This week has been very hectic the actions in the General Assembly and the Committees are beginning to pick up. Appropriations and Revenue had a controversial bill posted, HB 427 dealing with the KLEEP program. The state police didn’t like the wording that would make them abide by the Police Officers Bill of Rights when they have there own disciplinary procedures. The discussion of this bill lasted well over an hour and there was great debate on the content of the bill, it passed favorably but with a couple members of the majority caucus stating that for their vote on the floor this bill would needed to be further researched and amended. Again this instance showed how service representation in our state plays a key role and policy tends to take a back burner. On Thursday, I attended a KMA and KHA conference that Rep. DeWeese spoke at outlining his proposed health bills and their progress. He invited them to come to the Health and Welfare committee where he was presenting his bill, HB 371. It was really neat to actually see the bill I had been following and hearing a lot about play out in the committee, it passed favorably. The most exciting thing of my day was my conversation with a lobbyist from the KMA he first asked me if I plan to go into politics, I replied yes hopefully someday, he then asked if I would rather do his job or Rep DeWeese job. This sparked a conversation on he his career as a lobbyist has been and how he got into his line of work and concluded with him trying to recruit me by telling me to remember the KMA and his occupation when I graduate college. It was amazing because I had just seen a lobbyist at work selling once again not to a representative but to me.

This Tuesday was a big ordeal because the Legislators met in the old Capitol downtown in honor of Lincoln’s birthday. They only passed one resolution and the rest was ceremonial. Thursday was a huge day in Kentucky Politics because Governor Brashear proposed two bills to the General Assembly on the issue of gaming. I haven’t found out who will sponsor them yet but I know that will be a bigger ordeal because this might determine who will vote in favor of the bills. In the past, leadership sponsored the governor’s bills but since the Senate is controlled by President Williams and the Republican Party and Speaker Richards is in favor of only one of the two bills it will be interesting to see who will sponsor them.  Another interesting thing was the subcommittee for Health and Welfare dealing with Human Services. In subcommittee’s you tend to have mainly testimonials and a particular bill is not the focus but instead a broader theme. Health and Welfare is always pretty emotional but the subcommittee was even more emotional. For instance yesterday there were approximately 6 or more different advocate groups for Human services. Since this is also a time where citizens are allowed to voice their opinion you might have screaming and shouting while some one is giving their testimonial. It’s definitely an experience. The General Assembly was also more lively than usual as the Republican leadership stood up against the speaker. The issue was a member of the minority Republican caucus was pretty much shut down by speaker Richards because of an issue dealing with Rules. Minority leader Rep. Hoover thought that Richards handled the situation inappropriately and expressed his sentiments to the Speaker. It was really great to see how the different parities viewed this issue.

 The budget address on the 29th was vaguer than I expected it to be and the big gaming issue that the minority caucus of the House has been worried about wasn’t brought up until the last few minutes. The thing that stuck out to me the most about his address was the issue of bonds he had proposed so many millions of bonds to go into different areas such as early childhood education but I am just curious as to where we plan to get that money in the crisis the state is in right now.  One thing that displeased me was that he plans to increase spending for early childhood education but cut back on higher education.  This past week has been very interesting because the budget is starting to become a big issue. The republicans have their so called insights as to what the democrats plan to propose and vice versa.  One thing that I have also started to notice this past week is how most of the work goes on in the halls in offices and primarily in the committee. It seems as if once a bill gets to the floor it will automatically pass. I never realized how much work went behind the scenes and how the testimonials and facts and issues brought up in committee is the pertinent information. I am excited to see how much more debate will happen about the budget as the session goes on.