Lawmakers passed the halfway point in the 2026 session, with the state budget under heavy discussion.

Other initiatives on child care, housing and artificial intelligence get attention.

The Kentucky Supreme Court unanimously strikes down a charter school funding law.

Governor Beshear throws more fuel on talk of presidential aspirations by writing a book.

Winter weather, set to return for the weekend and comment is next on KET.

[MUSIC] Good evening.

I'm Bill Bryant, and we welcome you to comment on Kentucky.

A look back at and some analysis of the week's news in the Commonwealth, and the guests on our panel of working Kentucky journalists tonight are Sarah Ladd, health and policy reporter for the Kentucky Lantern Hannah Pinski, political reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader.

And Isaiah Kim Martinez, political reporter for 11 in Louisville.

Also tonight, the latest on Kentucky's heated U.S.

Senate race.

But first, let's get right to the legislature.

Lawmakers are heading into the second half now of the 60 day session.

We continue to be told that the two year spending bill that's being crafted is a work in progress.

But we're also hearing from advocates who fear cuts.

Isaiah, this is how the process works, right?

It's now known as House Bill 500.

>> Yeah.

And it you know, we're halfway in, right.

There are a lot of questions already.

Democrats are sort of sounding the alarm on certain areas they feel like are already being underfunded or set to be underfunded.

But then, of course, Republicans will say, listen, we started with as barebones a draft budget to start as.

Speaker Osborne says he's seen in some time.

But sort of what I'm hearing, at least from people on the ground.

Right.

Because when it comes to teachers and state troopers, some of those who rely on these state health benefits, I'm hearing they are watching it closely.

I've heard from a couple teachers who said, well, if they're not intending to make these moves, why are these things or these elements and provisions already in the starter draft bill?

Which is a fair question, especially as it relates to the health insurance and some of the funding that goes to those state plans.

And then, of course, we have school funding, public school funding, teacher raises.

What will those look like here?

Again, Republicans will say, do not judge us by this current budget or draft budget.

Wait till we get the final one through.

And of course, we have about less than 30 days for that.

>> Yeah.

And I think what's also interesting is that we not only have Democratic lawmakers who are raising concerns about this budget in its current form.

We have Republican lawmakers as well.

I mean, you have Republicans in both chambers who have said on social media posts, if this came to a floor vote today, I would vote no.

One of those is Senator Brandon Smith, who said on a social media post that, you know, this goes too far with education cuts.

I am listening to the teachers, the school employees in my community, and I would vote no if it came to the Senate floor today.

You have State Representative Patrick Flannery who said something similar, and that changes need to be made, and they will and they're confident they will be made.

>> And we're hearing from advocacy groups like the Kentucky Education Association, the president says there that he has fears about the state health insurance premiums potentially jumping if the funding levels are kept in the spending plan.

As it's written now.

>> This would take $500 on average out of each educator's paycheck each month.

When you look at what Kentucky teachers are making, you know, that's 15% of a starting of a new teacher starting salary.

And some of our classified employees are already working just for insurance.

Some of them write a check to their district each month, because their insurance costs more than what they're making.

This would be devastating.

>> So the car is one of those groups working the legislature very hard.

>> Yeah they are.

And Democrats today had a response towards the concerns with House Bill 500.

They had filed seven different floor amendments to address these concerns, dealing with the state health insurance, education funding, funding for SNAP and Medicaid.

And I think what's interesting is that I had asked Representative Lindsey Burke, have you talked to some of your Republican colleagues if there would be support for these amendments?

And she had said, you know, I think we would we would be welcome to support from them.

But she said, I don't think leadership is going to let them.

And looking at this on the bigger picture, like you pointed out, we are halfway through the session and the bill still has yet to get a committee hearing.

And I think the reason, one of the reasons potentially we're still at this point is that there is still a lot of disagreement within the Republican caucus of where cuts need to be made and how far can we go with these cuts.

>> And Democrats are saying, Bill, that as far as Medicaid funding is concerned, they're putting what's the number anywhere about $800 million underfunded.

We know that a lot of this comes from, of course, Donald Trump, President Trump's big domestic policy bill that had major cuts to Medicaid, at least from the federal level, included in it.

So the state has sort of had to decide, where do we fill in those gaps, right.

So that's kind of the concern from Democrats.

