FRANKFORT — Kentuckians are still regularly shut out of legislative decisions that affect them, says an updated report by the state League of Women Voters.
The League released a new report on legislative transparency Wednesday morning that found the public has inconsistent access to legislative records, including no online repository of prefiled legislation. Also, lawmakers increasingly use “shell bills” that make small changes such as adding or changing a word as vehicles to later rush sweeping changes into law.
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“The average Kentuckian should care because bills are being discussed without their input, legislation is being passed without their input, and when we find out what the impact is it’s often too late to turn it around,” said Becky Jones, the first vice president of the League and a report researcher.
Last year, the League studied seven 60-day legislative sessions between 1998 and 2022 and found four ways bills are fast-tracked through the legislature without substantial public input. The Kentucky arm of the League is part of a national public policy organization founded amid the women’s suffrage movement.
In an updated 33-page report, the League identified four additional tactics that challenge public participation in Kentucky’s legislative process by following a bill through the 2024 legislative session, Senate Bill 299. They are:
- The loss of prefiled bills, which in the past were publicly available ahead of legislative sessions.
- The use of “shell bills.”
- Committee meetings held at irregular times or not at all.
- Inconsistent access to records of legislative action.
“Regardless of whether one considers SB 299 to be ‘good’ legislation, the life of that bill is a cautionary tale,” the report said. Manipulating the legislative process through fast-track maneuvers and insider tactics is a disservice to the Democracy Principle because protecting the process is just as important as the legislative product. The public ultimately pays the price when transparency is so easily ignored.”
The “Democracy Principle” is defined by the League as one that upholds informed and active public participation as fundamental to democracy.
The highlighted legislation, sponsored by former Senate Republican Floor Leader Damon Thayer, of Georgetown, aimed to create the Kentucky Horse Racing and Gaming Corporation to replace the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission and Department of Charitable Gaming. The bill ultimately passed through the Republican-controlled legislature after Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed it.
The League’s report said the bill began on Feb. 27 as a shell bill, or “a half-page bill that simply changed the word “he” to “he or she” in a two-sentence state law about pari-mutuel betting,” and later “ballooned into a 282-page substitute bill that made sweeping changes to fourteen different sections of horse racing and gaming laws.”
“That version had a major impact on not only the horse racing industry (which favored the bill), but also on charitable gaming organizations, whose representatives had little time to understand and give input on the bill,” the report said. “The wholesale transformation occurred in less than 60 hours at the end of March.”
The League’s updated analysis reviewed bills filed during the 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, 2018, 2022 and 2024 regular 60-day sessions and found a “limited use of the shell bill tactic until 2010.” In that year, the Senate filed six shell bills and the House nine. During the 2024 session, 50 shell bills were filed in the Senate and 90 in the House.
As for publicly accessible meetings on key pieces of legislation, the report called for legislative committees to meet and conduct most of their business during regularly scheduled times. In cases where an additional meeting is needed, the League suggests advertising them as soon as possible. The Legislative Research Commission maintains an online calendar updated each evening, which is where the League suggests putting meeting notices.
During a Wednesday press conference, League President Jennifer Jackson said the House and Senate canceled 56% of their committee meetings during the 2024 session. The League’s report pointed out that Kentucky’s open meetings laws require public agencies to give 24-hour notice for emergency meetings along with an agenda that cannot be expanded.
“We’re not asking for a change in the rules, we’re asking for the rules to be followed,” Jackson said.
Recommendations
The League’s updated report makes recommendations to legislators on ways to increase and include public participation in Kentucky’s legislative process:
- Hold the required bill readings after a standing committee sends the bill to the whole House or Senate for action.
- Make committee substitutes available online at least 24 hours before committee meetings where the substitutes will be considered.
- Allow at least 24 hours between the last standing committee action on a bill and a chamber floor vote on the bill.
- Allow 24 hours between free conference committee revisions on a bill and floor votes on the changed bill.
- Restore the prefiling bills process.
- File genuine bills to address substantive legal changes, rather than last-minute shell bills.
- Transact most committee business during regularly scheduled meetings. When additional bills are needed, announce them in the daily calendar published the night before the meeting.
- Publish each chamber’s required journal within weeks after each session adjourns. Publish accurate, complete, digital and freely available records online for each committee meeting.
Before the House voted on its rules for the 2024 session, outgoing House Democratic Floor Leader Derrick Graham, of Frankfort, cited the League’s 2023 report as a reason to restore transparency in the legislative process.
“The rules reflect not just our procedures on the floor, but how open those proceedings will be to the public, to those who are in the media, and to the stakeholders that these bills and these laws will eventually have to determine, and how people live here in our commonwealth,” Graham said at the time.
Meanwhile, a small group of House Republicans sought changes to the chamber’s rules, including adding rank and file representatives to the powerful Rules Committee which is now made up of only leadership members. Ultimately, the House adopted the same rules from the previous session.
During debate, Republican House Speaker David Osborne, of Prospect, criticized the League’s 2023 report for only reviewing budget sessions, and said “in actuality transparency has increased dramatically.”
Jones said the League has not met with Osborne regarding the 2023 report, but stands by those results. The League is open to meeting with lawmakers to discuss it’s latest findings, she later added.
Amid the 2024 election cycle, some Republican candidates declined to participate in forums hosted by the Louisville chapter of the League and said the group was partisan. Jackson emphasized Wednesday that the League does not endorse candidates or political parties in elections, but focuses “on issues that strengthen our democracy.”
Spokespeople for Osborne and Thayer did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday morning.
Lawmakers will return to Frankfort for the 2025 legislative session in January and will meet for 30 days through the end of March.
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.
