music >> If you're assaulting one of my teachers or one of my aides or one of my cooks or one of my bus drivers, I don't care what kind of services you get.

>> What's the right way to punish violent Kentucky students?

State lawmakers have an idea.

[MUSIC] >> You supported the felonious, violent attack on me from behind.

[MUSIC] >> I did not say I supported it, I said I understood it.

>> A U.S.

Senate hearing in Washington gets personal, and we heard from the Republicans yesterday.

Tonight, you'll hear from four Democrats who want to represent you in the U.S.

Senate.

>> Production of Kentucky edition is made possible in part by the KET Millennium Fund.

>> Good evening and welcome to Kentucky edition for this Wednesday, March the 18th.

We are mid week.

I'm Renee Shaw and we thank you for winding down your Wednesday with us.

It is day 49 of the 2026 Kentucky General Assembly.

There are 60 days in this lawmaking session.

Today, the Senate passed its version of the state's two year state budget.

There are some key differences compared to the version passed by the House late last month.

Namely, the Senate version adds hundreds of millions of dollars in spending for the next fiscal year.

Our June Leffler takes a look at where some of that money could be going.

This as we kick off tonight's legislative update.

[MUSIC] >> The Senate's leading budget negotiator presented the latest budget bills today in committee and on the Senate floor, the major House Bill 500 now offers retired state workers an additional check to cover the rising cost of living.

That's never happened before.

It's been 15 years since the General Assembly offered any boost for retirees, though this 13th check won't be the same for everyone.

>> That check will be 100% check for Perry 2015 retirees.

It will be a 50% check for retirees between 15 and 20, and 25% check for retirees.

After 2020.

>> That would cost more than $80 million.

The Senate voted unanimously in favor of three budget bills.

Today, Democrats and progressives say the latest budget is better than the House version.

>> And coming together and agreeing collectively and speaking in one voice is very important.

However, it's very important also to understand that not everybody is going to be satisfied by what we do here, and that includes myself and the fact that we have a continuing process going forward.

At this time, I vote yes.

>> The left leaning Kentucky center for Economic Policy released its budget analysis, saying, quote, the Senate's version of the next two year state budget eases some of the cuts included in the House budget.

The budget does not aim to trigger additional income tax cuts under the legislature's formula over the next two years by substantially underspending relative to revenue.

The Senate stepped in to save higher education from serious cuts proposed in the House.

>> Post-Secondary institutions are generally held harmless from any cuts in unfunded.

At the base level, however, we do increase general fund by 5 million in year one and 15 in year two.

For the performance fund.

>> Local governments will also get some relief from reimbursement rates for holding state inmates.

County jails get $35 per inmate per day.

The latest House bill, 500, increases that per diem by $4 over the next two years.

All budget bills now head back to the House for consensus or more revisions for Kentucky edition.

I'm June Leffler.

>> Thank you so much.

June like the House, the Senate's version of the budget calls for cuts of 4% and 3% over the next two years to many state agencies, but there are some exceptions, including Veterans Affairs, family resource and Youth service centers, juvenile justice, and others.

Also, House Bill 900 is a one time spending bill meant to kick start economic development and other projects across the state, though more than $800 million are set aside.

The bill currently outlines no specific projects.

Lawmakers have also agreed to issue articles of impeachment against a Lexington judge.

House Minority Whip Representative Jason Nemes chairs the legislative impeachment committee today on the House floor, he filed a resolution attaching articles of impeachment for Fayette Circuit Court Judge Julie Muth, Goodman, former Republican state lawmaker Killian Timoney, who is running again after losing reelection in 2024, filed the petition against Goodman.

He claims she has disregard or violated the law in several rulings this week, the impeachment committee also heard from a Commonwealth prosecutor who said Goodman has a bias against her office and rules more often for defense attorneys.

If impeached in the House, Judge Goodman would be tried in the Senate, where a two thirds majority is required for a conviction.

There was lengthy debate in Frankfurt today in a committee about K through 12 education bills, including legislation that would expel violent students.

