Kenny Colston

The push to legalize industrial hemp in Kentucky has picked up another major supporter.

The state’s largest business group, the Kentucky Chamber, announced Friday that it supports hemp as a crop for oil and fiber.

Agriculture Commissioner James Comer touted the support on Twitter quickly after securing it. Comer has long said hemp could help struggling farmers in Kentucky turn profits.

Many of the state’s federal lawmakers support the issue as well, including Congressmen Andy Barr, John Yarmuth and Thomas Massie and Senator Rand Paul.

Kentucky Sheriffs' Association Executive Director Jerry Wagner says his group hasn't decided on supporting or opposing legalizing industrial hemp.

A bill to legalize hemp was filed in the Kentucky Senate Friday by the  agriculture committee chair.

Comer does not support legalizing hemp's cousin crop, marijuana.

Kentucky legislative leaders say they haven't responded yet to Gov. Steve Beshear’s request to delay General Assembly redistricting in the 2013 session.

Senate President Robert Stivers says his leadership team has not yet decided on a response and that many in his chamber are conflicted on when to address redistricting.

“And we all have varying opinions on what needs to be done and when it needs to be done and one thing I don’t think we need to do is a special session,” he says.

House Speaker Greg Stumbo says he’d like to get the issue out of the way, but will work with Stivers and the governor on a resolution during the legislature’s upcoming two week break.

Current Kentucky state employees and retirees packed the Capitol Rotunda to encourage lawmakers to rethink some proposals made by a task force on public pensions last year.

Calling themselves the Kentucky Public Pension Coalition, the group of more than a dozen interested organizations encouraged their members to tell lawmakers not to switch to a hybrid pension plan for new hires and to reinstate cost of living adjustments every year.

Bill Londrigan is the president of the Kentucky AFL-CIO and a member of the coalition. And he says a study by the group shows a hybrid 401K plan reduces benefits year after year.

“You know if you look at it, you’ll see the estimates decrease benefits over the long term, something we’re totally against,” he says.

A new honors college and international center at WKU and renovations to the University of Kentucky's football stadium and the University of Louisville are among the projects that will benefit from a bipartisan General Assembly agreement is allowing state universities to use their own ability to issue bonds for capital projects.

The soon-to-be approved projects were rejected during 2012 budget negotiations, but will be revived once lawmakers pass an authorization bill, House Speaker Greg Stumbo says.

The plan allows for $363-million in renovation and construction projects at six of Kentucky's eight state universities.

Stumbo says the projects were rejected because of election-year politics — because House lawmakers are elected in even-numbered years — and secondly because universities made unreasonable bonding requests.

And while many projects were rejected last year, the newly agreed upon ones are ready to start immediately.

“We had asked at the end of the last session to bring us a realistic list, what can you accomplish, what is shovel ready, what do you have the funding sources identified for, what can you accomplish in this next year,” Stumbo says.

State Sen. Julie Denton has filed two bills that would put control of implementation of the Affordable Care Act into lawmakers’ hands.

Gov. Steve Beshear created a state-run health exchange through an executive order and is mulling whether to expand Medicaid. Both are parts of the ACA, also known as Obamacare.

Denton says her goal is to let lawmakers have some say in either matter.

“Well all those pieces of legislation will do is say that only by the authority of the General Assembly can we expand our Medicaid program or can we set up the health benefit exchanges,” she says.

But House Speaker Greg Stumbo says his chamber will likely ignore Denton’s bills.

And the governor says he’s not worried about them either.