But Republicans and we've seen this, at least nationally, this push to sort of try to widen people's horizons as far as private insurance is concerned.

There has been a big push for this from Senator Rand Paul to try to push more people toward private insurance, saying that that is a better answer in a lot of these situations.

So, again, as far as Medicaid concerns on a state level, we'll have to see.

>> And, you know, you're seeing a lot of Kentuckians also just to kind of go off of that private insurance point, you know, the American Care Act, subsidies and premiums went way up.

And there are a lot of Kentuckians are already paying significantly more money every month, you know, for their health insurance that they got through the marketplace.

And that may change depending on what the U.S.

Senate does.

At some point.

You know, they may vote to extend those subsidies, but you already have quite a lot of Kentuckians who whose wallets are hurting on the health insurance point.

And then on the education point.

I think when we talk about teachers and their pay and their well-being, you always have to kind of think back to the state of our children as well.

You know, we live in a state where a lot of children aren't meeting basic standards for reading proficiency, math proficiency.

You know, there's there are gaps in children's education that I think is very sort of tied when you talk to advocates, very sort of tied to teachers well-being.

And are they making enough and are they happy and are they doing well?

>> Actually, we keep hearing the word.

Affordability gets thrown around a lot these days.

Speaker Osborne has been critical of the Beshear administration, saying that lawmakers have had a lot of difficulty in getting numbers from some of the cabinets so that they can write this budget.

In fact, they brought the state auditor in last week to provide some numbers, but they also have to figure out some of the reductions in revenue because of the income tax cuts.

Right.

So there's a there's there's a lot going on here to get this spending plan together.

>> Right.

And we know, Bill, that Kentucky did not meet the trigger right.

For the income tax cut coming in 2027.

So next year of course there was some chatter whether the goalposts would potentially move on that we're still waiting to see.

Although Senate leadership has at least spoken up saying they're not necessarily interested in that.

But the truth of the matter is, when you lose revenue like that, you do have to make it up somewhere.

So I think the bottom line is, is where is that going to come from?

>> The Republican budget at this point does not increase per pupil funding.

Hannah.

And there's also a push for more transportation funding above and beyond the numbers that are in this draft budget.

Some school leaders saying that they would have to cost shift in order to keep those busses running.

>> Yeah.

And I had read a report with the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy that currently there's around $399 million that goes towards school transportation.

But this budget proposal, it would decrease to around 359 million, I believe, for fiscal year 2027 and 2028.

And one superintendent in southeastern Kentucky had said, you know, we're already having to make sacrifices.

We're having to take money from their general fund, which is supposed to go toward school resources such as laptops for students and putting that toward their transportation funds because they need to get be able to run their busses.

And it's also preventing them from investing, for example, into new busses.

So it will be interesting to see if that number goes up as the budget goes through its legislative process.

>> Don't forget some of our bigger school districts.

JCPS Fayette County Public Schools are dealing with major budget deficit budget deficits as well.

So that doesn't help in that conversation.

>> In addition to the budget, there are hundreds of other bills under consideration in this session.

Governor Beshear has already signed Senate Bill 172 into law.

That became the first bill to make it all the way through the process.

Sarah, that one is supposed to keep electric bills from jumping when companies suddenly face increased fuel costs, like when there's been a big bitter cold spell like we just came out of in January?

>> Yeah, in times like that, you tend to see your bills skyrocket a little bit, right.

So the idea behind this is it would sort of allow for the discretion to spread out that cost over different months so that you pay, you don't have to pay it all at once.

Basically you can pay it in sort of a smaller increment.

My understanding is the Public Service Commission does have discretion to do that already.

But this sort of codifies allowing utilities to opt in to that.

Beshear signed it February 19th.

>> So so we watch on that.

And you made note Isaiah, that this is not automatic under the proposed law.

>> Right.

Yeah.

And Sarah just mentioned you know that they would have to opt in.

Right.

LG and E and EKU a major provider not just in the Louisville area, but some spots in Lexington and other areas of the state.

I mean, they haven't necessarily shown interest to this point or saying we're going to opt in or follow suit on this.

So that is still sort of a lingering question.

We'll have to watch.

>> As we make note as the session moves on several proposals aimed at schools, from the size of school boards to anti DEI legislation.

This week, House Bill one was proposed and it came shortly after the state Supreme Court struck down a Kentucky law that provided a path to fund private schools.