State lawmakers also heard a proposal to make changes to the school boards in Kentucky's two largest school districts.

Our Emily Sisk breaks down those debates.

>> Since 2021, there have been 25,000 assaults against educators in our Commonwealth.

>> That statistic is why State Senator Matt Nunn is proposing Senate Bill 101 so that if a student in grades six through 12 physically harms a teacher, they would be expelled for 12 months.

The school may choose to provide services to the student like an alternative placement, a House revised version of the bill, approved today says that if a violent student is expelled, they will lose access to school, transportation and extracurriculars, which drew some concern from Democratic lawmakers.

>> I do worry about kids who are struggling with trauma and may be acting out inappropriately in school.

That denying transportation for kids who don't have reliable transportation or are rural will be will will impact them disproportionately.

>> We have to protect our students.

But if these these kids are they still exist.

If they're expelled from school, they still exist.

And if they're causing mayhem in schools, it's very likely they're going to be causing mayhem in communities.

>> The bill sponsor pushed back, however, saying ultimately the legislation is about protecting educators.

>> What is the role of education?

Is it to to fix all society's ills, or is it to teach reading, writing and arithmetic?

What do we expect our teachers to be?

>> Despite critiques from the minority party, many Republican lawmakers applauded the measure.

>> We asked questions about, well, how are they going to get a ride to school and not ride the bus?

No, they they need to go to juvenile hall.

They need to get arrested.

This is ridiculous.

>> Listen, if you're assaulting one of my teachers or one of my aides or one of my cooks or one of my bus drivers, I don't care what kind of services you get, you know?

I mean, at some point you need to be cut off from services because they have to learn consequences.

>> Senate Bill 101 passed out of the House Primary and Secondary Education Committee, among other pieces of legislation heard today was Senate Bill four, which would develop a principal leadership program for new school principals.

House changes to the Senate bill would alter the number of school board members on just the Jefferson and Fayette County school boards, which have been under fire for budget deficits in the districts.

The revised measure requires the state treasurer to appoint two school board members that have at least ten years of financial expertise to both school boards, which would bring their total membership to seven.

This would reduce the number of elected school board members in Jefferson County.

A representative from JCPS spoke out against the change.

>> These people will be chosen for their financial expertise.

However, those board members will not be voting only on financial matters for these two school districts.

They will have say over everything, including personnel matters including logistics, academics and particularly the contract of the superintendents.

>> The committee chair, who is a former superintendent, pushed back, saying this would be a worthy addition to the boards.

>> If you don't have any financial experience on your board, the finance officer can present whatever they want to the board and there's going to be no questions asked at all because they don't understand our new board members that are elected.

You think they know how school board operates until they get elected and learn.

>> Senate Bill four also passed out of the House Committee.

These measures will move on to the full House for consideration.

For Kentucky addition, I'm Emily Sisk.

>> The House Primary and Secondary Education Committee also passed a resolution to establish a new legislative task force.

The group would focus on early childhood education, governance and outcomes.

That resolution advances to the full House for consideration there.

Today, House Democrats revealed their plan to make housing more affordable for Kentuckians.

It's called Homnibus 2.0, and it tackles housing prices from several angles, from reducing red tape for developers to giving tax cuts to renters.

Our McKinsey Spink tells us why the caucus has more hope for this year's omnibus effort.

>> We know the problem.

We have studied it.

Families across the state are feeling it.

And at some point, that conversation that we've been having, folks has got to turn into action.

And that point is today.

>> The first part of omnibus 2.0 focuses on building more housing.

House Minority Whip Representative Joshua Watkins says investing in the Affordable Housing Trust Fund will result in more options for Kentuckians seeking affordable homes.

>> We are proposing a $123 million investment over the next two fiscal years into the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, supplemented by a modest increase in deed recording fees and a 1% surtax on short term rentals that take homes out of the market.

For Kentucky families, the Affordable Housing Trust Fund could generate as much as $1 billion in housing development across the state.

Who wouldn't want that?

