Kentucky’s top Republican lawmakers — Senate President Robert Stivers and House Speaker David Osborne — have filed bills for two constitutional amendments that Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear isn’t a fan of.
Senate Bill 262 from Stivers, of Manchester, proposes amending the Kentucky Constitution to allow summaries of proposed amendments to appear on voters’ ballots instead of the full text. It passed out of a committee earlier this week and could get a floor vote in the Senate as soon as Friday.
Meanwhile, Osborne, of Prospect, filed House Bill 8 this week that proposes amending the Constitution so the House speaker and Senate president can call the General Assembly into a special session — a power that now belongs exclusively to the Kentucky governor. It would also allow the General Assembly to choose another date to end legislative sessions with a three-fifths vote of the legislature. The calendar for 30- and 60-day sessions is controlled by the Constitution.
Osborne’s special sessions amendment hasn’t gotten a committee hearing, but the four other members of House Republican leadership have signed on as co-sponsors.
Asked about the proposed amendments in his weekly press conference Thursday, Beshear disavowed both ideas.
The governor cannot veto bills proposing constitutional amendments. It’s up to Kentucky voters to accept or reject amendments after they are approved by the General Assembly.
Beshear criticized f allowing lawmakers to call themselves into special session and pointed out that voters rejected a 2022 attempt to change the Constitution to let thehe General Assembly call itself into session.
“How about they actually use the time that they have?” Beshear said. “We are two-thirds through this session, and three bills have reached my desk. That is 40 of 60 days that if they would use, they wouldn’t need to call themselves into session again.”
Beshear said legislative sessions should be “a deliberative process of passing law,” and that lawmakers should use time in the interim between sessions to prepare and consider bills, which he said used to be done with prefiling bills.
“That’d all be thrown out the window if you can call yourself in a session at almost any time and pay yourself for it as well,” Beshear said.
Beshear has battled with Republicans throughout his time in office over moves to take power from the governor and move it to the legislature, which is controlled by the GOP, or other statewide offices, also controlled by the GOP.
As for the Senate proposal, Beshear said putting a summary on the ballot of a constitutional amendment would be “keeping information away from people.”
“If they think their constitutional amendments are too long — make shorter constitutional amendments. Or how about not putting two on the ballot every two years?” the governor said, adding that historically, there have been less frequent attempts to amend the state Constitution.
In the Senate State and Local Government Committee on Wednesday, Stivers pointed to the Kentucky Supreme Court throwing out 2018 election results on a constitutional amendment regarding crime victim rights, Marsy’s Law, because the full text was not on the ballot. A 2020 effort for the constitutional amendment was successful with the full text on the ballot. Stivers said that it was the first time to his knowledge that the full text of an amendment was required to be on the ballot.
Stivers said that the 2018 ruling created a gray area, since previous constitutional amendments that had been approved didn’t have the full text on the ballot .
“I think there becomes a lot of questions in the law of what does or does not exist based on the ruling of the Supreme Court about six years ago,” he said.