said infrastructure is on the agenda for the session, but it is something they are doing to appease Governor Matt Bevin.
Another issue where Adkins hopes to work in a bipartisan manner is on medical marijuana, but again he might be disappointed. Carney said as the bill will have an uphill battle in the Senate, it may not even get called to the floor.
Where the two parties do agree is when it comes to fixing a tax bill passed by Republicans in the 2018 session. Adkins said, “Very bad bill was passed in the last session that basically raised service taxes on seventeen different items, one of those was even on non-profits. I know there’s been a bill introduced to try and fix that. I think that’s a bipartisan measure that needs to be passed. Once that we could work with the Republicans on. But that was a bad bill because basically it was a a regressive tax, one that was passed behind closed doors.”
Democrats have filed a number of bills, but Adkins says he knows it isn’t likely Democrats will see all of their goals come to fruition, but he says he hopes it will be a good session.
