Time now for an end of week review of some major political news this week, most of it happening in the state's capital.

In Frankfort, during the first week of the Kentucky general Assembly session.

We have with us Sherman Brown, who's on screen left and on screen right is Iris Wilber Glick, and they are both with McCarthy Strategic Solutions.

We appreciate both of them being with us.

SHERMAN This is the second time on Katie this week, so we're going to let Iris go first.

And when I ask about today in just a few hours from when we had this conversation, but it will have passed by the time the show airs at 4 p.m. was the candidate filing deadline.

And we know that there are several state lawmakers who were choosing to take a pass on reelection.

Tell us about the impact that could have on how much business gets done this session.

Sure.

And thanks, Renee.

I think most of the notable action regarding what legislators will or will not do is is mostly contingent upon contested primaries.

Yes, we're seeing an interesting number of open seats due to retirements, but for a super majority Republican legislature in the House and Senate, it'll be interesting to see legislative behavior due to primary challengers.

Not to dismiss some general election challengers, but regarding some more of the contentious votes and issues that we're predicting to see this session.

I foresee some some notable areas of interest regarding certain legislators that have contested primaries.

And we can just say one of them in northern Kentucky, Representative Cam Moser, who was a chair of a committee.

Right.

Someone who I believe is facing a primary challenger.

There are some people who have some pretty weighty positions who could be facing primary challenges.

That's not completely unusual, Renee.

You know, committee chair people, they typically are, you know, more prominent.

And so they garner a lot of interest, sometimes positive, sometimes negative.

I don't foresee that negatively impacting how committee chair members are trying to get their work done.

Yes.

Know, those are some seats that that I'll be monitoring.

But for instance, which Chair Moser you know, she's let her agenda be known all through the interim and I fully expect her to move, you know, full steam ahead.

All right, Chairman Brown, Democrats, there are several notable Democrats who are not going to come back after their term ends in December of 2024.

Even Leader Graham are several leaders in the House.

We have Rachel Roberts, who was not returning long time incumbent Democrat Ruthanne Palombo.

I mean, the list goes on and on.

Tell us what you think about the potential impacts.

Well, I think generally speaking, with folks that are leaving, they leave for several different reasons.

You know, this is a lot of time spent away from your family.

There's time that, you know, Leader Graham's been there for a while.

So it's not it's not like he came in, you know, served a couple of times, realize it wasn't for him and went home.

I don't think there's any, you know, any anything to really glean from that other than it does leave us the opportunity with new faces, a new folks coming in.

And we've had a lot of turnover over the last, you know, 4 to 6 years, both on the Republican and Democrat side.

So I'm not I'm not really reading into it too much, but I think that it does give us that opportunity.

And, you know, like I said, with all the primaries and things coming up, we're definitely gonna have some new names.

So let's talk about the first week in the state capitol.

Of course, it started off eventful.

Unfortunately, there was a bomb scare there on the first day, the second day that the lawmakers are in session.

Luckily and thankfully, they weren't doing business, particularly at that moment, but it did cause some disruptions.

And of course, this happened in many other states across the nation.

But they they did do some work this week.

One bill about hunting and fishing could be the first bill to be passed out of the Senate.

But let's start about with the second, the state of the Commonwealth address.

Sherman Brown, you were watching that with us and providing commentary.

How do you think that will linger into the business that the lawmakers would undertake?

I think, first of all, the thing that we talked about on Wednesday night was around the relationship between the governor and both chambers.

I think his activity and conversations have kind of started there.

You know, we heard from Stivers that he was president Stivers.

He to me that he was talking with him.

I know he's talked over in the house with folks.

So I'm interested to see kind of where that goes.

And I do think, you know, back to the tone and the message of the state of the Commonwealth is that it is an opportunity for us.

We're in a you know, we're at a as he said at Eisenhower, a moment on transportation and infrastructure, all these things that come along and where he is, he's still going to be the governor is still going to be out talking to folks statewide, using that.

You know, I won't say bully pulpit because he's really not bullying anybody, really trying to bring folks together.

And that's the that's the whole message.

So he's trying to do that and communicate his message and his agenda.

So he's trying to take those things out.

And we talked to you know, we talked about the issues that are important to him.

The teachers raises pre-K.

Looking at that for every child.

I think those are the type things that I'm interested to see, what kind of where those go and what he what he's doing.

And in addition to those the other things that that could be that will come up through the budget about eastern Kentucky and what should be targeted for the more disaster relief, more relief to those areas that have been affected.

So I'm really watching to see where where that is headed here with the budget in addition to the other bills that are kind of right.

Iris, we heard the Republican leaders put things in three buckets, things they agree with the governor on, things they convinced could be convinced of and things that they just won't do.

Sherman mentioned a little bit of all those things.

What what's your take per day?

You know, despite the positive sort of rallying tone that the governor conveyed earlier this week, you know, I predict a little bit business as usual.

You know, this General Assembly, they've they've tackled elevated some important issues during the interim.

I think for the most part, some of those issues may be quite settled.

And so I do see the General Assembly, those supermajorities moving forward on some of these side initiatives.

And I don't know I know that some have conveyed that their door's open.

But if history is an indicator, you know, this governor sort of demonstrated that he's going to do his thing.

And an action otherwise from the General Assembly is that they're going to do their thing.

So I think as time goes on, I'm a little bit open minded, but I think history will be a strong indicator of how each party will proceed in their legislative priorities.

Yeah.

It's probably good advice to us all as we watch the next 50 something odd days go forward.

Thank you, Iris Rober Glick and Sherman Brown for joining us today.

Have a great weekend.