Welcome back.

Next order of business is established.

The first day of the 2026 Kentucky General Assembly and regular session is in the books.

Today, lawmakers convened in Frankfort for the start of a 60 day lawmaking session.

As we mentioned yesterday, this is the first session in recent history that lawmakers are not convening in the state Capitol, and that's because of a major renovation project.

Instead, each chamber met today in a new temporary structure.

And with the new building come some new rules regarding access to it that were announced by House leadership today.

One of those rules is that members of the public may not meet in the temporary structure.

House leadership clarified that demonstrators may gather in the rose garden outside the building.

Some Democratic lawmakers raised concerns about transparency and public access.

I do think that we need to be very mindful as we go forward in a space that doesn't allow the public to be present, of what steps we can take to ensure that they're fully informed about the work we're doing, and the changes in the rules have resulted in less notice to the public, less transparency, and less opportunity for these citizens of this state to engage.

The new rules for this session were adopted.