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Kentucky Political Update
(March 26, 2009) - The Session Ends
The General Assembly adjourned Sine Die on Thursday, March 26, the 29th legislative day. For the first time in quite awhile the legislature didn’t work late into the night on the last night of the session passing bills on days set aside to over riding gubernatorial vetoes. The end of the 2009 session was in stark contrast to the ending of the 2008 session when the clock was stopped and the legislature continued passing bills well passed midnight.
The reason for the contrasting ending can be drawn back to the changes in House Democrat Leadership in January. With the new leadership came new rule changes that included sticking to concurrence only during concurrence days and not passing any bills during the days set aside for overriding vetoes.
Ultimately, the House Democrat Caucus had a vote to decide if they wanted to take up some key bills that were still left on the table like the Governor’s Economic Development Incentive package, an authority bill to provide financing for mega bridge projects, and funding for prosecutors and public defenders.
Ultimately, the Caucus voted to leave these critical issues on the table for discussion either in next session or a possible June special session that has been rumored. After the vote the House Democrats were only going to veto overrides of which there were none so it was a short day in Frankfort on the last day of the session.
Here is a rundown of major issues that were left hanging:
HB 229 – This is the Governor’s Economic Development Incentives legislation that would revamp and create new economic development incentives. This is one of Governor Beshear’s top priorities for this session. The Senate ultimately passed this legislation with Senate amendments, but the House did not take it up.
HB 102 – Creates an authority to fund large scale infrastructure projects in Kentucky, particularly bridge projects in Louisville and West Kentucky. The bill was a top priority in this session from the House, Senate and the Governor and eventually passed both the House and Senate, but the two Chambers still needed to rectify changes between the House and Senate versions, but that did not happen.
SB 34 – Originally, SB 34 was a clean up bill for the Alcohol Beverage Control agency, but after amendments it ended up carrying a couple of important alcohol industry issues including adding interlocks for DUI offenders and creating a license for the sampling of distilled spirits. The Senate never approved the conference committee report.
We will be providing more client-specific reports in the days to come.
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