Senate President Robert Stivers sat with reporters over coffee early one recent Tuesday and reminisced about the last time Democrats controlled the Kentucky Senate.
It was January 1997 and Stivers, then a 30-something lawyer from Clay County, had just been elected in 1996 for the first time to what was then a Republican Senate minority. Being a GOP state senator wasn’t expected to catapult Stivers anywhere close to political stardom. After all, the GOP didn’t have much, if any, power in state politics at the time. The last Kentucky GOP governor was Louie Nunn in the late 1960s. Both the Senate and House were Democratic strongholds.
That was about to change.
Minutes after Stivers was sworn into office that first day of the 1997 legislative session, a group of Senate Republicans joined with a handful of Democrats to oust then-Senate President John “Eck” Rose, a Winchester Democrat.
“I walked in, and five Democrats who had been disenfranchised from their caucus partnered with 17 Republicans to declare the seat of the Senate president vacant. And that was my first vote” Stivers told reporters at Goodwood restaurant in Frankfort. “It was intense.”
More than that, it was historic. Republicans secured a share of Senate committee chairmanships in exchange for helping Democrats orchestrate the coup. It was the first time Republican lawmakers had any real control over bills that came to a Senate vote. A few years later in 2000, Republicans took control of the chamber as the Senate majority party.
It took another 17 years for the GOP to take the House but, in 2017, it happened. The result changed more than the “D” that used to come after most Kentucky lawmaker names.
It started to change the face of Kentucky law.
Kentucky’s ‘pro-life’ legislative majority
Abortion laws on the books today are an obvious example of the state’s change in political tide. Until 2017, bills limiting abortion in Kentucky had a zero percent chance of even getting a committee hearing in a Democratic state House. Today Kentucky has no fewer than eight laws restricting abortion, most notably the so-called 2019 trigger law that banned most all abortion in the commonwealth after Roe v. Wade was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Kentucky’s abortion ban is considered to be one of the most restrictive in the nation, with exceptions only allowed to save the life of the mother or prevent serious permanent injury to her.
When reporters chatted with Stivers at Goodwood, talk veered away from 2024 Senate Bill 99 — Senate Minority Whip David Yates’ (D-Louisville) bill to add abortion exceptions for victims of rape and incest and nonviable pregnancy to Kentucky law. The issue gained traction during the 2023 gubernatorial election, but is barely a whisper now that the Republican-led Senate and House are back in session.
Stivers told KET’s Renee Shaw on the air the day before SB 99 was filed that, if filed, it “will be assigned to a committee,” according to a story in Kentucky Lantern. It was a noticeably softer tone on a hard line issue that has long divided Republicans and Democrats.
As of Jan. 31, however, the bill is still on hold.
School choice
School choice is another Republican rallying cry that has made its way into statute, starting with legalization of charter schools. That legislation passed in 2017 after Democrats lost the House and Republicans, for the first time ever, seized control of both houses of the Kentucky General Assembly and the governor’s office under then Gov. Matt Bevin.
Next came laws in 2021 and 2022 to allow public funding for non-public schools. It is those bills specifically that have boomeranged the issue of school choice back to the general assembly in 2024.
Instead of ending with a state rollout of funding options, the school choice laws that passed the Kentucky General Assembly in 2021 and 2022 were ruled unconstitutional in state court – an increasingly reliable stumbling block to state laws that touch on constitutional issues like public education or individual rights.
Political strategists might see that as a problem. In the case of school choice, Republican leaders of the Kentucky Senate and House seem to view it as a challenge.
So far this session members of the GOP majority have filed two bills to put the question of public funding for private education on the ballot this fall. The purpose? Let Kentucky voters decide if they want school choice, or not.
One of the bills is House Bill 2. It would let the Kentucky General Assembly fund education outside of public or “common” schools in “particular places as it deems proper” should it get approval from a majority of voters this fall. The other is HB 208 which would mandate – not just allow – state lawmakers to fund non-public education.
Not surprisingly the amendment getting the most attention this session is HB 2. Leader-sponsored bills are typically favored over a rank-and-file members’ proposal. House Majority Caucus Chair Suzanne Miles (R-Owensboro) is the sponsor of HB 2. Rep. Josh Calloway (R-Irvington), who is not in a leadership role in the General Assembly, is sponsoring HB 208. Whichever proposal ends up coming to a vote will need approval from at least 23 senators and 60 representatives to make the ballot.
Stivers told reporters that morning at Goodwood he isn’t sure the votes are there. But he indicated the not-knowing won’t derail an attempt to pass an amendment if it comes to the floor. Although not every community or county wants funding for non-public schools, he said, some do.
“As a state senator you have to think about the state,” said Stivers.
Maternal health
A week before the chat at Goodwood, House Health Services Committee chair Rep. Kimberly Poore Moser called a press conference with a bipartisan group of nine other female lawmakers at the state Capitol annex. The lawmakers were there to stand in solidarity with Moser as cosponsors of her “Save Kentucky Moms Act” or HB 10.
Moser (R-Taylor Mill) is a retired neonatal intensive care nurse and mother of five. She told reporters HB 10 will save lives.
