Time now to go inside Kentucky politics and talk about some of the big stories in the world of politics this week with politics and health reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader, Alex Kristo.

Good to see you, Alex.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Thanks for having me, Renee.

Let's talk about the big story that you and Austin Horn broke this week.

And it is the big Kentucky political story involving a first term state representative in the House, a Louisville Democrat Daniel Grossberg, and some misconduct allegations.

And now there is even as we're talking on Thursday, this story is still developing and it's unfolding as we speak.

Bring us up to speed on what this is about and what's happening now.

So essentially, Austin and I began reporting a little over a month ago about some rumors that we had heard of Representative Grossberg saying inappropriate things to women that made them uncomfortable, that they considered sexual harassment.

We did our best to source that story.

And while we were reporting it, to our knowledge, the Legislative Research Commission, which he is the official arm, that sort of oversees state government legislators began a formal investigation into his conduct.

We don't quite know why or what triggered it, but we know that they were looking at similar allegations that we had heard.

A couple of our sources were actually contacted by LRC attorneys as part of that probe.

We broke that story on Tuesday.

Basically, we had seen some text messages again that he would send late at night that these women described as sort of creepy, made them uncomfortable commenting on their looks and whatnot, sort of unsolicited things like that.

And then the following day, after our story broke, he was temporarily kicked out of Democrats caucus.

While the investigation is ongoing, you know, he has responded to the allegations through his attorney.

He's denied any wrongdoing.

It's interesting.

He sort of delineated between his exchanges on a personal cell phone or in his personal life with his professional life, sort of saying, you know, whatever I do in my personal life is not the same as my work as a lawmaker.

Lot of stuff has happened, honestly, in the last two days.

The most recent thing, as you mentioned, Kentucky Young Democrats just 2 hours ago called for him to resign earlier yesterday.

The Democratic caucus met and decided to request a formal legislative Ethics Commission investigation in addition to the one that LRC was conducting.

We have no idea at this point if any of those findings have been presented to Grossberg.

He said actually in a statement through his attorney that he insists that he denies wrongdoing, he refuses to resign.

He said that he has not seen evidence of the allegations and he does not believe that that evidence exists.

So, yes, continues to evolve at this very moment.

And correct me if I'm wrong, Alex, but it seems to be at least unprecedented speed at which the House Democrats have responded and have kicked him out of the caucus.

That's not a usual default move, is it?

I don't know.

Honestly, it does seem very quickly that they voted to jettison him.

Again, it's temporary, is not permanent at this point unless the findings of the investigation make it permanent.

But, you know, allegations of harassment or impropriety, particularly with male lawmakers toward women, the women that we spoke with, we quoted anonymously are not lawmakers themselves, but they are in groups that work regularly with lawmakers, lobbying groups, advocacy groups.

So they rely on the relationships with lawmakers to do their work.

And, you know, in today's age, any sort of harassment allegations, I think, are taken very seriously, especially when they're from an elected official.

And so I think Democrats are aware of that and they're aware of the optics of it.

And I think they want to make it known that they are taking it seriously, which is why they move so quickly.

Well, and even the Kentucky young Democrats, as you said, their first political organization to come out and also call for him to resign.

Some people would say, well, are they acting in haste because it is a crucial election year and they want to send a message and get out in front of this before the opposite party, the Republicans get some fire underneath this.

Definitely.

And I think, you know, there's an argument to be made.

If somebody is accused of harassment, somebody is accused of sexual harassment, you know, due process is a real thing.

If there's an investigation ongoing, why not see what the result of that investigation is?

LRC has done this a handful of times in recent memory where they get an allegation, they investigate and they present their findings as quickly as they can.

Again, I think, you know, maintaining seats in your party is important.

One of the things that the Kentucky young Democrats noted, which we think is very interesting, is that since our story broke, some of their own members have come forward with their own accusations that they say that they're investigating internally.

So I think maybe all of that coupled together, they just decided to go ahead and call for his resignation.

Clearly, he's not going to at least yet, but it's definitely a strong gesture.

Yeah, something definitely.

I know that you and Austin Horn will keep your eyes on.

And thank you for your reporting on this.

Now, let's take a rather sharp pivot and talk about Fancy Farm, which is in Kentucky, considered the Super Bowl of Kentucky politics.

The Gong Show, all of those things and the unofficial or official kickoff of the fall campaign season.

And there are some notable no shows and some different ways of approaching who is actually going to be there speaking and what they're going to speak on.

Tell us what you know about this.

So we look at last year, you know, we had a big heavy hitting November election, so we had a lot of constitutional officer elections, obviously the gubernatorial election.

So it was a stacked house last year.

This year is quite different.

Governor Beshear, who is currently being considered for vice president with Vice President Kamala Harris, his ticket is apparently going to be there Friday, but he has declined an invitation to speak at the actual event.

It's sort of hit or miss with who's going to be there.

There are some local lawmakers who are going to be there.

You know, Senator Jason Howell, Richard Heath, who's out going Suzanne.

Miles, as far as congressional delegation goes, I believe Representative James Colmer is sort of standing alone in that regard.

And the biggest news arguably, is that Daniel Cameron, who started former state attorney general, obviously and ran unsuccessfully for governor last year, is going to be speaking for Trump at a fancy farm, which will be interesting, especially because we will not have a balance in anybody from here is his ticket to speak.

And without Beshear, there will be a pretty lopsided Republican representation.

Yeah.

And we should also note, and I think this is unprecedented, at least I suppose, that Stephen Elder, the political chairman this way, I don't remember a time when they have allotted and there always and haven't been constitutional amendments on the ballot, but having people specifically address a constitutional amendment.

Cheryl and Stephenson, the House Democratic Caucus chair, and Representative Suzanne Miles, the Republican majority caucus chair, will talk specifically about the school choice amendment.

That's interesting, isn't it?

It's super interesting.

And, you know, it makes sense, right?

Because this is one of the more interesting aside from the presidential election and the other state races this is the most interesting ballot question that voters will vote on in November.

And viewers remember, it's a fairly basic question that basically asks if they want to give lawmakers permission to divert public school funds for the use of private school money.

This is a proposal that Republicans, you know, full throated lay back and Democrats really oppose.

Governor Andy Beshear opposes it, talking about how.

Public.

Schools are already underfunded.

Why would we divert more funds from those?

A lot of education, like teachers and education officials across the state, oppose it, but they are specifically going to essentially debate that, which will be really interesting.

Yeah.

Alex Nyquist, we really appreciate your time today.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for having me.