Commonwealth bills to lookout for
At tonight’s Education Fair, we talked to a number of bill authors about what their bills were all about. Here’s some highlights from the evening.
CW 1 — An act relating to business classes
Sponsors: Bobby Nguyen, Landon Rafferty, James Scrivner
“Basically, we are trying to make business classes mandatory for graduating, like Health and P.E. and other classes that are mandatory. We want to do that for business courses. Kentucky is ranked 48th in the country in financial literacy, so we’re just trying to get those rankings up. There are five states right now that require financial literacy, and they’re all ranked very highly in the country, so we’re trying to get our rankings up to set up promising financial futures for Kentuckians.”
CW 9 — An act relating to the payment of abandoned or unclaimed cars
Sponsors: Katelyn Estes, Garrett Ashlock, Katherine French, Madisons Andretta
“There are about 30,000 cars in the state of Kentucky left on the side of the road, abandoned, each year. As of right now, the towing companies that tow these cars and impound them take full responsibility for paying for the tow and impounding them. Drivers get a light fine of about $25 to $100, and the towing companies lose about $1.8 million in revenue each year towing these cars. What this bill will do would be to not necessarily suspend someone’s license if they abandon their car but to keep them from registering a new vehicle or a new license or whatnot before they pay the towing company for the two. This would give us $150,000 in profits from these paid fines for the state of Kentucky each year, and this would help to lower prices for towing…cars from accidents for Kentucky drivers, because the towing companies won’t have to take out the money themselves to pay for the tow.”
CW 12 — An act relating to prohibit marriage for individuals under the age of 17
Sponsors: Ashley Carlisle, Marisa Thoman, Adelaide Ensor
“Pretty much, in Kentucky, if you’re sixteen or seventeen and have parental consent, you can get married. But if you’re pregnant, there’s no minimum age for old you need to be to get married. There have been cases of 13-year-olds getting married, and 84 percent of the time it’s between an underage girl and an adult male. So we’re going to stop that, and we’re prohibiting a marriage under the age of seventeen with parents’ consent in play.”
CW 15 — An act relating to facilitating the citizenship of new people
Sponsors: William Caldbeck, Eli Cooper, Lee Head, Sydney Speed
“What this bill does is create a program called the KYPC, which is the Kentucky Populated Citizenship, and so we’re adding extra financial aid and different components to the current federal system. So in a sense, we’re providing a lot of financial and legal aid. If you’re an immigrant that’s living in Kentucky, and you are earning less than a certain amount of money, and you want to become a citizen and you don’t know how or you don’t know how to afford it, then you can come to this program and apply for financial aid. You are also giving legal help to make sure you can get the citizen very quickly and also cost-effectively, because a lot of these immigrant families have six, seven odd members getting citizenship, and so that’s looking upwards of $8,000 in just paperwork alone. … It’s very difficult for them to afford everything, so that’s what we’re trying to kind of curb the effects of.”
CW 20 — An act relating to amending KRS 222.430-.437 Casey’s Law to require rehabilitation/treatment after receiving treatment of Narcan/Naloxone
Sponsor: Baleigh Murrain, Nathan Mattingly, Jonathan Loughran, Kennedy Childress
“[Narcan is] a drug given to people who overdose on opioids, and it essentially brings them back from that overdose. Right now, if you receive narcan or naloxone, you’re not required to do any type of rehab. So we’re trying to change it so that, if you receive the drug, then you have thirty days to sign yourself up for either and outpatient or an inpatient rehab service. Then, it goes to the court system, and it can result in jail.”
CW 23 — An act to create and require each region in the Commonwealth of Kentucky to have a special unit dedicated to cyber crime investigation for both minors and adults
Sponsors: Kara Leigh Poynter, Teagen Neal, Emily Morgan, Kathryn Thomas
“Basically, what we’re trying to do is increase awareness and create more police officers that have proper training and, as of right now, there’s only about four that can prosecute cases in the state of Kentucky (including the attorney general). Over the next 10 years, we’re going to be adding six new units across the state of Kentucky that can prosecute these cases. During our first year, we’re going to implement five new officers in each unit, and over the next 10 years, we’ll be increasing the numbers.”
CW 25 — An act relating to allowing all Kentucky counties to implement a school/justice partnership
Sponsors: Skylar Ray, Lexy Oatts, Ethan Bailey, Sydni Henagen
“Our bill is to reduce student arrests on campus and make students learn more in the classroom and give them a second chance so that they can be a better person.”
CW 26 — An act relating to require all glass, metal, and PET bottles to have a recycling fee
Sponsors: Hayden Woosley, Joshua Bush, Joey Chaudoin III
“You can recycle your glass, metal, and plastic bottles, otherwise known as polyethylene terephthalate. You pay an extra fee when you purchase, and after you purchase and when you get done using it, you can return it to the recycling center, and if you return it, you can get your money back.”