First of all, the bill would make sure pregnant women have full access to health insurance coverage. Pregnancy would become a “qualifying life event,” allowing women to access coverage at any time after they get pregnant – not just during a set insurance enrollment period. The intent, said Moser, is to lower the state’s pregnancy-related death rate.
Kentucky’s maternal mortality rate is historically above the national rate. According to National Center for Health Statistics maternal mortality data for 2018-2021 (the most recent data available), Kentucky’s maternal death rate at the time was 38.4 deaths per 100,000 live births – 65 percent higher than the national rate of 23.5 percent.
The state rate is expected to fall as pregnant women receive help for serious health problems like addiction, obesity, postpartum depression and poverty under HB 10, Moser said. To ensure mothers have the support they need after their baby is born, wraparound services – like lactation support for breastfeeding, training in pediatric head trauma, plus mental health and substance abuse treatment for mothers – are included in the bill.
Bipartisan bills like HB 10 are nice when they happen, especially on big issues like public health. Republican majorities in the General Assembly are large enough to pass most any bill without any Democratic support if most Republicans want it. At the press conference, however, Democrats and Republicans appeared to be on the same page.
One of the Democrats praising the bill was Rep. Sarah Stalker (D-Louisville), a cosponsor of HB 10.
“This speaks volumes to me as a legislator and a Kentuckian with a room full of women with varying opinions and experiences and political identities to sit down and acknowledge the abysmal maternal health outcomes that we have in this state,” Stalker told reporters.
Reproductive rights
It was a few days after the Save Kentucky Moms Act was introduced that another bill tied to reproductive health sailed out of Moser’s committee. That legislation, called HB 174, is intended to give parents of children under age 18 explicit legal access to their child’s medical records.
HB 174 bill sponsor Rep. Rebecca Raymer (R-Morgantown) told the committee she filed the proposal after Kentucky parents told her they’d lost access to their child’s health records, specifically in cases where the child is physically unable to give consent.
But some reproductive rights and mental health advocates tell LINK nky they see HB 174 as overreach. Right now Kentucky law allows individuals under age 18 to get birth control or treatment for sexually transmitted illnesses without parental consent. Outpatient mental health treatment stops requiring parental consent at age 16 under state law.
Giving parents access to records of care they didn’t consent to, and may not agree with, could keep some kids from seeking treatment, advocates told LINK.
“If their parents are then going to access those records, that can set a very chilling precedent that can stop care for minors,” Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates Kentucky director Tamarra Wieder recently told LINK. As of Jan. 31, HB 174 had not been called to a vote in the House.
SB 150 redux
Democrats have continually fought Republican laws they say limit health care access in Kentucky. SB 99, for example, is only part of the Democratic effort to roll back restrictions. The fight is centered, too, on 2023 SB 150 — arguably one of the most controversial laws passed in Kentucky in the past 30 years.
To recap, SB 150 bans gender-affirming treatment for Kentucky youth under age 18. Then it goes further, doing away with required use of preferred gender pronouns and shared bathrooms for transgender students in public schools, restricting access to sex education and limiting access to mental health services in schools.
It was late January when Stalker joined with Lexington Democrat Rep. Adrielle Camuel to file a bill to repeal much of SB 150 including the ban on gender-affirming care. That bill is HB 376.
“No child should have to advocate for not only their basic rights but their very identity,” Stalker said in a Jan. 25 on the proposal. “Furthermore, a law that strips children’s healthcare decisions from parents, trusted family doctors, and mental health professionals represents a gross overreach from state government.”
Republican leaders did not comment on HB 376 right away after it dropped in the House. It wasn’t immediately clear if they would or should. After all, SB 150 was considered a majority win in 2023. Former Republican Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron waged, and won, a legal battle against it. Revisiting the issue may (or may not) be too hot a potato for the GOP now.
Budget on the way
Like every other bill that comes before the General Assembly these days, passage of a state budget is Republican-controlled. GOP-led budget hearings are expected any day now on a $124.8 billion two-year state spending plan unveiled weeks ago in the House, much to the chagrin of Democrat Gov. Andy Beshear.
It didn’t take long for Beshear to attack the plan, claiming it shortchanges K-12 education by over $1 billion and cuts almost $2 billion from the state’s budget reserves.
Beshear’s proposed budget, released in December, seeks $137 billion in state and federal funds for state government over the next two years. Stivers criticized that, telling reporters at Goodwood that spending in the governor’s proposal would prevent a continued reduction in the state’s individual income tax in 2025.
“He created a budget where there wouldn’t be a chance to do tax cuts,” Stivers said.
There are questions on both sides about proposed uses for the “rainy day fund” or budget reserve trust fund, now exceeding $3.7 billion. Recurring expenses – or costs that come back year after year – shouldn’t come out of the fund, according to the Senate president.
“You can spend it how you want to but the reality is those are dollars sitting in the bank account that are not going to come back next year,” he told reporters.
Clarification on what both Republicans and Democrats expect out of the next budget will happen soon, said Stivers. It has to. Passing a state budget in even-numbered years is a requirement of either party that controls the General Assembly – not an ask.
The 2024 Kentucky General Assembly is limited to 60 legislative (or business) days under the state constitution. The current session ends no later than April 15.
Rebecca Hanchett is LINK nky’s Frankfort correspondent. You can reach her at rhanchett@linknky.com