>> Another aspect of the large housing proposal is protecting access to housing for individuals.

It would limit corporate landlords that already own 50 or more rental homes from purchasing additional single family homes.

>> The goal is simple to give our families and individual buyers a fair chance to purchase homes and ensure that more houses remain available for home ownership, rather than being converted into investor owned rentals.

>> Omnibus 2.0 would also ban the use of personal data to manipulate housing prices.

>> Two people looking at the exact same apartment should not see two different prices, because a computer system thinks that you can pay more for it than the other person can.

>> Last year's omnibus bill, House Bill 583, didn't make it out of the Appropriations and Revenue Committee.

House Democrats say this year's effort has specific measures.

They believe the Republican supermajority will meet them halfway on.

>> I believe, sincerely that the majority knows Kentucky needs housing solutions now.

So what we've done is we've brought solutions from the right and the left, things that we know they like, things that we like, and we're going to ask them to sit down at the table with us and decide which one of these things can we do this year so that Kentuckians don't have to wait another day?

Anything that reduces regulations and red tape is popular among the majority and also the Chamber of Commerce.

Those are the types of recommendations that we saw a lot of during the housing task force over the last two interim sessions, so I would expect those would be easy for them to take up.

>> The Homnibus 2.0 proposal was introduced as a floor amendment to House Bill 603 filed by Minority Floor leader Representative Pamela Stephenson for Kentucky edition.

I'm Mackenzie Spink.

>> Thank you.

Mackenzie.

Senate Bill nine, the priority housing bill from the Republican supermajority is currently working its way through the House committee process.

Representative Watkins says there are similarities between that bill and Democrat's Homnibus 2.0.

He hopes to find middle ground between the two proposals.

The federal government is cracking down on designer Xanax after a request from 21 states, including Kentucky.

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman says the Drug Enforcement Administration, or DEA, is adding designer Xanax to the federal list of controlled substances, allowing law enforcement action.

Designer Xanax is passed off as medication to near with to deal with anxiety disorders, insomnia and seizures.

The state says it killed 48 Kentuckians back in 2020 for.

[MUSIC] The testimony turned quite personal this morning as President Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of Homeland Security, Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, appeared before Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky chairs that committee.

Paul was critical of Mullen for saying he, quote, understood a neighbor's 2017 attack on Paul and Paul's yard in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Paul says he and Mullins spoke on the phone, and Mullen did not apologize for his remarks about the attack.

>> You completely understood.

Understood that I was assaulted from behind at six ribs, broken, a part of my lung removed.

And that was just fine.

That's something that you, I guess, approve of as far as resolution of political problems.

When I talked to you on the private, on privately on the phone, there was no apology.

I apology, you just said, well, we let our political difference, you know, go by and you say you said a few minutes ago, we can just set it aside.

Political differences.

We can.

But when you say that you agree with a felon, a Trump hating felon who attacked me somehow, you think I'm just going to set that aside?

Oh, it's no big deal.

You know, I lay in pain for two months, had six ribs broken, three of them separated, grinding up on bone, on bone for months, and part of my lung removed.

And you think that's great?

And to be extolled.

I mean, the, the the sheer lack of any kind of self-awareness that you're going to be leading thousands of men and women who will be have the use of force.

And there's been great questions in our country about how that will be used.

And you think a violent attack is just fine.

So I guess my first question is, do you think that justifying that kind of violence sets a good example for the men and women of Ice and Border Patrol?

>> Mr.

chairman, first of all, I didn't know the extent of your damage.

With a phone call was made.

I made it to you, and I try to talk to you.

You didn't engage at all.

In fact, you said get your paperwork in.

It's got to be at three works.

Three days in between for.

>> No apology, sir.

And you offer no apology today and no regrets.

Haven't heard the word apologize.

Haven't heard the word regret.

Haven't heard.

I misspoke and it was heated.

And I made a mistake.

Ireland any of those words, sir?

>> Actually, it wasn't heated.

And I'm not apologizing for pointing out your character.

>> Good.

So you're you're jolly well fine.

