A new report from the League of Women Voters of Kentucky says state lawmakers continue to fast track bills, making it harder for everyday Kentuckians to follow and weigh in on the legislative process.

Our June LaFleur reports on that report.

The league has studied the legislative process for three years in a row.

Volunteers say they noticed a trend that they needed to analyze.

I was gone for almost 20 years and came back and sat in some sessions and said, this, this is different.

This is not what I remember.

And I had some colleagues from back in the day who were sitting there going, yeah, we thought it was different too.

But you know, when you're on a slow boil, you may not notice.

The league reported in 2023 and 2024 that the General Assembly had sped up the legislative process in recent years.

The league studied 860 day sessions occurring and even numbered years in 1998.

Lawmakers bend the rules to fast track 3% of all legislation passed that year.

That jumped to 37% in 2024.

This year, its report focuses on the short 30 day sessions happening in odd numbered years.

Typically, the 30 day sessions, if anything, there was almost as much legislation proposed.

So in fact, they hadn't even last time to do their work, which meant they speed things up.

Now it's kind of a bumpy ride.

If you look at the trend, it's not a complete, steady way up.

It does go down some years, but oddly enough, one chamber goes up when the other one goes down.

And we're still seeing a trend that's generally upward so that it can be as much as 50% of the time in a 30 day session, that all of these tricks come up and prevent people's participation.

What does the league consider fast tracking?

Essentially, when bills are read on the House or Senate floor before even being heard in committee.

Committee hearings are when members hash out a bill.

They debate it and hear testimony from constituents and lobbyists.

Based on the process, they're supposed to be three readings on the floor after the committee meets and makes a recommendation.

But what is happening in these fast track maneuvers is that they've been removed from the committee before anyone's talked about it.

And there can be as many as two readings before the committees ever met and ever talked about it.

The League says these tactics get in the way of public input and accountability and transparency.

And it's not Partizan.

I mean, this is vital to our healthy democracy.

We have the data.

We've looked at the process, we've made some recommendations.

And so now that we're aware of the problem, then that we can take steps to correct it.

It's up to state lawmakers on what to do with these findings to either stick to their rules, bend them, or change them.

Another long legislative session starts on January 6th.

For Kentucky edition, I'm June Leffler.

Thank you.

June.

Now, you can read the latest and previous reports from the Kentucky League of Women Voters online at l w v k y.org.