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Jan 23, 2024 | 
linknky.com | Rebecca Hanchett |Lester Mullins
Kentucky lawmakers aren’t giving up on a proposed school choice amendment after recent court rulings struck down laws to publicly fund private and charter schools. Huddling with reporters Tuesday, Senate President Robert Stivers said lawmakers are discussing a vote to put a proposed school choice amendment on the 2024 general election ballot.
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Jan 23, 2024 | 
linknky.com | Rebecca Hanchett |Lester Mullins
A college admission test criticized for emphasizing the Bible and conservative social ideas could factor into state merit scholarship awards under a bill that passed a Kentucky Senate committee last week. Senate Majority Whip Mike Wilson (R-Bowling Green) sponsored Senate Bill 7, which led to questions from Democrats at the Senate Education Committee Thursday about the toughness of the exam, called the Class Learning Test. The committee passed the bill unanimously.
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Jan 23, 2024 | 
linknky.com | Rebecca Hanchett |Lester Mullins
A Kentucky lawmaker’s attempt to give parents or guardians legal access to a minor’s medical records is drawing fire from state reproductive health and mental health advocates. Rep. Rebecca Raymer (R-Morgantown) sponsored the proposal in House Bill 174, passing the House Health Services committee last Thursday.
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Jan 22, 2024 | 
linknky.com | Rebecca Hanchett |Lester Mullins
Each week, LINK nky is publishing a profile of one of our local legislators so that Northern Kentuckians can get to know the people representing them at the state level. Family law has been the professional career of Rep. Stephanie Dietz for three decades. That alone gives the Edgewood attorney some unique insight into the challenges facing Kentucky parents and children. Plus Dietz is a mom herself.
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Jan 22, 2024 | 
linknky.com | Rebecca Hanchett |Lester Mullins
State Rep. Stephanie Dietz is the lead cosponsor of a bill that would allow pregnant women to seek child support for their unborn child. The legislation is called House Bill 243. Rep. Amy Neighbors (R-Edmonton) filed it in the Kentucky House on Jan. 11. “Pregnancy is expensive and it makes sense to have fathers share the costs associated with a life they helped create,” Dietz (R-Edgewood) told LINK nky in an email regarding HB 243 on Thursday.
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Jan 19, 2024 | 
linknky.com | Rebecca Hanchett |Lester Mullins
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has released a six-year state highway plan that proposes $499.5 million in road and bridge projects for Boone, Campbell and Kenton counties over the next two years – most of that for the Brent Spence Bridge corridor project. The governor’s plan, released Wednesday, would fund a minimum of $358.4 million over the next two years for construction of a companion bridge next to the existing Brent Spence Bridge.
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Jan 18, 2024 | 
linknky.com | Rebecca Hanchett |Lester Mullins
A proposal to move elections for governor and other statewide offices to presidential election years in 2032 eked out of the Kentucky Senate on Wednesday, keeping alive its chances to make the ballot this fall. The constitutional amendment proposed and sponsored by Sen. Chris McDaniel (R-Ryland Heights) passed the upper chamber by a vote of 26-9, giving it three more than the 23 votes the bill needed to advance to the House with three members not voting.
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Jan 17, 2024 | 
linknky.com | Rebecca Hanchett |Lester Mullins
Reducing Kentucky’s “abysmal” maternal mortality rate is the push behind a broad bipartisan health bill called the “Save Kentucky Moms Act,” which Rep. Kimberly Poore Moser unveiled Wednesday. Moser (R-Taylor Mill) introduced the legislation alongside nine other female lawmakers who want to reduce the state’s high rate of death from pregnancy.
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Jan 17, 2024 | 
linknky.com | Rebecca Hanchett |Lester Mullins
Sen. John Schickel has filed a bill that would require schools to be notified within 24 hours of the status of charges facing their students in the juvenile justice system. The senator said he was approached by Boone County Attorney Jordan Dallas Turner and the Boone County Sheriff’s Office with a request to file the bill (Senate Bill 11). The legislation has been assigned to the Senate education committee, although a hearing date has not yet been announced.
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Jan 17, 2024 | 
linknky.com | Rebecca Hanchett |Lester Mullins
On Tuesday, the Kentucky House unveiled a $124.8 billion two-year spending plan to beef up funding for K-12 public schools, raise state employee salaries, target workforce development, and boost funding for Medicaid benefits by more than $2.6 billion over the next budget cycle. The spending plan proposed in House Bill 6 does not include Gov. Andy Beshear’s proposed funding for universal preschool for 4-year-olds.