And you want the American public and the people up here to vote that may or may not vote for you to know that you supported the felonious, violent attack on me from behind.

>> I did not say I supported it, I said I understood it.

There's a difference calling you by calling you.

>> That means you really didn't approve of it, just completely understand it.

What do you think most people would interpret, completely understand to be support for or condemnation of the violence?

>> Sir, as I said, we can we can have our differences.

It's not going to keep me from doing my job as Secretary of Homeland Security.

I'm going to secure Kentucky and take care of Kentucky as as if as much as I am.

>> If this if this were a one off, it would be one thing.

If you just disliked me so much that you approved of violence against me, people could just write it off.

Or maybe they hate each other.

But really, there's a pattern of this.

Let's go ahead and roll the tape.

>> Okay.

>> So the tape refers to a video played during the hearing.

Senator Paul says it shows other occasions when Mullen couldn't control his temper.

For Democrats running for Kentucky's open U.S.

Senate seat debated last night on Spectrum News one, they discussed the economy, national security, health care and government accountability, and the four were asked about funding for homeland security and immigration enforcement.

>> I do not agree with defunding the Homeland Security because it's a lot more than Ice.

I don't like anything about Ice.

I think they need to stay on the border.

They're not a police force that should be sent to cities like the federal police force.

They should stay on the border.

They've done a good job of tightening the border up.

We know that.

Stay there.

You don't need to be in the city.

Send that money to the police forces of these cities that need help and let them work with their local people.

But if you if you defund like we are when a shutdown with Homeland Security, you're also shutting down the Coast Guard, you're shutting down cybersecurity and you're shutting down TSA.

And you shouldn't hold people's paychecks hostage for a political dispute.

And again, I keep going back to it.

We need to win this seat.

We need to take the House back, and we need to repeal the bill that puts all that money into ice, put it back where it belongs in the Medicaid and Medicare.

>> Our immigration system is broken.

We need to look at the rules that we have and enforce them.

That doesn't include sending people out on the streets to kill people at will.

I'm for abolishing Ice because it's so broken that you can't return to sanity.

I'm for a system where people can walk down the street and not be snatched, and not be taken to foreign countries and not have their ID taken.

Ice is infiltrated with the people that are harming people and killing people and being happy about it.

So yes, we must have reforms.

I know Homeland Security is more than Ice, but for this point, ice must come out and we must give the money to local police forces who are properly trained to protect their communities.

>> Ice needs to be abolished and prosecuted.

We need an immigration system that is rooted in humanity, not cruelty, and we can dedicate our focus to that.

But it starts by abolishing Ice, and I am the only candidate on this stage who put forward a plan on how we do that.

My Salt plan, stopping agency, lawlessness and terror leads with abolishing Ice, but also ending qualified immunity so that people who are injured by this rogue government agency that is inflicting terror can sue, but also making sure that we prosecute all of these folks who have violated rights, committed murder.

You can't reform what happened to Alex.

You can't reform that type of brutality.

But we also have to do the work of lifting up a true immigration system that is rooted in humanity, ending the deportation industrial complex.

I'm the leader fighting to do that, and that's why we're going to win this race.

>> What we're seeing in our country today, especially in Minnesota, is not what Americans voted for.

It is not what Kentuckians voted for.

These masked men, in many of them in unmarked vehicles patrolling our streets, terrorizing Americans, terrorizing people, shooting moms in the face who just dropped their kids off at preschool, shooting nurses in the back.

This this is this is way out of control and ice and any agency that does this, including the Border Patrol, needs to be reined in, needs to be reformed immediately.

And I called I've been calling for that for months.

The leaders need to be fired.

And I have a plan to actually reform Ice.

That makes sense.

>> On the other side, there's a new poll in the Republican race for the U.S.

Senate.

It's an internal poll from Congressman Andy Barr, his campaign for U.S.

Senate that shows a close race with former Attorney General Daniel Cameron with 31% of the vote.

Barr the congressman for the sixth district at 29%.

