Kentucky Republicans in the state legislature are advancing new rules as new governors and other constitutional officers enter office.

House Bill ten would limit how one administration spends and hires in the days before the new officers take over.

As our June LaFleur reports, some Democrats say this adds under scrutiny for career public servants.

House Bill ten is designed to limit hard to reverse actions before new constitutional officers arrive, and.

It attempts to free the the transition period from politics and possible real or perceived wrongdoing.

Changes in House Bill ten, with largely applied to the last six months of a sitting governor's term.

The bill would require large pending settlements to go through the Attorney General's office.

It limits noncompetitive contracts and mandates more records be preserved.

It also changes the hiring or promotion of state workers.

Anyone that holds a political appointment and then moves into a protected civil service position, and a governor's last 18 months in office, would have to be under probation for two years.

The bill also adds more Senate confirmations for the heads of state agencies and boards.

There is a need to keep these boards very focused.

We asked them to do a professional job that has technical understanding and technical requirements, and I think the people that we put on those boards need to be vetted.

Mr.

chair, I'm going to vote no.

I am concerned that some of the confirmation provisions go a little too far in stepping on the power of the executive branch, and would tie the hands of the executive branch in carrying out its duties.

The Senate, state and Local Government Committee advanced House Bill ten, with two nay votes from Democrats, now heads to the full Senate.

The committee also approved an elections omnibus bill.

House Bill 139 soared through the House with one nay vote.

It now contains a bulk of House Bill 534, which Democrats opposed, saying it may throw some eligible voters off voting rolls.

So my understanding of the bill is that it requires us to give some of our voter information to the federal government, which will then run it through a database to check for citizenship status.

What do we know about false positives from other places.

That doesn't actually require that data to be given?

At this point, it simply, authorizes the state Board of Elections to work to, reach memorandums of agreement with federal agencies and the data that it would be giving is limited to a name, date of birth, and last for Social Security number.

As far as false positives go, I've heard it many different estimates on this.

I've heard 12%, over 25% for 2%, so it's really hard to nail that down.

I will tell you that, especially given that we've lengthened the effective date to January 2028, we are working closely with both the county clerks and the Board of Elections to do everything we can to cleanse our roles at the state level before we even involve ourselves with the federal level.

An earlier version called for changes before this year's primaries in May, which the county clerk's association opposed.

Kentucky's leading elections official, the Secretary of State, supports the bill in an 8 to 2 vote.

House Bill 139 now heads to the full Senate for Kentucky edition.

I'm June Leffler.