The 2023 report detailed obstacles to government accountability and civic participation, identifying 4 main challenges: readings being held before committee action, last-minute committee substitutes, bills which move immediately from committee to floor vote, and bills which move immediately from free conference committee action to floor vote. The League calls these “fast-track” maneuvers, which limit the ability of the public provide input on legislation before a vote.
Today, in anticipation of the upcoming 2025 legislative session, the League released How Can They Do That Part 2: Ongoing Challenges to Transparency and Citizen Participation in Kentucky's Legislative Process.
President of the League of Women Voters of Kentucky Jen Jackson said the report is focused on a commitment to an idea called the “democracy principle”.
"Which is, we the people have a right to participate in decisions that affect us," explained Jackson.
The four new challenges identified are the loss of pre-filed bills, a sharp increase in “shell bills” (placeholder bills with text that can be substituted after the deadline to file bills has passed), committee meetings held at irregular times, and inconsistent access to records of legislative action.
Cynthia Heine, a member of the transparency committee which developed the report, said that one of the things that makes good legislation is deep conversations with good questions.
"When you rush a bill through and it doesn't have good time for conversation and questions in committee meetings both in the House and the Senate, you end up with, sometimes, unintended consequences," said Heine.
Consider last session’s House Bill 2, later Amendment 2, which Vice President Becky Jones, another member of the transparency committee, used as an example. She spoke on how the bill saw only 90 minutes of committee hearings before passing legislature with a two-thirds-majority. Then, the amendment was rejected by about two-thirds of Kentucky voters - but not until after both sides had spent over $16 million on campaigns to sway them.
"So one would think if the legislature had spent more time having public discussion about House Bill 2 before it became Amendment 2, that everybody could have saved a lot of time and money on that issue," concluded Jones.