By Tom Latek
Kentucky Today
The Kentucky General Assembly met in a rare Saturday session so final action could be taken on legislative congressional and appellate court redistricting during the first week of the 2022 regular session.
The House approved the Senate’s redistricting bill, Senate Bill 2, involving their own chamber, on a 67-23 vote.
Legislators met in rare Saturday session
The Congressional redistricting bill, SB 3, also won easy passage, 65-25.
They also voted 85-4 to adopt SB 20, which addresses legal challenges to redistricting bills. It would change the current law, which has a three-judge panel appointed by the Chief Justice of the Kentucky Supreme Court to hear any lawsuits regarding redistricting. Instead, the challenges could be filed in the home county of the plaintiff of any lawsuit.
Those three measures now head to Gov. Andy Beshear, who has 10 days to sign them, veto them, or let them become law without his signature.
At the same time, the Senate gave final approval to House Bill 179, which covers redistricting of the Court of Appeals and Supreme Court districts on a 33-1 vote. The lone no vote came from Sen. Adrienne Southworth, R-Lawrenceburg.
By a 23-10 margin, the Senate also passed the House redistricting bill, 23-10.
Those two measures also go to the governor for his final action.
In addition, the Senate, on a 25-9 vote, adopted Senate Bill 1, sponsored by Sen. John Schickel of Union, which would remove the power of hiring school principals from the school’s site-based council and return it to the local school board, which was the method used prior to the passage of the Kentucky Education Reform Act in 1990. It also gives the local school board the authority to determine the curriculum in each school, which had been within the purview of the site-based councils as well.
SB 1 now heads to the House for its consideration.
Lawmakers will return to Frankfort on Monday for the start of the second week of the session.
To read bills in full or follow legislative activity, see legislature.ky.gov.
The redistricting plan is a disaster for Northern KY. Dividing Covington into three House districts is an example of extreme raw partisanship. NKY continues to be swallowed up in a sprawling congressional district stretching from Ashland to the Louisville region, The urban populations of this state will be significantly underrepresented…. Moreover, the legislature’s redistricting maps were not made public until the end of December and then rammed through the House and Senate during the first week of the session.
The maps should be ripe for lawsuits!