A new lawmaker to the Kentucky General Assembly just wrapped up his first legislative session.

Our Jim LaFleur caught up with State Representative Chris Lewis of Louisville as we look to introduce you to one of the members of the freshman class of 2025.

Chris Lewis figured out some things early in life.

He married his high school sweetheart and has had a lifelong career in politics and government, and right out of college, I went and had the opportunity to work for former Congresswoman and Northup, which was a fantastic experience.

And as a, as a great lady.

And it was it was just a great experience for me to go to work in the federal government.

He later worked for Kelly Craft during her run to be Kentucky's Republican gubernatorial candidate, but he spent most of his career in local government.

I ended up transitioning into the Louisville Metro Council, where I was on staff in several different positions for almost two decades.

He was deputy director for the council Republican Minority Caucus, but now he is in the majority in Frankfort.

So the experience in local government and federal government, I think, really has served me very well.

As a freshman here in the state legislature.

Lewis sits on the local government, state government and small business and information technology committees, and his voting record shows he's well aligned with his party.

Probably the most surprising thing to me, is the rural urban divide that exists.

So as a legislator from Louisville, each part of the state is very unique and very different, and we all face different challenges.

And so, it's very difficult to craft legislation that serves metropolitan areas like Louisville and Lexington, parts of northern Kentucky, versus the rural areas in the state.

And so I think that balancing act of figuring out how to serve all those different constituencies, I think is the most difficult part that I have come to understand.

During his campaign, he says he knocked on 17,000 doors.

What he hears from constituents shapes his platform.

His number one priority will be public safety, which he says last year's Republicans improved upon with House Bill five, also known as the Safer Kentucky Act and infrastructure.

We have severe infrastructure needs, severe infrastructure needs in my district and in all of Louisville to be quite fair, you can go back and look at the formula fits if you're familiar with what that is.

It's an old state road funding formula, that benefits, mileage of roadways versus a number of cars traveled per day.

So you've got not that we don't have infrastructure needs in rural parts of the state.

We obviously do.

But the roads and infrastructure in Louisville are crumbling.

And we need more help from the state to fix that.

And that is absolutely a priority of mine because that's what my constituents want.

One constituent inspired him to bring forward a piece of legislation.

House build 211, the cigar bar bill.

So, gentlemen, in my district owns the Louisville Cigar Company in the Highlands.

He renovated a beautiful old historic home and really made a showpiece out of a showplace out of it.

And this would allow smoking indoors in that facility.

And so he brought this to my attention.

I think it it perfectly pairs with, the, the bourbon schism, and tourism in Kentucky and our horse racing culture.

And, and I, I understand I have no desire to ever roll back the smoking ban.

I'm perfectly fine, you know, with the municipalities that have made that decision, I don't I don't want to walk my family through, you know, a restaurant that smoke filled either.

And that's just not what this does.

House bill 211 had some early momentum.

It gained approval from the full House and a Senate committee, but the bill never came before a vote in the upper chamber.

And I think the Senate really just kind of ran out of time.

You know, we got to a juncture where there's so many bills coming through, and they just simply ran out of time.

Lewis says there's always next year.

But where the Senate's stalled.

Louisville city Council acted.

It approved cigar bars locally in a vote just last week for Kentucky edition.

I'm June Leffler.

Thank you.

June Lewis fills the seat left by former Republican state Representative Kevin Bratcher.

Bratcher left his post to run for a seat on Louisville's Metro Council, which he won.