Oh goodie, here we go.
Welcome to the 2025 interim!
My party people, I hope y’all survived the first week of Kentucky’s interim session!
Lawmakers started to return to Frankfort this week as they begin their slow and steady march to the 2026 budget session, while Gov. Andy Beshear is trying — again — to convince the GOP-dominated legislature to better fund preschool across Kentucky.
Oh, and as Kentucky tries to continue to navigate a super uncertain future thrust upon them by the feds, the girlies are finally beefin’ (and by that I mean Trump and Elon). What a treat.
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This week in Ky. policy
TBH, the first week of the interim legislative session was kinda dull, but here’s a recap of what happened:
Yay, education!
Education committee members lowkey got a lil bombarded by a lot of numbers, education jargon and general dread over the future of Kentucky’s schools and kids.
My main takeaway: Potential federal funding cuts, including ones hitting federal programs that allow kids to eat and see doctors even if they’re poor, will likely be very bad for Kentucky’s public school students, the majority of whom come from low-income households.
And if federal funding is cut, the burden falls on Kentucky — which is actively being sued by its own students over not fully funding education as is. So.
What is healthy, exactly?
The first MAHA meeting happened and … that one will be a fascinating ride in really enunciating the differences between modern-day political ideologies as to what exactly would “Make America Healthy Again.”
Will we actually help our kids?
Could Kentucky see a mental health treatment center focused on incarcerated youth? Dept. of Juvenile Justice officials pitched building a $35 million facility to help youth who are in prison and need mental health support — something they said is not always best provided in the current juvenile justice set-up.
State leaders tend to be concerned about juvenile justice and where to put “high acuity” youth — basically those deemed violent or particularly aggressive to the point they need special accommodations — only, like, part of the time, so it’ll be interesting to see where this goes.
This week in Ky. politics
Leaning into pre-k energy (again)
First of all, Beshear is once again pushing hard for expanded access to preschool in Kentucky. He’s long been a proponent — despite the routine rejection of the legislature — of universal pre-k. And this week, he rolled out the (creatively named) “Pre-K for All” initiative, which, as you may have guessed, would like to see more youngins in preschool.
Beshear created a new task force looking at the issue via executive order, too. It is kinda designed like a legislative interim task force: Meet throughout the summer and fall, then deliver a list of recommendations to be considered for potential funding and/or legislation in the next legislative session.
But this task force is just a bunch of people hand-picked by Beshear. There is a bit of political diversity, but … all picked by Beshear. So, gee, I wonder what they’ll recommend.
More folks for the 2026 ballot
In other news, we’ve officially got a few fresh faces running for office.
GOP Rep. Ryan Dotson, who announced his campaign to run for Congressman Andy Barr’s seat a few weeks ago, had his official kick-off event earlier this week.
And Democrat David Kloiber, a former Lexington councilperson, jumped in the ring, too.
A few quick programming notes
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— olivia.