Time now to talk about some major development in Kentucky so far when it comes to the political scene with our good friend Rylan Barden, who was an editor with NPR National Public Radio.

Good to see you.

Good to see you, too, Renee.

So we're in the final stretch of the election, 2024 and we know that Governor Tim Walz, who was the running mate to Vice President Kamala Harris, made a stop in Louisville today on Wednesday, and many would question why is he doing that, considering that Kentucky was solidly behind the presidential runs of Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020?

So what's to be gained by this stop in Louisville?

Yeah, it's probably not a last ditch effort to try and flip Kentucky in favor of Democrats in these presidential elections.

But I think it is an attempt to kind of add some credibility to some of the campaign messaging that they've been making around.

I think especially abortion bans around the country.

This is something that the Harris campaign has also been doing this week in Texas, campaigning against their abortion ban.

But and I think in Kentucky so heavily, Deval is somebody who's been campaigning along with the with the Harris Walls campaign.

She's somebody who has been an abortion rights advocate since at least publicly since last year when she campaigned alongside Andy Beshear and telling her story about how she was raped as a rape by her stepfather, as a as a young teenager, as a child, really.

And and worrying about how, you know, Kentuckians going forward under Kentucky's abortion ban in similar situations wouldn't be able to access access abortions if they wanted to get them.

It's been a really strong message for for Democrats throughout this year when, you know, there's when we've been seeing the effects of of Roe v Wade being overturned and all these and a lot of conservative states that have, you know, decided to basically legislate abortion out of existence.

So there's that part of it.

There's also the fundraising part of it.

That's just a big thing that both campaigns are doing are continuing to do in the final stretch of the campaign, raising money in places like Kentucky or really anywhere where they can find folks to donate to their cause and keep messages up on the airwaves and keep their big operations running.

As you mentioned, you know, Hadley Duvall has been kind of the ambassador nationally for reproductive rights, but that issue is not on the Kentucky ballot this time, but it could resonate the residue from the actions that the state has taken on some key legislative races, particularly in Jefferson County.

There is about a handful, at least three, that are very interesting that we're going to have our our eyes on on election night.

Tell us about those.

Yeah, these are seats that Republicans won in the Louisville area in a couple of years ago.

They kind of pad their their majorities during that year.

They went from 75 to 80 seats.

And just in the House of Representatives, which is a high watermark for the Republican Party, a low watermark for the Democratic Party.

So Democrats are hoping to claw back a couple of those seats from these are House District 31.

And a lot of these are kind of in suburban Jefferson County, but also at least one of them includes a little bit of Oldham County as well.

But 31, where incumbent Susan Whitten is taking on Democratic challenger Collin Davis in House District 48 incumbent Ken Flaming, who has come in and out of the legislature over the last few years.

He was in then he was unseated and then won his seat back.

He's facing a challenge against Kate Barrow and then also in House District 37, which is kind of suburban Louisville into Bullitt County, where incumbent Emily Callaway is facing challenge for John Stovall.

And a lot of these the messaging around this has been around abortion, which I think, again, that's probably a lot of what Tim Walz is going to be talking about or, you know, talked about today in Louisville.

But but also, these campaigns are focusing a lot on the education amendment, the school choice amendment that Kentuckians are weighing in on, which is kind of the the big issue on the ballot statewide for Kentuckians this year.

Yeah, when we shorthanded they call school choice even though that's not language is not attached to the amendment on the ballot.

But that's how we refer to it.

So public radio partners in and western Kentucky a couple of stories that have come out in the last few days that are very interesting.

First hand, a side reported on a state lawmakers renewed attempt to make fluoride optional in the water.

We know that they tried.

This was an idea that was talked about, not acted on and the 2024 legislative session.

But there's a crept up crept up again, this time in an interim joint committee hearing earlier this week.

So could we see this legislation resurface in the next legislative session in 25?

We could.

And this is this comes from State Representative Mark Hart.

He's from Falmouth in northern Kentucky.

And he's he's brought this up before.

And he says that local communities should not be required to or shouldn't have this mandate.

If they don't want to have fluoride in their water, they shouldn't.

They shouldn't have to.

A little bit of what's behind this comes from a study from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that did discover that there is some confidence that higher high fluoride exposure can lead to lower IQ levels and in children.

But part of this is that local water departments and the amount of fluoride, the amount of flora that's in the water system is way, way lower than that threshold.

And so there's a little bit of confusion around this issue.

I mean, there's been a lot of worries and conspiracy theories really for years about the effects of fluoride and what it can possibly do.

But the main reason we have fluoride and or water is it's there's a preponderance of evidence that shows that it can improve oral health.

Derek Opal from Murray Public Radio.

He also reported about a ballad county the Ballot County School District.

There has removed certain books from school libraries.

Lawmakers had passed a measure in 2023 that would allow parental complaints to go through a process by which this could happen.

And in this story, there's also a connection to constitutional amendment number two on school choice that we talked about earlier.

So thread this needle for us.

Yeah, it is a it's a couple of different issues there.

But there are these mailers that were sent out by a group called Conservatives for the Commonwealth, which were took excerpts from books that were could be found in the school library.

A couple of the books were related to the stories of of of people dealing with gender identity issues.

There a an excerpt from a book where a young woman had with a detailing her account of being raped as a as a minor.

And and really these expert excerpts are kind of, you know, in shocking fonts, like kind of like, can you believe what your schoolchildren are being allowed to read?

But then also it says it has this plug for your vote in favor of Amendment two to allow to allow this so-called school choice measure, which would allow the legislature to then, you know, put public money to nonpublic schools.

It's not entirely clear how these two things are related.

But anyway, after this, after this mailer went out, complaints were filed.

And so this so county temporarily took the you know, has initially taken these books off of the shelves for now.

Yeah.

So it's you know, we've seen this for the last few years with this battle over school libraries, battle over how what we you know, how teachers can talk about certain issues, especially to sexuality and sex in the classroom and yeah, and this is the latest on that front out in ballot counting games.

It's done a good job of following all these issues.

Absolutely.

So a big shout out to them, to Derek openly and to Hannah side and to Ryland Barton.

We thank you for your insight on it all.

Thanks, Renee.