Time now for our midweek check in on some major political developments in Kentucky, including what's happening here at the state capitol with our good friend Roland Martin, who's the managing editor of Kentucky Public Radio, an Ohio Valley resource.

Good to see your island.

Good to see you, too, Renata.

So let's talk about the juvenile justice bills that are moving through.

I say bills because we had two more that came through committee today, but a big one got some action yesterday.

House Bill three.

Walk us through that one.

That's right.

So House Bill three had already passed out of committee.

But then there is the unusual move of sending it back to committee for some additional changes.

The big ticket item here is actually reopening a shuttered youth detention facility in Louisville.

That is a city run facility that will now be run by the state.

And there's a price tag of $39 million to this whole to this whole bill.

Most of that money does go to reopening would go to reopening that youth detention facility.

But there is also some money set aside for additional staffing needs across the state, transportation and also renovating another Jefferson County youth facility for more kids with the more minor offenses.

So that all passed out of the House yesterday.

There were a couple of provisions in there that are better controversial that some criminal justice reform act advocates are worried about.

One would open up youth criminal records or three years for for kids who have been convicted of some violent crimes.

But those violent crimes do include some more common problems, such as burglary, robbery, assault.

But it would leave those normally sealed records.

It would open them up for three years.

And that's really raised a lot of worries for people who are, you know, worried about these kids being able to find a job once they come of age.

Beyond that, there's also a measure in there that would require some of those youth charged with violent offenses to be held in jail to a mandatory detention for up to 48 hours.

So that could be as short as an hour if a judge is able to be located.

And something happened, but there will be a mandate for them to be incarcerated for at least a shortened period of time just when they're charged.

So this is adjudication or anything.

So that's on the House side of things.

And then today, there's this big Senate measure that came out of nowhere.

Really.

The Senate has so far been, you know, hasn't put anything forward.

But this is really a lot more focused just on some of the staffing needs, on some of the facilities improvements that need to happen in the juvenile justice system, but also this mental health focus, which is good to see some of the legislators starting to realize that something is going to have to be done to make sure that we're boost bolstering your kids ability to get screened and to have mental health resources when they're incarcerated with the state.

And so is there any price tag to that last measure that you were referring to?

Senate Bill 162 We heard you talk about the $39 million price tag for House Bill three.

That includes a lot of money going to the shuttered reopening of the detention center and Louisville.

But what about what's being proposed from the Senate side?

I'm not totally sure if I remember correctly.

I think I saw around a $40 million price tag, though.

Don't quote me on that at this moment.

This just kind of came out today.

Haven't been able to see the full proposal yet, but it does seem like at some point there's going to have to be a meeting of the minds here between the House and the Senate versions of how to deal with this.

And really so far, the big expensive price tag to this is, one, reopening this youth detention facility and bring it under state care possibly, and also trying to find some way for this staff in a boost in staffing and transportation.

And another bill, Senate Bill 158 just requires the state auditor to work on a contract with a third party to do a full performance review of that.

Significant, but not as significant as the other measures.

And we'll see, because we know we've heard a lot about like reopening the budget.

Right.

But it seems like we've got some measures that would call for that.

So let's move on to another issue dealing with kids, and that's student discipline and the classroom.

There was a measure that got a lot of discussion in the House Education Committee on Tuesday about this.

The sponsor of that bill says this comes down to retention and possibly even recruitment to get more teachers to stay in the classroom.

Tell us about this measure.

Yeah, this goes back to a lot of those discussions that have been happening throughout the legislative session about teacher recruitment and retention, as you're talking about.

One of those factors that educators are talking about a lot is that student behavior is a major contributing factor, along with low pay.

And and the other thing they're mentioning is respect from politicians and other community members as well.

So this would try to address that one part of of that a three legged stool of problems and try to provide some more opportunities basically for teachers and students and administrators to to discipline kids.

It would require expulsion in more cases of student violations, but it would also provide some alternative forms of, you know, allowing a kid to go into a virtual instruction for a period of time or some sort of alternative setting to still stay in the education system.

So this is under House Bill 538.

Republican Representative Timmy Truitt, who's a school principal from McGee.

So we'll we'll see how this changes going along.

But you know, this so far along with, you know, some attempt to there's other bills as well to try and, you know, study the issue to figure out how to keep more teachers in the profession in Kentucky, how to attract more people to it.

But this is another tactic that Republican legislators especially are taking to try and provide some more opportunities, you know, disciplinary opportunities to deal with kids in the school system.

So real quickly, in like 15 seconds, I'll and let's talk about ag commissioner and Republican candidate for Governor, Ryan Quarles, who's unveiling his platform week by week.

And the first thing he announced is legalizing medical marijuana.

Right.

Ryan Corales has been trailing a bit in the polls.

It looks like he's trying to take this lane that he's the Republican candidate for medical marijuana.

However, Somerset Mayor Alan Keck could already come out on this issue, as has suspended attorney Eric Dieters from northern Kentucky.

But he seems to be kind of the major candidate trying to fight for medical marijuana, saying he wants the legislature to do that in his first year in office.

Well, thank you, Eileen, as always, for breaking it down for us.

Take good care.

Thanks, Renee.