KENTUCKY — The 2022 Kentucky General Assembly is underway for its annual legislative session that runs until April 14.

This year is important because since it is an even calendar year, that means this year’s session lasts for 60 days instead of 30 days.

Morgan McGarvey (D) is the Minority Leader in the Kentucky State Senate. He was first elected to the legislature in 2013 and represents the 19th Senate District, which Jefferson County (part).

During this In Focus Kentucky interview, Sen. McGarvey comments on a variety of topics and issues being debated during the General Assembly session.

“Unlike most sessions, I think the back-end session is going to be even more weighted. And you know, a lot of times we get most things sort of out in the front and then deal with budget issues in the back. But this time redistricting, I think, knocked everybody off their game. And so we didn’t see a ton of bills go through the first few weeks, now we’re splitting those bills that normally would have been in the first part of the session, into the second part, and also what we do in the second part of the session here, is we still have to get the budget out. Still, we have a lot of bills to go and it’s gonna be a crazy last 30 days,” explains Sen. McGarvey.

Minority Floor Leader McGarvey also shared his opinion on Republican-drawn congressional and state House districts, shared during the current legislative session. “I’ve been consistent on this since getting into the state senate. I ran for the state senate because the Supreme Court threw out the maps as being unconstitutional in both houses their house and the Senate. And let us all run through the old maps. That’s how I got into the Senate and since then, I’ve always said we need to have some type of fair, transparent, non-partisan redistricting. We didn’t do that this year. And guess what? When you don’t have a fair, transparent, nonpartisan process, you get a partisan result. Partisan redistricting yields a partisan result. That’s what happened this time. And so I don’t love the way it went through. I think what we’ve got to do is make sure we get it right. So when we do redistricting another 10 years, we really can make sure that people are accurately reflected in their government. That’s what a fair redistricting process leads so we don’t have that process here,” shared McGarvey.

U.S. Representative and Democrat John Yarmuth announced at the end of 2021 that he was retiring from Congress. Since then, Morgan McGarvey launched a campaign vying to replace Yarmuth who has served 8-terms as 3rd Congressional district representative in Washington, D.C.

“Yeah, it’s a hectic time and look, sessions busy even if there’s nothing else going on. You know, my wife works full time. We have three young kids and of course, being up here trying to do my day job and a little bit running for Congress, it’s busy, but it’s worth it. You know, I really do believe in what government is capable of doing. And I believe with John Yarmuth stepping down from Congress, and he’s been a great Congressman for Kentucky and the Chairman of the House Budget Committee, that you know, we need to make sure that we’re sending a proven leader and an effective voice to Washington and I plan to work hard to try and step step up,” adds McGarvey.

You can watch the full In Focus segment above.