Isaiah, unravel that for us.

>> So this has to do with the Trump administration's specific program that was enacted through the big, beautiful bill that has to do with tax credits, specifically as it relates to school choice.

So this would allow Kentucky to opt in to a program that I believe 27 other states have already done that would allow them to or allow parents, families out there to be able to take advantage of some of those tax credits for private school tuition, for classroom supplies, for tutoring, things of that nature.

Critics would argue, at least some of them, that the folks who donate to this scholarship fund would actually be then reaping the same benefits with their children or grandchildren.

So, in other words, sort of the rich get wealthier.

But of course, maybe opponents of that argument would say, listen, Kentucky has been behind on this sort of school choice movement and needs to make up ground.

>> And it looks like that Bill is ready to go.

Just as soon as the court ruling came down.

>> Same day.

Right.

Of course, Supreme Court strikes down the charter school funding.

And that comes back, I think it was later that morning.

>> Hannah there's a proposal from Republican Senator Danny Carroll of Western Kentucky that is not universal pre-K, as the governor has called for, but it would give daycares and even parents an incentive to get children ready for kindergarten.

>> Yeah, this is one of the pieces of childcare legislation ideas we've seen introduced so far in the state legislature.

And what it is, is it would establish a three year pilot program with the University of Kentucky, and it would provide a one time, $2,000 incentive to payment per child who meets the standard for kindergarten readiness.

And that could that incentive could go towards low income parents.

It could go to license type one and type two child care centers.

And Carol had said he hopes that it encourages early childhood providers to expand their services and to help these children get ready for kindergarten.

Like I said, it's only one idea that we've seen so far in the state legislature, so we'll have to watch if this one does make it across the.

>> Finish line.

It was interesting that if the parents are the caregivers, then they would qualify for the $2,000.

Apparently under that law.

>> It is.

And it would also be interesting to see, you know, what standards they do set and how they measure that kindergarten readiness level if they need it for the $2,000 incentive.

>> Sir, you've been watching child care reform legislation, and there's a pretty comprehensive bill that's on the move.

>> Yeah, it comes from Representative Samara Heavrin, who is like Carol, is very passionate about child care and has sort of worked on this for quite a while.

And her bill does a lot of things.

It would take us a while to get through all of them, but I'll point out something that advocates are pretty excited about, which is there are a certain number of training hours that child care professionals already have to go through every year, sort of, to maintain that work.

This bill would require a certain number of those hours to then be used on how to care for kids with special needs and sort of a special education component.

And we've seen over the past few years there have been some unfortunate sort of child care center abuse cases, really sad cases that advocates and the child care space have pointed to in the past and said child care workers are overworked, they're underpaid, and they don't get specific training on how to handle children with complex needs.

And so this would address something that they've been pushing for for a while.

And so it's something that I know Kentucky Youth Advocates is excited about.

Kentucky Chamber of Commerce has worked on it.

So it has a lot of support.

>> Groups that are not always together on issues.

Right.

Sarah, you also wrote this week about a proposal to limit Kentucky mental health practitioners use of artificial intelligence.

I mean, that's an emerging topic.

>> Yes.

We hear a lot of conversations about AI, how to regulate it, where the benefits are versus the drawbacks.

And so this bill that's on the move would basically say that mental health practitioners can't use AI to directly interact with clients, and they can't use AI to detect emotion.

So Representative Banta is the sponsor.

And her motivation sort of came out of cases we've seen across the country where artificial intelligence may be taught to youth and encourage their suicidality.

And anytime we mention suicidality, I like to say, you know, the prevention lifeline is 988.

But she she saw those cases and wanted us to get ahead of that in Kentucky.

And so the Kentucky Psychological Psychological Association supports doing something along these lines.

Says there's a need for guardrails, but does want the freedom, want some edits so that they have the freedom for mental health practitioners to use tools in teaching, where maybe AI can help flag certain language that an instructor can then review with a student, clinician, or even homework.

Tools that might use AI between sessions.

>> Not not doing the direct counseling at this point.

Exactly, sir.

There's a bill also that would redirect e-cigarette settlement dollars so that it funds preventative efforts.

There was testimony on that bill sponsored by Senator Craig Richardson of Hopkinsville.

The money right now just goes to the general fund.

>> Yeah, Kentucky has a settlement with Juul, which is an e-cigarette company.

