Time now for our end of the week review of some major political developments in Kentucky, particularly in the state capital this week.

And we have our election night commentators with us, former Kentucky secretaries of State Bob Babbage, who is the founder of the government relations firm Babbage co-founder, and Trey Grayson, who is with Ross Brown.

Todd And he runs their government relations affiliate Civic Point.

Always have to look at my notes on that part.

Just for us front.

To cover, Right?

Okay.

So we had a lot of things happening in the mad dash to this now veto period that ran for ten days.

Trey, I'll start with you.

What are some highlights of what was passed and headed to the governor's desk?

So I think a couple of the big highlights were when we say highlights, we're not acting.

We're not being judgmental.

That's right.

Just to be clear, the Gray Machine issue got settled.

The there was consensus to actually prohibit the gray machines or to the the slot like machines that are in restaurants and bars and convenience stores and some other places.

There was not only to the legislature, but the governor signed it immediately.

So while the bill doesn't actually go into effect until summertime, that issue's done.

And it wasn't clear where that was going to be headed.

I think if you asked that to predict, we would have said that, but we weren't sure.

Medical marijuana cleared the Senate for the first time, which was pretty big news yesterday.

Still has some work.

You know, they still have to go to the House and governor would have presumably sign it.

And Senate Majority Leader Damon Thayer came across to the to the other side there and explained why he was voting yes.

And so what are your highlights, quote unquote, Babbage?

Well, Thayer said in a word it was compassion that pulled him over.

The two most asked about bills, at least in our experience, even before the session.

Medical, marijuana and sports betting.

So one was actually addressed in a way that we think it will finish up.

The other still pending.

Maybe not enough votes to pass, but by Tuesday of this week, we had 30 bills that are going to house the Senate in the Wednesday, Thursday session.

So we had 85 additional bills completed, a tremendous amount of work.

Still, some things pending bills were changed worked on coming up.

That sports betting question I'm sure will loom out there along with a number of other things.

I think this will be the most active ten day veto break in recent memory because so many things are still to come.

House Bill five, which is the barrel tax issue for borrowing House Bill nine, which is the grants opportunity for Kentucky to secure $78 million, roughly speaking, of federal money over the next three years, going through a process that kind of sets up a framework for that and other things that maybe aren't as big a headline grabber.

Right.

But people care about a whole lot.

Well, the headline grabber, yeah.

They actually these are headline grabbers, I think.

Is that right?

What happened yesterday with Senate Bill 150.

150, which took on most of House bill for seven days.

And and the point was made that, you know, there's a lot of time spent on a bill that affects 1% of the Kentucky population.

So you know why has this risen to the level of prominence and importance for this General assembly?

Well, you're right about the narrowness of the direct narrowness, but this is an issue that that a lot of Republicans care about.

Apparently so much so that even when it looked like it had the the issue had had died the day before, that there was a big push by Representative Josh Calloway in the house and Jay Williams in the Senate to try to figure out.

And they ended up adopting, I think, what they call the South Dakota model, which was similar to Force 70, which is that for those who are, you know, were thrown out little numbers here, that's the gender trans gender affirming care bill that would have prohibited that.

And then Senate Bill 150, among other things, for mandates, parental rights bill was how it was framed.

And and and they put them together in the house.

Along with some language about bathroom restrooms, locker rooms.

Yeah, it wasn't quite a true bathroom ban, Bill, but essentially leaves the locals to have to adopt their own what will become bans.

And so it became it was a really heated a really heated debate over the over the session and also from the gallery.

You know, lots of folks we.

Heard that it remotely.

The viewers heard.

Yeah, we we have no way of beeping that out, folks.

So we heard it when you heard it, Bob.

Because we put 4 hours in on the last day for those bills you just talked about.

Some in the business community say, how about more focus on economic progress?

There were steps taken to add teachers to create better and faster tracks for people who want to teach.

Also, effort for health care, workforce, workforce, as always, a big issue all across the board.

But why didn't we hear the business community come out and strongly and testify against those bills?

I'm not sure that dynamic exactly, But the business community was saying for all the time we spend there less spend time on economics.

There was a manufacturing tax that got added on to a bill that came off in conference committee.

That was a negative that had to turn into a positive in the business mind and other aspects of economic development law that could have been addressed along the way were put off to next year and then next year, a budget year.

And that's often the time when we do those things.

And I think, you know, one of the challenges the business community has in Frankfurt is it's got a big it had a very large issue set.

And there are you know, I work with a group called Kentucky Competes, which was a business coalition that that weighed in July, issued some statements in advance on some of this legislation.

But the supporters of this legislation were, you know, much more narrowly targeted.

It's also it just a reminder, I mentioned earlier, all the new people, a lot of the new folks are coming from the more extreme sides, really, of both parties.

Well, the majority party is can flex its muscles.

And so we saw that where leadership was trying to craft a more moderate course.

The original Senate bill 150, Senator Danny Carroll's amendment, which got approved before it was tabled on the House on cynical or excuse me, on the House before 70, which was a would narrow the prohibitions on gender affirming care.

So opponents of that still didn't like that, but it was a much, much more measured approach.

Still give doctors some ability and flexibility.

But those those kind of liberal libertarian and social concern, Republicans, there's a lot of them right now and they have a loud voice and kind of, you know, leadership sort of had to go along and that's what happened.

Well, that'd be the conversation we have on Kentucky night after the session.

Yeah.

About how leadership did or did or did not do that successfully.

So we'll talk more about that.

Good to talk to you guys.

Happy Saint Patty's Day, by the way.

You say.

Patriotism.

And for those, good luck to the cats tonight.

Hope that's a good sign.

Yeah.

Thank you, guys.

Thank you.