There have been 1,246 bills and resolutions filed in this year’s “short” session of the General Assembly.
Here are Forward Kentucky, we have taken a position of support or opposition on 192 of them in our “Key Legislation” bill tracker.
Out of those, we have a Strongly Oppose position on 24 of them.
If you get the KYGA Update newsletter, you’re already aware of these bills, as we’ve been highlighting them along the way. For those of you not subscribed to that excellent resource (why not?), here is our Dirty Dozen list of crappy bills still alive in the General Assembly.
(Note: “Crossed over” means it has passed one chamber. All others are still in committee. Also, we will have our list of good bills on Monday, so watch for it.)
HB 4 – Anti-Dei in Colleges /
HB 388 – Anti-DEI and ESG in Businesses
Yes, once again, a three-letter acronym has the GOP all in a flutter. (Remember CRT?) Heaven forbid we actually encourage diversity. And of course, we not only want to get rid of diversity in any educational institution we control – we also want to punish any business whose board considers the good of the community when investing the assets of the company.
HB 16 / SB 180 – Make Water Fluoridation Optional
Of all the stereotype enforcing bills, here is the champ. Let’s hear it for toothless hillbillies! And of course, this is paired with the Trump administration cutting back on Medicaid, so some Kentuckians will not be able to pay for the dental work they’re going to need. The House bill has already crossed over.
SB 89 – Lower Water Pollution Standards
And as long as we’re messing with people’s drinking water, lets increase pollution while we’re at it. This bill removes pollution standards from about two-thirds of Kentucky’s bodies of water. That’s bad enough – but it also affects water that eventually makes it into groundwater. And guess what? A large part of our state gets their drinking water from wells.
So if your home gets water from a city system, we’re giving that system the option of saving money by getting rid of fluoridation. And if you get your water from a well, we’re letting that chemical factory down the street dump pollution into it. The Repubs in Frankfort have you coming and going.
Oh, and this bill has already been approved in the Senate and crossed over to the House.
HB 64 – Overturn the Ban on Conversion Therapy /
HB 495 – Protect Therapists Practicing Conversion Therapy
The first bill just overturns Governor Beshear’s executive order banning conversion therapy. That didn’t go far enough, though – we actually need to protect any therapist or minister actually using this misbegotten practice, called “Conversion Torture” by a former legislator. HB 495 passed out of committee on Thursday with only Repubs voting for it.
HCR 50 / SB 257 – DOGE for KY
Say, have you heard of this thing called DOGE? You know, that team of Teen-Age Mutant DOGE Boys going around Washington and downloading your personal data? The not-really-official government agency that is firing thousands of workers across the entire government? That thing? Well, here are two 2025 bills that want to set up that same thing right here in the Commonwealth. And the Senate bill has already had its first reading.
HB 177 / SB 60 – Expanded Religious Freedom
Let me ask you to define something: What does it mean for a government to “burden” your religious freedom? If your religion teaches that being gay is a sin, would it burden your religion for your city to have a fairness ordinance? How about if your religion teaches that inter-racial marriage is an abomination? Would this bill give you legal standing to reverse civil rights laws?
In case you can’t tell, this is one of the worst bills out there, because it provides an open door for rolling back anything that Christian Nationalists don’t like. And here’s the kicker: SB 60 passed out of committee on Thursday. Welcome to Gilead.
HB 368 – Public Notices Removed from Newspapers
This bill allows governments to stop posting public notices in the local newspaper of record, and instead bury them somewhere on a government website. Where, of course, they can be made basically inaccessible or hidden, and where they can be changed easily if need be. Another attack on government transparency. Already approved in the House, but support is rising for stopping it in the Senate.
HB 83 – Can’t Have Red Flag Laws
Burying Whitney Westerfield’s “Crisis Aversion and Rights Retention” bill last year wasn’t enough. Now we have a bill actually prohibiting even filing such a bill. Because guns are more important than preventing suicide.
HB 139 / SB 75 – Concealed Carry for 18-Year-Olds
Now here’s a great idea – let’s lower the age to carry a concealed weapon from 21 to 18. Would make a great graduation present for that high school senior in your family – their own deadly weapon.
HB 316 / SB 106– Penalties for Mail-Order Abortion Pills
“Yay – we finally banned abortion!”
“But wait – what about our women getting those pills in the mail? You know, right in the privacy of their own home?”
“That’s right! We’ve got to ban those too!”
Prediction: Birth control pills will be next.
HB 204 – Concealed Carry Everywhere
So your school or courthouse doesn’t allow guns on the premises? Too bad – this bill would outlaw those rules, and say people could carry concealed deadly weapons anywhere and everywhere.
HB 634 – Setting Up an Article V Convention
We all know about amending the U.S. Constitution through the amendment process. What you may not know is that there is a second way: a Constitutional Convention called by the states, as outlined in Article V. This bill lays out the process for selecting Kentucky’s representatives to such a convention.
Here’s the kicker: Such a convention could legally do pretty much anything they wanted to our constitution. Amend some of it, delete some of it – or just write a new one. An Article V convention would be a nightmare for our democracy.
Bills like this have been filed every session. And every session, they have died. Let us fervently hope that this one dies a well-deserved death as well.
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