Businessman Nate Morris is in third place with 13% of the vote.

The poll has a margin of error of four percentage points.

[MUSIC] The Louisville Kings football team kicks off their first season of pro football in Kentucky in the end of this month.

Their head coach is a hometown name.

Chris Redman won a state title, playing quarterback for male high school and played at University of Louisville before a long career in the NFL.

On the next episode of Inside Louisville, Kelsey Starks talks to him about his biggest win and it wasn't in a football game.

>> Your son Brett, is a cancer survivor, and this story is just incredible.

Also played football and has now gone on to college.

And first of all, he's doing well.

>> He's doing great.

Yeah, he's like you said, a a cancer survivor.

And you know his junior year.

You know we're getting ready for playoff game.

And it's a big game.

And and he's kind of complaining about his back for the last few weeks.

And we're running these 150 yard sprints.

And he's you know has to take a knee after every sprint.

And I'm like, you know, you don't know if it's like football injury or if it's like, you know, so of course, luckily I had an incredible neighbor that was a gastroenterologist, Doctor Jahn, and he said, hey, go get it.

Just go get it checked out or whatever.

And so we did.

And that's when we found out he had a football sized tumor in his stomach.

And we were on the operating table the next day.

And then you had to have a plan.

And so like, I think football really helped him get through that process because you go through tough times, you know you have to go through a lot of hardship to to make it to the season.

And and we got through it.

You know, he had six surgeries and four rounds of chemotherapy that we lost, you know, a ton of weight and everything.

But he, he beat it and we were through that.

And like, to me, you know, I had a, I had a platform, I told people I had a platform in NFL and he has a platform now as a cancer survivor.

And it's the same platform however you want to use it.

And he's using it well.

And now he's an incredible ambassador for the V Foundation.

We've already raised a lot of money for cancer patients in hospitals, and he's buying video games and giving them to them.

And we had such a successful Christmas Eve this past Christmas Eve.

And he to me.

Him seeing that it's more important now to help others look at his story because it's such a positive story that he actually survived cancer, came back.

We ended up winning a state championship.

We're working on a children's book now.

Like there's a lot of things that that that's great that can come out of a horrible situation.

So for me, that makes me really proud that he can go to a kid that's laying in the hospital and say, you know what you're going to, you're going to be okay, and something great is going to happen because of this.

And that's just it's, it's a mindset.

And I think he's figuring that out.

>> It's an incredible story.

And his foundation now Gregory like bread, which I love.

Yes.

And you talked a little bit about how football kind of helped him and his perseverance that he already had, but I imagine those skills helped you as a dad going through that situation.

>> Oh, yeah.

No, that's the you know, you go through something like that.

You know, obviously everybody says it.

I mean, I would much rather it happen to me than your, your, you know, child.

And so, you know, that that definitely makes, makes puts things in perspective like, yeah, it's, you know, it's fun to compete.

It's fun to make money.

It's all those great things.

But, but Health and like your family, that's, that's where you realize how important life is and how short life is and how things can be taken from you in a heartbeat.

So don't take anything for granted.

And so I, you know, I think my son's learned that and I've learned that too in this in this situation.

But you know, now we have a great opportunity here to, to, to do some positive things and just really proud that that his foundation is doing so well.

And it's we've already done twice as much as we've done last year.

So we're just wanting to grow it and, and really see where it goes.

But yeah, the grit like grit Foundation, you can look it up.

>> Inspirational indeed.

And you can hear more about Chris Redmond's look ahead to his first season as head coach of the new UFL team in Louisville on the upcoming episode of Inside Louisville.

Host Kelsey Starks will be with you Sunday at 11 central time, 12 noon Eastern Time right here on KET.

[MUSIC] And that'll do it for us tonight here on Kentucky edition.

But we sure hope to see you right back here again tomorrow night at 630 eastern, 530 central, where we inform, connect and inspire.

You can connect with us all kinds of ways.

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Thank you so much for joining us this Wednesday.

Have a great one tomorrow and I will see you tomorrow night.

Take good care.