Tagged: 2013 General Assembly

Democratic leaders in the Kentucky House won passage Wednesday of a legislative redistricting plan that could strengthen their majority by forcing 11 Republicans to run against each other next year.

The Democratic-controlled House voted 53-46 along party lines for the measure, which now moves to the GOP-led Senate, where it faces an uncertain future.

House Republicans made emotional pleas not to pass the legislation, saying it was born out of "purely partisan politics."

"Nobody did it to be punitive to anybody in this chamber; I can assure you of that," House Speaker Greg Stumbo said in his pitch for the measure, drawing guffaws from Republican lawmakers.

House Republican Floor Leader Jeff Hoover called the legislation "another political play" by Democrats who want to protect their 55-45 majority in the House.

Gambling brings social ills that will offset any tax revenue to Kentucky, argued a new group that rallied Wednesday in the Capitol Rotunda.

About 30 people joined the group Stop Predatory Gambling Kentucky for the rally, where speakers dismissed efforts in the General Assembly to expand gambling through casinos or Instant Racing.

Karen Hendersen, executive director of Stop Predatory Gambling Kentucky, warned that casinos create a burden to state funds in the form of gambling addiction treatment and family assistance programs.

"We have great promises that casinos or the lottery or instant racing will end up helping us out but the cost or the personal cost far outweighs any financial benefit," Hendersen said.

A Warren County lawmaker says he's not panicking yet about the new redistricting maps passed by a House committee Tuesday. If the maps became a reality, Republican Representative Jim DeCesare would find himself in a new district alongside two other House GOP colleagues--Mike Meredith of Brownsville and C.B Embry of Morgantown.

DeCesare told WKU Public Radio he wasn't shocked by the new maps.

"I'd like to say I'm surprised, but I'm not,” said the Rockfield Republican. “It's kind of what they tried to do last year. Apparantly the House Democratic leadership is trying to eliminate three Republican members in one fail swoop."

Redistricting is often used as a tool by the majority party to protect their own, while modifying or eliminating districts friendly to the minority party. The new maps still have a long way to go before becoming law. They would have to pass the full House and Senate, and then be signed into law by Governor Beshear.

Voting along strict party lines, the Kentucky Senate has approved a bill that would allow persistently low-performing public schools to become charter schools.

Under the legislation, school officials would submit applications to the local board of education to turn a school into a charter, the board of education would decide whether to allow them to become a charter school. A two-thirds majority vote by the school board would decide whether a school would become a charter school. 

"I believe that we need to give everybody a great education here," said state Sen. Mike Wilson, a Republican from Bowling Green, the bill's sponsor.

"Otherwise, I would not have agreed to serve as the chair of the Senate Education Committee I have a passion for education, to see our kids educated properly."