stronger message or >> so what does the vice president's decision to go with Governor Walz mean for the future of Kentucky's governor?

For more on that, our Laura Rodgers sat down with NPR journalist Rylan Barton.

>> Rylan, good to see you.

You see 2 are we now know that Governor Andy Beshear will not be on the Democratic presidential ticket.

So I want to ask you about it.

His response to Vice President Kamala Harris's decision and also what you think this means for the governor moving forward.

Yeah.

>> And his response has been very congratulatory to Vice President Harris and Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor who ultimately got the nod to be her VP nominee.

It seems like this year was in the running for this up until the bitter end of this veepstakes.

It.

It was so interesting how this worked out.

I'm not sure how intentional this was, but there is so much media campaign by each one of these informal candidates where they would go on to all these new shows.

And this year's turn of this was really blasting the Republican vice presidential nominee, JD Vance, accusing him of not being essentially Kentucky enough.

While Vance, it touts his grandmother's Kentucky roots and was really got out of his progressive record as the governor of Minnesota and especially the last couple years where they had Democrats controlling both chambers of the legislature there.

They pass a lot of big progressive priorities.

I think that's the big thing that stands out is the difference between somebody like walls and somebody like this year.

We're sure, you know, whatever progressive things he's been able to get done is only been, you know, through executive order.

Hughes, I'm really been out of step with the legislature's priorities, although, you know, he and the Legislature worked together on some economic development initiatives.

That was what he's really push for.

A lot of how this year's really become famous in the state or at least well known throughout his one and a little bit more term in office is there is handling a disaster.

So free, no tornadoes and floods have taken place or return.

And also he's got a lot of name recognition here because his father was the governor.

So I think that, you know, he was a somebody that the the ticket was strongly considering.

But in the end, I think so something where, you know, governor is able to pass a whole lot of actual progressive legislation was something that the Democratic ticket wanted to lean on.

And also you're trying to bring in some of those votes from some of those northern Midwestern states, although missed Minnesota's not as swinging as some of the other ones is right next door to Wisconsin, which Democrats really trying to perform strongly in.

And then, you know, looking to Michigan and Pennsylvania, they're hoping that he's able to appeal to to some of those areas.

>> So they're speculation now about what could be next for Governor Beshear.

Well, he served and vice President Harris is elected to the presidency.

Will he serve in the cabinet time?

What would be some future political aspirations for him?

Even years down the road after his term as governor in us.

>> Yeah, that would certainly be interesting, You know, there's any number of positions in the in the I'm not sure which one would necessarily be Morrison.

Most appealing are qualified for to see somebody from attorney general.

But also there's no talk of him will be on the governorship if you're ever run for higher office.

Beyond to run for U.S. Senate.

>> Possibly another story that we want to get some perspective from you.

One is an article that Joe Soccer Road for Kentucky Public Radio which talks about the cost of legislation and it brings attention to government transparency.

How a lot of those costs remain hidden.

Can you tell us more about that?

>> Yeah, this is a really great article that that whole lot of people about how things work in the legislature, including people who are elected to the legislature.

So in Kentucky bills that spend money are supposed spills that spend money are supposed to have something called a fiscal note attached to it, which tells you how much that Bill is going to cost.

Now, there are a lot of exceptions for when that fiscal note is actually attached to a bill that say like a budget bill to tell you how much it costs.

But Joe and the Czech Republic Day to discover that there's a process called a confidential fiscal note where lawmakers will analysts to calculate the cost for how much a piece of legislation will cost, but not ever release That true cost publicly as the bills moving through the legislative process.

So even though there's a known cost of how much it's going to be the public doesn't get informed about it.

And even governor lawmakers don't get informed about it.

It's it's kind of a disturbing revelation because that's a major criterion for how people should evaluate legislation is how much it costs.

One big example of this is the bill from a couple years ago this will slowly eliminate the state's of income tax depending on certain if the state meet certain measures, there's a confidential fiscal note attached to that.

That was never publicly revealed.

That showed how much it was going to as lawmakers were discussing this through legislative process.

But we never got to learn about that.

I think that there should be inquiry into this.

And this is something that even you know, Republicans of feel like they they would like to know the Republican leaders feel like they would like to know more about this.

But that's just the way it works in Kentucky right now and other Republican leaders are defending that saying that they need this process because they don't want it's a slow down, especially late in the legislative session when they need to be really nimble when they're passing bills.

But, you know, public information advocates will say that are open.

Government advocates will say it's actually the most important time for the public to know the true cost of of bills like this because otherwise things can move really quickly and we're not going to you know, we're not going to the true facts of some of this legislation.

>> And then another story getting a lot of attention this week in the Kentucky Lantern former governor Matt Bevin's adopted son being removed from a boarding school for troubled teens and Jamaica conditions.

They're said to be abusive.

>> Yeah, this is a really disturbing story is originally reported out by the London Times.

So long investigative into homes for troubled specifically where American parents will feel like that come to a point where they need to send their kid to a place to get treatment, to get to And this one particular place in Jamaica's actually know found to be abusing some of the kids who are sent there it was shut down earlier this year after raid from a Jamaican authorities soon after allegations of abuse.

There.

So a lot of the kids who are residents there you moved often been repatriated return to to their in the United States.

But their 3 kids were not.

One of them Noah Bevan was one of the adopted children of former governor Matt and he became a ward of the Jamaican state.

It's an incredibly disturbing story and we haven't heard a response from the former governor yet as to what exactly is going on here.

But this is a really big policy platform for the former governor when he was in office was reform of the of this of the state's foster care system is somebody who's really focused on on child welfare apparently after he lost re-election.

You know, you said one of his own adopted kids to the facility that it was determined ultimately be abusing some of the kids.

So I think everybody is pretty disturbed by this and still waiting to hear from the former governor.

So we can get the full story.

>> All right.

Well, Ron, we appreciate it so much.

Thank you, as always, for your insight.

And we will talk to you again next week.