KENTUCKY — The pace of the 2025 legislative session in Frankfort has started to pick up with more bills passing out of committee and on their way to advancing out of the Kentucky General Assembly.

On this week’s edition of In Focus Kentucky, we’re continuing to highlight the work of the General Assembly, including introducing you to some of the newest members elected to serve. 

In Nov. 2024, all 100 state House seats and half of the state’s Senate seats were up for reelection. Some incumbents decided not to run while others lost their bids for another term, resulting in some turnover in the General Assembly.

In the House, there are 16 total new members, and in the state Senate there are six new members this year.

Freshman lawmaker State Rep. Anne Donworth, D-Lexington, joins this segment to explain why she ran to be an elected member of the General Assembly. Donworth also explains some of her legislative priorities as the final month of the session winds down.

“I had been very involved in our community for a long time. I’ve worked for the last 11 years with the Lexington Public Library, ran the Library Foundation and did government affairs as part of that role. So I was very familiar with all of the ins and outs of our community’s needs, and so when the longtime incumbent Ruth Ann Palumbo announced her retirement, she had been here for 34 years, it was really important to me that we have somebody who understands the community, but also to make sure that we have a woman and a parent being in the seat,” explained Rep. Donworth.

You can watch the full In Focus Kentucky segment in the player above.