Kentucky Senate Republicans prepare for 2022 session, prefer special session for redistricting
(The Center Square) – Kentucky’s Senate Republican leaders said they’re close to an agreement on redistricting in advance of the 2022 general election. However, they claim Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear is impeding what would be a quick turnaround on the new maps.
Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, and the other leadership team members met with reporters in Bowling Green in advance of the caucus retreat scheduled to take place in the south-central Kentucky city in mid-December.
Republicans, who hold supermajorities in both the state House and Senate, have wanted a special session to approve the redrawn maps in advance of the Jan. 7 filing deadline to run for 2022 races. However, Stivers said Beshear’s insistence that he needs to agree on the maps is a nonstarter.
“The last time I saw a [state] Supreme Court opinion, he doesn’t set policy,” said Stivers, referring to the court’s ruling that the General Assembly could limit a governor’s emergency powers. “I think they said 7-0 that he doesn’t set policy. [He] executes, but for some reason, he wants to delve into the policy side and have signoff on what the redistricting would look like. And that’s not his role.”
A spokesperson for Beshear told reporters earlier this month that “there must be agreement” on the maps before the governor calls for a special session.
If not for that sticking point, Stivers said lawmakers could be ready within a week to hold a special session. However, under Kentucky’s constitution, only the governor can call lawmakers into a special session. And if he were to veto the lawmakers’ maps after a special session ended, lawmakers would not have a chance to overturn that.
Republicans hold 30 of the 38 Senate seats and 75 of the 100 House seats. They would only need 51 House votes and 20 Senate votes to overturn a Beshear veto.
“I think knowing what we’ve got in front of us, it would best serve us all to get that behind us before Jan. 4,” Stivers said.
Without a special session, Stivers said the redistricting bills would probably be taken up first when lawmakers start the 2022 session Jan. 4. Within a week, he believes there would be a consensus between both chambers on the state House, state Senate and congressional maps.
That would likely lead to a short extension of the filing deadline for the general election races, depending on how many of the 10 days Beshear would take while his office reviews the bill before he either signs it or vetoes it.
Another issue Senate Republicans want to look at when lawmakers gather in Frankfort in five weeks is how to best use the additional money that’s expected to be in the state coffers.
State Sen. Mike Wilson, R-Bowling Green, said he’s open to taking some of the expected surplus and pay toward the state workers’ pensions.
“You could actually take and put $1 billion towards an unfunded liability and certainly reduce the [future] cost,” said Wilson, the majority whip.
There will also be additional COVID-19 relief funds that will need to be allocated, and Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown, said he will support a request from the Kentucky Travel Industry Association to take $75 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding to promote the state’s attractions.
Some of that funding would go to the state Tourism Cabinet to run ads regionally and nationally that encourage people to visit the state, with the rest going to local convention and visitor bureaus.
“We’ve never spent enough money on tourism,” Thayer said. “We’ve always sort of gotten beat to the punch by a lot of our surrounding states, and that’s what’s happening now post-COVID. A lot of states are really ramping up their efforts to get people – now that they’re, re-engaging the economy and traveling again – to come to their states. We need to do the same thing.”
Disclaimer: This content is distributed by The Center Square
