In the spring of 2023, Gov. Andy Besher vetoed the controversial Senate bill 150 – which, among other things, bans gender-affirming care for those under 18 and dictates how schools and teachers can address sex education and gender identity.
Just a few days later, the Legislature overrode his vetoes. And so the law went into effect in March, with many Northern Kentucky school leaders having discussions about how it will impact the way they interact with students.
“I really feel like if you keep the focus on what’s best for the kid, regardless of what the policy is, you’re going to do what’s right by them,” Ludlow Superintendent Mike Borchers said.
With Republicans holding supermajorities in both the Senate and the House, the Legislature wields some control over the governor, according to University of Kentucky political science professor Stephen Voss. However, he said that Kentucky governors have historically held more power than their peers in other states.
“The most important source of gubernatorial strength has been the short legislative sessions required by Kentucky’s constitution, combined with the governor’s monopoly over when the state can hold special sessions and what legislation those sessions could consider,” he said.
However, during Beshear’s tenure – with supermajorities in both chambers of the Legislature – Republicans have dictated more of the legislative agenda than usual in the state. During the 2022 legislative session, they upstaged the governor by releasing their budget ahead of Beshear – a first in Kentucky history.
“Kentucky governors do have one major limitation on their power, which is that veto overrides only require majority support in the legislative chambers,” Voss said. “Now that the governor represents a different party from the Legislature, veto overrides suddenly have become a major feature in Kentucky politics, eroding gubernatorial power compared to when the governor was the highest-ranking member of the party controlling the legislative branch.”
That is why, despite Beshear’s veto of SB 150, the law went into effect in the spring and schools across Northern Kentucky are now making sure they adhere to the new mandates with kids back in school.
Another SB 150 policy deals with allowing parents to challenge the presence of controversial books in schools.
“I’ve had several parents, staff members, concerned members of the community reach out about these particular policies,” Covington Independent School Board President Tom Haggard told LINK nky. “It’s just general concerns that we continue to target a particularly vulnerable community, and policies like this just continue to exacerbate differences between students, which we really don’t need to do.”
During the last two legislative sessions, Republicans have exerted control, overriding the governor’s veto on major legislation – with SB 150 as one example, along with an omnibus abortion bill.
Beshear, on the other hand, exercised his power during the pandemic when he issued executive orders to close businesses to prevent the spread of COVID-19. With legislators unable to call themselves back into session – something they attempted to change via a failed 2022 constitutional amendment – they were left on the sidelines until the Legislature could reconvene.
“For most of the year, Kentucky governors could exploit their discretion, especially their emergency powers, to set policy without needing to consult with elected representatives,” Voss said. “Kentucky’s part-time legislators typically lack both the resources and the time necessary to rival the executive branch’s policy knowledge and influence.
“Kentucky’s legislative branch periodically tries to gain some policy leverage over the governor, for example, by funding a relatively professional Legislative Research Commission and by organizing interim committees so that they will be ready to hit the ground running when legislative sessions officially start.”
But for the first time, in 2022, Republicans saw statewide party registration flip over Democrats. Typically, the latter party has held power in Kentucky, though Kentucky Democrats have been more conservative than elsewhere in the country. Kentucky Democrats have traditionally been anti-abortion, for example.
“The governor’s lopsided power mostly relied on the same party, generally the Democratic Party, dominating the statewide elected offices and the General Assembly,” Voss said. “Kentucky’s recent shift toward divided government, not just between the executive and legislative branch but also across the statewide constitutional offices, undercut some of the reasons why governors could dominate the state.”
Voss thinks that if a Republican wins the office in November, the power that has shifted toward the Legislature and other constitutional seats – attorney general, agriculture commissioner, secretary of state, state auditor, treasurer – could be transferred back toward the governor’s office.
“Republican legislators have used their supermajority to pass legislation that shifts the balance of power in their direction, but so far they have used their new strength modestly, overruling Gov. Beshear on specific policies but only eroding the power of the governor’s office modestly,” Voss said. “Should a Republican take the governor’s mansion, I would expect that we will see the pendulum shift back toward strong governors, although probably not to what Kentucky used to have in the late 20th century.”
Another issue likely to affect Northern Kentucky when it comes to the governor’s race is charter schools. In 2022, the Legislature passed a charter school funding mechanism bill that also determined that two areas in the state would get pilot charter schools – Northern Kentucky and Louisivlle.
During the 2023 general election, local and outside groups have attacked Beshear over school choice and charter schools.
Beshear vetoed the charter school funding bill in 2022 and said charter schools create “potential haves versus have-nots.”
But, the Legislature overrode Beshear’s veto, and the project in NKY moved forward until Northern Kentucky University declined to be the authorizer, leaving the project in limbo.
Beshear’s opponent, Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron, has said that he supports school choice and boosting public education – two ideas that Democrats say can’t coexist, he argues.