KENTUCKY — This year, for the first time since the Kentucky General Assembly began holding annual sessions in 2001, lawmakers continued their work into a second week of an odd-numbered year session, before starting a recess that will last until early February.

Republicans are not wasting any time flexing their three to one, supermajority over Democrats in each chamber of the Kentucky General Assembly.

Republicans passed nine of their priority bills through the legislature in the first days of the 2021 session. Those bills were sent on Governor Andy Beshear’s desk for consideration.

After review, Governor Andy Beshear vetoed six of those, but the House and Senate both have enough of a Republican majority to override those. 

In our wide ranging interview with the Senate President Robert Stivers (R- Manchester) we covered many topics including the Senate’s priority bills which dealt with limiting governors powers as it relates to emergency orders and more. 

"I would describe it as one that has been measured. We delivered on the things we have said we were going to do. It is something that I believe people are probably misinterpreting, to an extent. But it is what we had hoped would happen has happened. And for the things we could move in the first few days of the session, we've accomplished many of those. We know we had to kind of step back on a few issues and do some redrafting. And so we've been measured from that perspective. And now, with a budget bill voted out of the Senate, that has some small tweaks in it, to get us into conference committee so during this recess. We can have discussions about a final budget bill, being done much earlier than what people expected and use this interim period to do that," explains Senator Robert Stivers.