FRANKFORT — Kentucky House Democrats fruitlessly attempted to pass their own set of House rules when lawmakers reconvened for the second day of the 2025 session.
House Minority Whip Lindsey Burke, of Lexington, called for a vote on the Democrats’ proposed rules Wednesday after the House overwhelmingly passed Republican-supported’ rules on Tuesday on party lines. The rule changes approved on the first day make it easier for the Republican supermajority to end floor debates and move to a final vote on controversial bills.
The Democrats’ rules failed in a floor vote, 74-20. Rep. Lindsey Burke, D-Lexington. (LRC Public Information)
Burke said rules put forth by minority leadership included reimplementing a rule that allowed members three minutes to explain their votes and allowing some debate between both parties when a previous question on a motion is called.
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In a back and forth with Majority Floor Leader Steven Rudy, R-Paducah, Burke said Democrats did not receive an updated copy of the majority’s proposed rules until Tuesday’s floor vote. Rudy countered that Burke and other Democrats had not brought up issues with the proposed rules before Wednesday.
“If it’s OK for things to be news to us on the floor, then respectfully, it should be the same for you,” Burke said to Rudy.
Rudy called Burke’s attempt to change the rules “an attempt to undermine the majority rule, which is the true hallmark of democracy” while urging House members to vote against the resolution.
During the first day of session on Tuesday, Democrats in both the House and Senate decried Republicans’ rules for the chambers, arguing the new changes would stifle debate and limit their constituents’ voices. Republicans hold supermajorities in both chambers, easily giving them the votes to implement their rules.
On Wednesday in the Senate, Republican Senate President Robert Stivers lamented that reporters focused too much on the rules debates instead of instances when Republicans and Democrats work together.
“They want to write about division,” Stivers said. “They want to write about dissention. … Every day, I want to look at the people who write the stories, who speak the language, who go on the TVs and the radio to talk about all the positives that this body leans on, not the negatives that they want to sell advertising and get advertising dollars for.”
The resolutions setting legislative rules for this year were among a short list of actions considered on opening day. Other business conducted by lawmakers on Tuesday included listing members of the General Assembly, introducing family members and friends, inviting Frankfort area pastors to open legislative sessions with prayer, and directing leadership to name lawmakers to escort Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear for his Wednesday evening State of the Commonwealth address.
Among the Senate Republican rules changes: Discharge petitions, which can dislodge a bill that has been stalled and put it to a vote, must be filed and read into the record a day before a floor vote. At the end of last year’s session, Minority Whip Sen. David Yates, D-Louisville, called a discharge petition on a bill that would have added exceptions to Kentucky’s abortion ban in cases of rape and incest.
Yates told the Lantern Wednesday that he believed his discharge petition brought attention to the rule. He added that he called it at the end of the session “to underline that we weren’t being very democratic in the process of not putting (the bill) in committee, not debating over it.”
“Regardless of how you feel on this issue, it’s just important enough of an issue to Kentucky that we should debate,” Yates said.
This article is republished under a Creative Commons license from Kentucky Lantern, which is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on Facebook and Twitter.
McKenna Horsley covers state politics for the Kentucky Lantern. She previously worked for newspapers in Huntington, West Virginia, and Frankfort, Kentucky. She is from northeastern Kentucky.
