Um, OK, so how is everyone?
It feels like I haven’t talked to y’all in a solid month, but I know that can’t possibly be true because I went on a well-timed rant about how public school districts can’t be using public resources to actively advocate for or against ballot items (even if said ballot items can be easily argued to be against said districts’ best interests) just a week ago.
But we haven’t really had a “normal” newsletter — aka one focused on what’s happening in Kentucky policy and politics instead of just one focused on ranting and/or Fancy Farm — in close to a month, and we have a lot of ground to cover. So we’ll be moving pretty fast tonight.
As always, if you have recommendations/suggestions/questions, you can reply directly to this newsletter and it’ll land in my inbox. Or send it straight to olivia.krauth@gmail.com.
And if I miss something, my bad! MY BAD! Apologies.
Let’s begin.
We can start with the state fair
‘Tis the szn, y’all.
Kentucky’s State Fair started last week and runs until Sunday in Louisville, should you be inclined.
Just a quick lil rundown of what has happened thus far:
First and foremost, Kentucky’s Secretary of State opened voting on this year’s “I Voted” sticker design, which you can vote on at the SOS booth at the fair. I’m not here to tell you how to vote, but there is a clear winner.
And yes, Secretary Michael Adams himself personally confirmed that the “leering lizard is a candidate, not a poll watcher.”
He has not yet confirmed whether or not a Lizard Man win will convince his new bestie, Jack Schlossberg, to visit Kentucky.
IF YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW HAS ANY CONNECTION TO CASH, PLEASE CONTACT ME. I want to make him friendship bracelets but also I have … so many questions. Thank you!
Lawmakers once again had a series of interim legislative meetings at the state fair, which once again raised several questions about how this is possibly legal under Kentucky’s open meetings laws.
Typically, legislative meetings even during the interim are both open to the public in Frankfort and livestreamed on multiple platforms. The annual State Fair meetings are the only time said meetings aren’t livestreamed and aren’t available to attend for free in-person.
Open meetings need to be … open meetings, which means you can’t charge admission (you can’t gatekeep public meetings!).
The LRC told folks to contact them to get a QR code that the front gate person could scan that would let them in for free for the meetings, but that raised a new set of concerns because the open meetings law is clear that you can’t require a list of people who attended said meetings and a stream of emails requesting access … seemed to violate that.
Perhaps next year we will have a solution to this issue.
One of the aforementioned meetings involved a discussion about how public school districts can’t use public resources to advocate for/against ballot questions like the school choice amendment. I would tell you what was said, but it wasn’t livestreamed on the normal channels and even with my LRC-issued QR code, attending in-person took far too many steps for my ADHD brain to compute without starting to fry.
But, fret not, we have a Facebook livestream (s/o to Raising Voices).
Apparently, the entire convo about this issue took less than 15 minutes, which is less than it would’ve taken me to park my car, walk to the function, walk back, and leave the scene. ADHD brain 1, everyone else 0.
The livestream did, however, offer the moment of Rep. Kevin Bratcher jokingly thanking GLI (Louisville’s chamber of commerce) who appeared to have provided “snacks” for the event for the Skinny Pop and then chucking aside an apparently empty snack bag of popcorn.
Once again, a ham got auctioned off early Thursday morning “for charity” aka the people who don’t get emails telling them they’re eligible for SNAP benefits who were already planning on donating millions to charity but know it looks better when a ham gets involved, spent millions on said ham.
Failed GOP gubernatorial candidate Kelly Craft and her billionaire husband, Joe, won this year after offering a record $10.5 million for a ham they actually get to keep (that last part is news to me).
In the Crafts’ defense,
1. If I had $10.5 million, I’d spend it on a ham, too.
2. At least they showed up this year. Last year, they bid in absentia, which I didn’t realize was a word until they made me use it.
3. Some of that $10.5 mil is going to rebuilding housing in Eastern Kentucky, so good for them. (For those of you with less money (aka all of you) who still want to support EKY, I will once again encourage everyone to support EKY Mutual Aid.)
What happens to the ham? The Herald Leader’s Austin Horn asked.
Speaking of the ham, Miss Kentucky — who is tasked with parading the massive ham around — did an absolute public service by sharing her arm routine via TikTok ahead of the event. No choice but to stan; thank you to our queen.
Um, also, the state fair judges apparently awarded a miniature set third place until they realized it was specifically a miniature depiction of a well-known-but-apparently-not-well-enough-question-mark? porn set.
“A spokesperson for the Kentucky State Fair said in a statement to LPM News, ‘entries submitted to the fair are routinely reviewed throughout the event.’” Yeah, I can tell y’all are working hard at that.
Perhaps this was happens when you ban PornHub in Kentucky: People don’t know what common porn sets look like, and so you let them become award-winning pieces of art in front of kids.
God bless Kentucky.
So, re: school choice amendment
Last time we spoke, it was basically all about how Pulaski County Schools — one of the largest school districts in Kentucky — posted something on their district and school websites and social media accounts encouraging people to vote against Amendment 2 in November, which would allow public dollars to go to private and charter schools.
If you missed it, please read it because I do not have time to detail it now.
OK, so since then, here’s a rundown of what happened:
The Attorney General agreed with me, issuing an advisory a few hours after my last newsletter, saying public school districts can’t be doing this for a few reasons.
