Time now for our midweek check in of some major political developments happening in Kentucky and the state capital with our good friend Ryland Barton, who is managing editor of Kentucky Public Radio.

Good to see you.

Even though you're not in person, it's good to have you by Skype.

It's good to see you, too, Renee.

So we are a week away from going back to the state capitol as lawmakers wrap up their business next Wednesday and Thursday.

But meanwhile, the governor has got a lot of bills on his desk to review.

What's he done so far?

Right.

So so far, he's started signing some bills.

I think probably the big ones to talk about are the bill that gives a 6% raise to state workers.

This is something that was set in action last year when lawmakers were writing the state budget.

They gave a raise to state workers for that fiscal year.

This one takes care of the next fiscal year.

Lawmakers have also asked that a compensation study be conducted at the same time.

That hasn't finished yet.

So this bill is to take care of that part to ensure that some part, a portion of that raise will still go into effect.

Lawmakers have said, and further raises could be considered in the future, depending on how that study goes.

So we'll see how that goes.

The other another bill that Beshear signed related to health care, it boosts some Medicaid reimbursement payments for hospitals.

This is intended to, you know, really just shore up some of the hospital budgets that have been struggling with this issue.

So we are really at the beginning of the of the veto period.

Beshear isn't so much focusing on some of those big controversial bills that we've been talking about that have passed through the legislature.

We will probably I mean, we're sure to see some of those be vetoed over the next few days.

He does have ten total working days to consider these actions.

But as we've talked about on this program and several other ones on Katy and elsewhere, it's very easy to override a Kentucky governor's veto.

It only takes a majority of votes out of each chamber.

So essentially, lawmakers just have to pass the bill again.

Yeah.

So we're very likely to see lawmakers come back in on March 29th and 30th and override all or nearly all of the governor's veto actions.

And we know that the legislature does have a habit of passing bills on the last two days of the session after the veto recess, and they forfeit their opportunity to come back and override any vetoes the governor may issue, after which will be March the 30th this time.

And there are some bills that could fall into that category.

Absolutely.

And the bills kind of fall into a couple categories.

One is bills that they know that they're going to agree with the governor on and don't have to worry about him vetoing.

And then the other ones, the ones that the governor still might veto.

But they're hoping to to possibly campaign against him or use that against him.

So, anyway, on the ones that they probably all agree with, you know, this cannabis medical cannabis legalization bill that passed out of that passed out of the Senate last week, which is a big historic moment that they never passed out of out of the Senate before.

It will be taken up by the House where it's been successful for the governor has already said he's in favor of this.

It's a pretty restrictive medical cannabis bill, but it's it's the first step for Kentucky kind of joining the vast majority of other states that have already legalized cannabis in some way.

Another one is would legalize sports betting and and really have Kentucky's racetracks horse racetracks be the the keepers of those sports betting licenses.

But same deal this would be a first step for Kentucky joining this of this issue and allowing people to bet on sports besides betting on horse races or the lottery or charitable gaming, which are the only forms of gambling that are legal right now in Kentucky.

Another bill to watch for.

And I'm just kind of interested to see if this will happen.

There's been some talk that it would, which is the anti drag bill.

This is one drag show that is this is something that came up earlier in the legislative session trying to restrict where drag performances can be performed, trying to restrict them from being performed in any sort of public space.

I would be interested to see if they end up passing that bill just to to really bait a veto from Governor Beshear.

So then they can, you know, run or people aligned groups can run ads against him during this 2023 governor's race and try to gin up support among some socially conservative folks who wouldn't be in favor of that.

And the governor has said recently at a press conference he didn't really specifically talk about Senate Bill 115 that you're talking about the drag show performances, bill, but or Senate Bill 150, which is kind of the sweeping anti-trans measure.

He didn't call those out specifically and say he'd veto them, but measures like those.

He seemed to intimate that he would have be inclined to veto.

Right.

And it seems he's indicated as much and and I mean, we'll see once he if and when he issues the vetoes.

Just real quickly, in about 30 seconds, let's talk let's talk about the governor's race.

You know, Craft and Cameron just keep mixing it up, don't they?

Right.

So a Kelly Craft aligned PAC has come out with another ad going after Attorney General Daniel Cameron.

This one over, you know, claiming that he has a soft on crime record because of his time as the executive director of the Kentucky Smart on Crime Coalition.

This is a group that was pushing for common sense criminal criminal justice reform measures, including the expansion of Kentucky's expungement law, which former Republican Governor Matt Bevin signed into law.

This group is characterizing that group as a as a soft on crime group.

Daniel Cameron's been fighting back against it.

But this is, you know, politically, Kelly Craft is really trying to make, you know, get her name out there and trying to attack the supposed frontrunner, Daniel Cameron, right now.

And Cameron's really been trying to avoid know, you know, going into the mud, slinging mud over this.

But it really is for hitting this, you know, month and a half until the primary election time.

You know, we're really going to see these two, you know, the top two contenders here going at it after each other.

Yeah, we've got two appearances that they'll make one elsewhere and one right here on May 1st.

That's the one we're going to plug.

Thank you, Roland Barton, as always, great to see you.

Nice to see you, too, Renee.