Senate President Robert Stivers shares legislative updates

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WTVQ) —- Senate President Robert Stivers covered many topics that have been popular during Kentucky’s legislative session this year, saying the session has been going well.

“Collegiality is high, tensions are low,” he said.

Stivers started the discussion talking about his views on universal pre-school, saying “I’m not in for universal pre-k, but very much in favor of creating a good structure and foundation for access to childcare.”

In addition to childcare, he also mentioned they plan on sitting down with the governor’s office this week to discuss the House’s proposed budget and the governor’s proposed budget.

He says “…we may come up with a totally different document.”

Stivers also taking a hit at Governor Beshear while discussing the budget and taxes in the Commonwealth.

“We always find it intriguing that the governor campaigned on it and how he was supportive of tax decreases but doesn’t create a budget that allows us to have more tax decreases,” Stivers said.

The discussion then moved to the Department of Juvenile Justice. The Senate President mentioning they gave the DJJ $140 million after the department had asked for $130 million dollars.

“You told us what you need, we gave you more than what you asked, but you still haven’t been able to put water on the dumpster fire,” he said.

We also talked about Senator Whitney Westerfield’s recent introduction of the Crisis Aversion Rights and Retention bill which would allow the court to temporarily take away firearms from people who might be at risk of hurting themselves or others. Stivers says it has support from several republicans and several democrats.

“Tt has created a lot of discussion; what the likelihood of it passing probably has more support than it ever has.”

Lastly, abortion rights have been a controversial topic during the legislative session. Stivers shared his opinion.

“The one thing I think everybody agrees upon I think if there is a young lady, woman that has any of these criminal acts perpetrated on them, those individuals need to be dealt with quickly and harshly,” he said.

Senate President Stivers ended the discussion by saying even though it is early days, he thinks the legislative session is going well.