Today’s legislative update offers both a look back at the 2023 session of the Kentucky General Assembly, in which lawmakers overrode all 14 bills and a joint House resolution vetoed by Gov. Andy Beshear as well as a look at what’s expected to be a dominant policy issue in next year’s legislature.

#KyGA23 – Labor Freedom: Paycheck Protection for Public Employees

Among the vetoes legislators overrode included giving final passage to legislation ending the transmission of taxpayer dollars in the form of membership dues and political contributions from government payrolls to public-sector union coffers.

While Senate Bill 7 doesn’t prevent teachers and other public workers from joining a union, paying dues and making political contributions, unions must now collect those dollars directly from members rather than relying on school districts and other public employers from collecting them through automatic paycheck deductions.

The legislation also mandates that unions provide members with an annual report detailing their spending. Less than 9% of the nearly $400 million in dues and fees collected in 2021 by the National Education Association (NEA) were used to represent and meet the needs of its members. The rest was spent on contributions and lobbying activity to advance the NEA’s radical social agenda and to deny educational freedom for parents. A significant portion of the monies Bluegrass State teachers give to the Kentucky Education Association end up in NEA’s accounts.

Companion legislation, which Beshear signed, will, as part of next year’s General Fund Budget,  provide liability insurance to all certified employees of Kentucky public schools.

In the past, many teachers have joined labor unions primarily for liability coverage. But with the overwhelming support for Senate Bill 3, the Kentucky General Assembly is emphasizing that this is a legitimate state function.

Teachers’ unions have opposed nearly every free-market policy offered by the Bluegrass Institute during our two decades of existence. They’ve opposed right-to-work, prevailing wage repeal on public projects, commonsense and cost-saving reforms to the state’s retirement systems and needed cuts in the commonwealth’s income tax rates needed to make Kentucky competitive again.

#KyGA24 – Education Freedom: School Choice Constitutional Amendment

If #KyGA23 was the “labor freedom session,” could #KyGa24 be the “educational freedom session” that finally empowers Kentucky parents with the same kind of educational liberty available to parents in every other state in America’s southeast?

House Bill 174 would have allowed Kentucky voters to finally decide during the 2024 presidential election that just because a parent might not be wealthy doesn’t mean their children should be denied the education that best fits them. Even though Rep. Josh Calloway’s bill did not get a vote on either chamber’s floor, it did get voted out of committee, which helps school choice supporters maintain momentum for the school choice cause in our state.

Such a bill is likely to pass the General Assembly and make it onto the ballot in 2024. The challenge for school choice supporters will be to educate voters to pass it once it’s on the ballot.

See our bill tracker below for final updates from this year’s legislature: