Huge thanks to my friend Sheri Quinn for the basic ideas and to our liberty community for the tweaks. United we stand.
Amendment 1 - Vote NO
Summary: Currently, only the Governor can call the Kentucky GA (General Assembly or legislature) into a special session. A special session is when the GA is called back into session after the regular 3-3.5 month session.
This amendment gives the power to call a special session to TWO MORE legislators: the Senate President and the Speaker of the House. These two legislators would call it together. (It can’t be called by just one of them.)
If this passes, the governor can call a special session AND the above 2 legislators can call the GA into special session. That’s double trouble for us and here’s why.
TALKING POINTS
★ Camel’s nose under the tent. Amendment 1 stretches the timeframe for the GA to meet from the current 3-3.5 months in the beginning of the year to the full year. They have 12 days total for special sessions. They can call one for 3 days this month, 2 next month, 4 later in the year, 3 days after that. Basically, they can meet off and on for the ENTIRE YEAR.
This results in less citizen oversight and less public participation. Right now, we KNOW when they are meeting — 3 to 3.5 months at the beginning of each year — and we activists gear up for that time frame. When they can meet sporadically thru-out the year, we’ll have to drop everything to pay attention. Some of us work for a living. 🙄
$$ Special sessions cost more, LOTS more:
Legislators don’t get their regular salary but they DO get per diem and there’s no cap on that!
No regular salary BUT leadership has the authority to pay legislators for extra days worked during a special session.
Their staffers get paid.
The cost of putting the capital and annex in full-on mode: electricity, water, janitors, facility workers, supplies, printing, etc.
That’s a lot but there’s more I’m not thinking of… what else?
More laws. That’s why they think they are there: to create more and more laws, it’s all they do.
We rely on “the clock running out” to kill bad bills. In this new scenario, bad bills might never die.
This will make if nearly impossible to keep tabs on what they are doing, which is surely a plus for them.
This amendment allows them meet and vote on new legislation potentially year round. It is yet another step towards a full-time legislature.
★ Puts MORE power in the hands of 2 already extremely powerful people (power they have not used wisely). Amendment 1 allows for 12 additional days of emergency session to be called by TWO PEOPLE in leadership.
Currently, the governor is the only person who can call a special session. He will not call one if he thinks his authority will be challenged, so on the surface, it looks like adding these TWO legislators will fix any imbalance of power. But, can you imagine that those two will not call the GA into special session at the drop of a hat? They live to rule. Giving them more time to do that is a very bad idea.
And, heck, if they were being honest, calling a special session would be decided by a 2/3 quorum of the General Assembly. But they didn’t ask for that, did they?
★ The word “emergency” is crossed out because now a special session could be called for ANY REASON “from time to time”. No need for an emergency! Got an idea for a new law? Let’s call a special session!
★ All the reasons currently given for the “need” for all this extra power to the GA fall flat when you look at the history of what they have done so far in the last three sessions, which is nearly nothing for the taxpayers they are supposed to represent. They have had the power all along to rein in the governor and have done little but give lip service. Why, then, do they need more time to keep us in chains?
REMEMBER EASTER SUNDAY AT MARYVILLE CHURCH? The governor called out the police to take photos of license plates of anyone attending that Easter Sunday’s church service so the worshippers could be hunted down and locked in their homes. THAT HAPPENED DURING SESSION. The super-majority Republican legislators could have stopped that and did NOTHING. Not even lip service.
★ Kentucky’s legislature is a part-time gig for citizen legislators. Some of whom work for a living. Imagine a scenario where a citizen legislator who works for a living can be called into their part-time job on short notice for no pay? Suddenly being a legislator is less feasible for a working person. And it suddenly becomes more attractive and attainable to someone who is retired and/or wealthy. Imagine a legislature of wealthy retired legislators with plenty of time on their hands. And few if any working productive people in the room.
★ Ditto citizen lobbyists who work or are SAHMs. Will we be able to lobby on short notice, running to Frankfort to stop a bad bill? Meanwhile, paid lobbyists have all the time in the world. Oh, and money.
★ This is a power grab that, once expanded, will never contract. When was the last time any legislature voted to take away their undeserved power?
★ Messing with our constitution is very serious and VERY hard to undo… as in, it’s never happened. Giving more power to government agents goes against everything our flag represents. The entire basis for the creation of these United States was to LIMIT a government’s power.
Amendment 2 - Vote YES
Summary: This amendment does NOT ban abortion, it states that there is no RIGHT to an abortion in the Ky Constitution.
Banning abortion would keep us in lawsuits till the end of time while abortions continued unabated. However, ATM, lawsuits are filed stating that, because the constitution doesn’t state one way or the other on the RIGHT to an abortion, then you can get one.
Pro-choice lawyers habitually use the Constitution to claim that, since it isn’t clearly stated, a woman has a RIGHT to an abortion. If this amendment passes then that constitutional argument can’t be used, thus eliminating the main pro-choice argument.
This will put the nail in the coffin for KY abortion clinics because this is the last tool in an attorney’s toolbox to fight pro-life laws. Buh-bye.