Back in 2022, we started getting a flow of money about 14 million.

Up until now, the funds just go into the general fund and they mix with taxes and whatever else revenue that we have in there.

And advocates have really been pushing for the past few years to move that money into a special tobacco cessation and prevention fund, saying that really the funds that's their intended purpose is to stop smoking and help people stop who have already started.

So if the legislature passed this, there's about 6 million left that we could redirect toward those those programs.

>> Hannah abortion inducing drugs are the target of some legislation that's being filed by Representative Nancy Tate.

>> It is.

And what her bill does is that importing abortion inducing drugs to Kentucky would be a class D felony.

And I think this is to address some of the headlines that were making that was making Kentucky news.

Earlier this year, a Wolfe County woman had been charged with fetal homicide, among a couple other things, after using medication to abort what you call developed male infant.

That fetal homicide charge was later dropped.

And then you also had Attorney General Russell Coleman launch an investigation into gas stations and companies that could be, in part, could be participating in what he called delivering pills for medical abortions.

You know, I think Tate has been sort of one of the leaders in the state legislature when it comes to anti-abortion legislation.

It will certainly be one close to watch.

I believe it's been a while, though, since the legislature has even touched changing abortion laws here in Kentucky.

>> And I think the other interesting part of Representative Tate's bill is that, yes, it deals with the abortion medication, and it also would make it a class B felony to, you know, supply medical assisted suicide, which is something we see sort of in conversations a lot in the chronically ill community.

You know, there are a lot of people who maybe want to have control over how their life ends.

About 11 states, including Illinois, California, and I believe New York, have something on the books that allows for medically assisted suicide.

So this would also go after that and say, we don't want that or abortion medication.

>> There's also a bill that would say Barr membership for attorneys in the state would be voluntary in Kentucky, not required.

And that brought some back and forth.

>> When you're fresh out of law school, sometimes you're not even in a steady job yet.

300 and some dollars can be a lot of money, and other folks have maybe retired, or they're in government jobs, but they want to keep their law license.

This gives folks the option to decide to join the bar association or not.

It may not be a one size fits all.

You're automatically required to join.

>> On its best day.

It's a public protection agency making sure that attorneys don't abuse the public, that they don't take advantage of their position of trust, that they don't succumb to the mental health and substance abuse issues that plague our profession and cause people to do very regrettable things.

The Supreme Court of Kentucky doesn't want us to do this.

Every attorney I've talked to in the last 48 hours doesn't want us to do this.

I ask you, please don't do this.

>> Nowhere else in Kentucky.

Nowhere are you required to join an association to put food on the table.

Nowhere.

Not doctors, not nurses, not architects, nowhere.

Only lawyers.

>> Well, interesting discussion.

>> It is.

And I think another part of the discussion is that Representative Doan, a supporter and I believe this is his bill, said it would empower specialized groups here in Kentucky and allows lawyers to freely associate with organizations that align with their with their needs and beliefs.

And I think another but on the opposite side, one of the criticisms of this bill is that it would shift some of the responsibilities of the bar association to the Kentucky Supreme Court.

And I believe that Burke had also brought this up is that while they would be responsible for administering these services, and how would that potentially impact their their budget?

>> Okay.

What else is everybody watching real quickly in the legislature is is this session now is in its second half.

>> I can say that we've seen the last few years doctors ever since Roe v Wade was overturned and Kentucky's abortion trigger law went into effect, doctors have come to Frankfort and sort of tried to lobby the legislature to roll back abortion restrictions.

This is very unlikely to happen.

I mean, lawmakers have made that clear in the supermajority.

However, the doctors come and they they say, you know, that the bans make their their life harder and makes treating patients harder.

And they said that the clarification law the legislature passed last year has also not helped a year later, not cleared any of that up this year.

They brought with them a patient who in 2024 had an ectopic pregnancy and went through a lot of pain and suffering before being allowed to undergo surgery for that.

And so they're sort of holding her up and saying, this is this is what's at stake here.

>> There's a public safety bill that would essentially ban what's called Glock switches.

So these 3D printed materials that you can put on a semiautomatic handgun makes them fully automatic, very dangerous.

Jason Nemes Representative Jason Nemes, who we just saw is going to be pushing that.

And then, of course, the JCPS bills.

