Members of the League of Women Voters of Kentucky say they’re concerned with a lack of transparency over pre-filed bills in the state legislature ahead of the upcoming regular session.
“If we can't find legislation that is being contemplated by our legislators before it's filed, then we are as citizens and other legislators at a significant disadvantage, to prepare ourselves for what is going to be discussed in committee,” League Vice President Becky Jones said.
House Bill 10 was passed during the 2022 session, which eliminated sharing pre-filed bills on the state legislature’s website in favor of developing a new webpage where working drafts could be accessed. To date, no such section on the website has been created.
Citizens can still find drafts of pending legislation by searching through agenda and minute items on the websites of the individual Interim Joint Committees. Individual lawmakers can also share their working drafts publicly through social media.
But Jones says the lack of one-click access is a problem.
“That's 100 representatives and 38 senators,” Jones said. “And that's a lot of messaging for one person to do, and then to expect that citizens have the time to do that, and then the knowledge of how to do that, I think puts a great barrier into the transparency that we should expect from our legislature.”
The state legislature’s regular session begins January 2.
