Time now for a wrap up of the week's political news, particularly what's happening in Frankfurt.

And we have some two good ones with us today.

They're new to inside Kentucky politics.

We have Sara Osborne, who is with us.

She's a principal at an m L and K, And also we have Jason Rainey, who is the head of the Mt.

Sterling, Montgomery County Industrial Development Authority.

I had to read that so I'd get it all in.

Good to see you both.

Good to see you.

Nice to be with you.

Nice to be with you on on a Friday.

We had an intense day in Frankfort yesterday.

And Sara, you were saying that for the first quarter of the session, it was kind of quiet.

But yesterday they ramped it up.

Yes, most definitely.

I mean, House Bill five and that two hour debate over that issue, when you all covered it Monday night on your show.

And I think it's something that a lot of Kentuckians are really watching this session.

Yeah, this is the Safer Kentucky Act.

And it's a pretty good sized bill, right?

I mean, there were some changes.

They they acted on an amended bill that addressed some of the homeless concerns about those provisions.

I think now the three strikes is there's been some changes there.

So, you know, Jason, this has taken up a lot of bandwidth this week.

And that is, you know, when you search the the number one bill being looked at, everything is House Bill five and what these nuances are going to mean.

You know, I'm really interested to see what it's going to look like, the fiscal impact.

Right.

What is the fiscal impact going to be?

And it looks like from what I've been reading, there's going to need to be a study done on that.

Right?

Right.

And we heard the Democrats call for that.

Right.

There were some motions made to get that fiscal impact statement.

I mean, we've heard at least a million, but that could be hundreds of million.

Right.

And so is this something that you think the Senate will say?

We want to know what the total impact is before we take this up?

I think probably the Senate tends to be very deliberate when it comes to budget issues.

And I think that they're going to want to understand how this impacts the other priorities they have, because we have to remember, we still have to have the budget discussion this session, too.

And that's another big one, right?

The budget and not a lot of movement on that yet.

But we will say, you know, the House, they've had their plan out.

They haven't haven't acted on it yet.

So, you know, we'll maybe see some action there.

But there have been lots of discussions about the budget.

What are you all keeping your eyes on?

I know today House Bill two was filed, another proposed constitutional amendment, this one about school choice.

Talk to us about the other things that you were going to keep your eye on to come down the pike.

Sure.

I think it's been a long time since we've had, you know, multiple constitutional amendments on our ballot in November.

And this could be the year I was looking at it today.

I think there's been 11 filed so far with one more probably that's going to be filed.

Two of them have already had committee hearings.

So I think there's going to be a lot of conversation around what should the voters be taking a look at come November.

But then I think a lot of the rest of this session will really concentrate around the budget.

And I think we will see action on that in the next week or two in the House.

And then the Senate will take their turn.

And then we'll turn to a conference committee where a lot of that will get hashed out.

Right.

That's usually the process, right?

The House passes it.

The Senate kind of takes some time to look it over to 2 to 3 weeks before they start their process.

So are you looking at those amendments in the budget?

What do you think?

I think the the House bill 341 that Michael Meredith talked in front of committee this week about, I think that's a very interesting one that is going to require a constitutional amendment, but this one is concerning.

It.

Well, it's about the you have to be a citizen to be able to vote.

Right.

And which people already think, isn't that already the case?

But there's a loophole that he kind of pointed out and we do about that earlier on Kentucky edition.

Yes, Very interesting.

You're saying some other states are allowing non-citizens to vote in local elections.

And I think they're trying to close the loop on that.

Right.

And if you missed that discussion, we had that on Kentucky edition.

Was it last night or the night before?

I can't remember a good story about what that meant in that discussion that happened there.

The budget is the big thing, but we also know that we'll deal with some pro-family, pro-choice, pro-life issues that could come down the pike.

I mean, these next few weeks could be pretty intense.

And I think they'll get very political because I think there's very you know, we all as Kentuckians value education.

We all value our families.

But then the approach to it is very different from both sides of the aisle.

And, Jason, it is an election year, right.

And so that can also change the tone and the tenor and what is being proposed and acted on.

Yes.

Yes.

I think the you know, the timing in which some of these bills are coming out and amendments substitutes those kinds of things.

It's going to be interesting to kind of see in the coming weeks how that how that all frames out.

Right.

A lot of discussion, too, about sometimes the pace when the bill actually hits the floor and the time to deliberate.

We know that explanation of vote was cut to one minute, which I think that's the shortest I had heard before.

I mean, do those things matter to the general public or they just want the final outcome?

How do you think they size up these process questions that sometimes the opposition raise?

I think I think that the opposition wishes the voting public was paying more attention.

But frankly, I think, you know, until April 16th, then there's outcomes.

I don't think that the voting public really understands what's happening in Frankfurt when we bring groups in to to advocate.

It's amazing how little anyone knows about what's actually happening or the process.

The secretary of state, Michael Adams, wants to change that.

Right.

He made a comment about civic education.

When we think about the process and who was there.

Lots of rallies happened, Jason.

There's a lot of advocacy that happens.

We had children's rallies earlier, press conferences on, you know, gun safety, all kinds of things.

It's not always just about the budget, but the budget is the big thing.

The budget is the big thing.

You know, 20, 20 plus years ago, we did the first rally for higher education in 2003 in the Capitol Rotunda, trying to say, hey, we want the we want the funding for higher education.

We can see that education is going to help move the Commonwealth forward.

So I was just mentioning to someone who is new to our team about how I remember walking down the tunnel during the Fletcher administration and the kids and some adults were chanting the budgets on our backs, the budgets on our backs.

And I always say that, you know, it is the people's place, right?

And to see that kind of grassroots activism or whatever level it is, people being involved is what you want to see.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I think they welcome that to some degree.

Yeah, I think so, yeah.

Anything else top of mind for you about what to expect in the next few weeks?

I think there could be some stuff around workforce development coming.

You know, I'm super excited about Dr. Corales and KCTCS where that's going to the opportunities could be for us in Kentucky and, you know, to take economic development opportunities for Kentuckians.

The next level, it's going to be more emphasis on workforce and how can we retool that?

Yeah, and some higher ed issues are coming out, not just D-I, but tenure and some other things that could affect your advancement and economic development.

Absolutely.

I think they'll be looking at that.

And then I think the chambers and the Kentucky youth advocates are really going to make a push about around child care that impacts our workforce in our ability to have workforce participation as well.

Yeah, good talk.

This is good.

Jason Rainey, Sara Osborne, we'll have you back.

This is fine weekend.

Thank you.