We know there's a bill still hanging out there that really hasn't gotten much traction, that would open the sort of an avenue for splitting the district, as well as a bill that sort of changes the way school boards, school board members are chosen.

>> Obviously, House Bill 500 as it moves through the legislative process, in addition to we have not seen a one time spending bill yet for projects that deal with infrastructure transportation.

So that's obviously something we will continue to have to watch for.

In addition to, will House Republicans introduce a bill cutting the income tax?

>> Florida Governor Ron DeSantis came to Frankfort this week, and he pressed Kentucky to sign on to an amendment to the US Constitution that would require a balanced budget.

He says Washington can't do it alone.

>> Yes, he did come to Kentucky this week.

He testified in committee with Representative Petrie.

And what this resolution does is that it calls for Congress to submit the amendment for states to ratify.

Amendments require a two thirds vote in the House or Senate, or a convention to be called by two thirds of state legislatures.

And so 28 states, including Florida, have passed this resolution.

And DeSantis is hoping Kentucky could be the 29th state.

He has traveled to other states as well, I think most recently Idaho, to push for this.

But there are concerns, obviously, especially with if we had a convention, there's nothing in the US Constitution that would prevent them to stop them from opening up other areas of the Constitution.

I think that's one criticism is how do we stop this convention from putting the whole Constitution up for revision?

>> It was kind of an area of concern.

Yeah, yeah.

>> And then, of course, we all looked at sort of the Beshear DeSantis back and forth.

>> They got after each other, didn't they?

>> They did.

The governor made a remark the other day that DeSantis, Ron DeSantis would be like the last governor he'd want to see at a at a conference.

I asked him about it specifically.

Do we have sound on him specifically responding to it or something?

Something separate?

>> Didn't have that.

>> We don't have that.

Okay.

Well, I'll say exactly what he said.

He says, all I can say is a guy that sends state police to try to block people from worshiping.

On Easter Sunday, he also brought up Beshear's veto of the piece of legislation dealing with gender affirming care.

He says, if that's the guy who's critiquing me, I wear that as a badge of honor.

Beshear fired back, saying, Florida has a lot more division than Kentucky.

>> All right, we'll put up the governor's book that is coming out soon, fueling more speculation that he will run for president in 28.

He announced he has written Go and Do Likewise How We Heal a Broken Country.

Interesting.

>> Yeah.

I talked to a political science professor, Stephen Voss, over at UK, and he basically told me, look, he's reinforcing the themes of what a candidacy would look like for him moving forward.

There are two main takeaways that he had here.

One, sort of letting Democrats sort of bring faith back into the center of a potential campaign.

Of course, the title there kind of gives that away as well as, you know, that second line where he says how we feel or how we heal a broken country.

He's sort of trying to be the anti Gavin Newsom, right?

Not the wrecking ball of the left, not the Trump of the left, if you will.

He said that, but sort of the unifier.

The question is do folks want that in 2028.

>> All right I said we'd say something about the US Senate race.

We got a few seconds.

>> Teased it.

We have to talk.

>> About it.

It's interesting.

Right?

>> I mean, yeah, I mean, I think Nate Morris recently hosted another town hall.

Obviously, all three big Republican names are amping up their messaging town hall TV ads.

As we get closer to the primary.

>> Talk to Nate Morris today.

I mean, he's, of course backing Trump 100%.

The endorsement still out there.

He also kind of gave a hint on what he might do as senator, which is codify some of those tariff authority that a president would have into law to basically counteract what the Supreme Court ruled today.

>> And that was a development today, certainly.

Meanwhile, Senator Mitch McConnell, who's leaving that seat, announced the biggest windfall he's ever brought home, $2.6 billion in projects, a billion at the Bluegrass Army depot near Richmond.

Also money for universities, airports, even for the Belvedere over in Louisville, 7.

>> Million for downtown Louisville.

>> So there's certainly a lot going on there.

And we're watching that fourth district race as well.

>> Isaiah Thomas Massie versus a Trump backed primary candidate.

Should be fun to watch, should be competitive.

>> As we face another weekend, it will remind us it is still winter.

There are some clear signs of spring.

Tickets are on sale for the spring meet at Keeneland.

The Kentucky Derby Festival Pegasus Pen has been unveiled, and it is now less than 70 days until the Kentucky Derby.

If you need encouragement, that's comment.

Have a good week ahead.