First, because local, state and federal tax dollars can’t go to advocating for/against ballot questions (as we discussed).
Second, a point which I lowkey may have left out, there are policies straightup saying public school employees can’t use school time or resources to advocate for their personal political beliefs.
Yeah, so even if you have questions about how many “resources” it could possibly take to, say, post something on Facebook, at some point, there was a public district employee tasked with crafting and posting said post … which is not allowed.
Pulaski County Schools eventually took down the messaging but was basically like, we will persist! (plz picture one of the opening scenes from “Booksmart” iykyk; I can’t find a GIF of it because apparently I’m the only person who quotes that movie on a semi-regular basis.)
Of course, the yelling did not stop there. I will spare you the details because I know several of y’all subscribe to this newsletter in hopes of not being quite as chronically online as I am.
JK: One of Kentucky’s largest school districts blocked a prominent school choice advocate on Facebook despite the fact that he was right and that blocking people over speech you don’t like from an official district account is legally bad. (Said school choice advocate has been since unblocked.)
Their initial action caused them to heavily limit comments on Facebook righttt as kids were heading back to class so sorry to those parents who had questions without answers and teachers who had to answer the same question multiple times because there wasn’t a public spot for it to be asked and answered.
Lots of yelling. Lots of not happy people. Obvs, we will be keeping an eye on this from now until … November. What a treat.
Yeah, so, Grossberg
Several people are demanding Rep. Daniel Grossberg’s resignation after a series of young women involved in politics said he made unwanted, creepy and/or sexually charged comments toward them.
I highly encourage everyone to read The Herald Leader’s coverage of all of this. They’re the ones who broke the story and they’ve continued to handle these women’s accounts with care and diligence. Here’s their initial story from late July, and here’s some of their most recent — and truly most concerning — reporting.
Just read the reporting.
Grossberg, a freshman Democrat from Louisville, has generally denied all of this as he continues to be under multiple state-level investigations and is also currently barred from Democratic caucus meetings.
In some of the latest news, Gov. Andy Beshear called the allegations “very concerning.” Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman and the head of the Ky. Dems have also voiced concerns.
Others, including the Ky. Young Dems, have pushed further, demanding Grossberg’s resignation. (He won a Democratic primary in May and doesn’t face a challenger in November, fyi.)
His attorney has pointed out Grossberg is neurodivergent, basically meaning he may not always know when his words or actions cross certain lines and/or aren’t being perceived how he intended them to be perceived.
As I mentioned earlier in this newsletter, I have ADHD, therefore I am also considered in some regards neurodivergent. I don’t claim to understand every single social cue because of that. But some of the events detailed in this reporting — and I absolutely trust the reporters and editors behind it — I cannot find empathy for.
You really wanna go there, UK?
It appears UK is basically done with caring about diversity, equity and/or inclusion.
It is breaking up its Office of Institutional Diversity, plus several other changes. The GOP-dominated legislature didn’t even need to actually pass a bill on the topic — they literally couldn’t come to an agreement on how far they wanted to go, so they didn’t go anywhere at all — but apparently that wasn’t necessary.
“To be ‘impartial facilitators as an institution of broad perspectives,’ the university and (UK Prez) Capilouto will no longer make statements on political or partisan events or issues, including on the university website,” Capilouto said in a statement, per the HL.
“…we’ve also listened to policymakers and heard many of their questions about whether we appear partisan or political on the issues of our day and, as a result, narrowly interpret things solely through the lens of identity. In so doing, the concern is that we either intentionally or unintentionally limit discourse.”
Dr. Ricky Jones, the former Pan-African Studies chair at U of L, tweeted he isn’t “surprised at this point. Par for the course in Kentucky. And the sad thing is, nobody will say or do a damn thing about it. More proof that they lied to y’all in 2020 when they said, ‘We must and will do better.’”
I’ve had some folks ask me to discuss this decision in detail, but between how long this newsletter is already and how I’m not ready to completely discuss this at the level it deserves, I’ll refrain. Other than saying Go Cards.
And so everything else
My contacts are slowly falling out of my eyes, so let me wrap this up as quickly as I can.
Gov. Andy Beshear is not the Dems VP pick, and he has also shot down ideas he would be interested in a cabinet position should VP Kamala Harris be elected.
The JCPS task force met again in Frankfort. They talked a lot about data and different governance models with experts from both fields. If you need data about JCPS, especially around school desegregation and demographics, contact me. I probably have the numbers. Thank you.
The task force meets again next Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. in Louisville’s Central High School. It is gonna be a public forum and you can sign up to speak starting at 5 p.m.
Grown men are obsessed with children’s bathrooms again. (Yes, again.)
Louisville Democrat Rep. Nima Kulkarni is going through a whole thing regarding whether or not she can run for office again. Here’s the whole thing, courtesy of the Lantern.
I know I’m missing something. Let me know by responding to this newsletter.
OK, my contacts are literally crumbling in my eyes rn, so I’m gonna go.
Just a heads up: I’m hoping/planning on being out of town at some point over the next week. Between that and Labor Day weekend, if you don’t hear from me until the second week of September or something, don’t be alarmed. I’m probably not dead. Just trying to look at a body of water or two.