An omnibus bill to significantly change Kentucky elections advanced Wednesday that would increase campaign donor limits, restrict allowed voter IDs, permit the sharing of private voter information with the federal government and more.
The bill combines elements from two stalled pieces of legislation to form a new bill that could make its way to final passage within a matter of days. The legislation now resembles what is often called a “Christmas tree bill,” as language from different bills are hung on it like ornaments.
The three elections bills were smashed together in a Senate committee substitute that will now head to the Senate floor after passing on a party-line vote in committee. The original House Bill 139 was a bipartisan piece of legislation offering clean-up to existing elections statutes.
One new change would significantly increase how much donors can contribute to political campaigns and committees in Kentucky.
Donors are currently limited to giving $2,200 per election to a candidate — $4,400 total for a primary and general election — but the bill would now increase this to the federal level, which is currently $3,500 per election.
The new provisions would also double the maximum amount a donor could give to a state or county political party in a year, from $5,000 to $10,000.
One of the bills that had previously stalled but now has its language attached to the omnibus bill is Senate Bill 154, which would restrict more forms of secondary identification that can be used by Kentucky voters to cast a ballot in elections.
Kentucky passed a law in 2020 requiring voters to have a valid photo ID to cast a ballot, but also allowed secondary forms of identification if they signed an affidavit affirming their identity. The new provision would delete social security and food assistance cards from the list of acceptable secondary ID.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Tichenor of Smithfield, the sponsor of SB 154, has said these forms of identification need to be excluded because they do not contain a photo and could lead to fraud, though there are no known cases of any Kentuckian using such forms of ID to fraudulently vote. State records show just more than 1,000 voters used such ID to vote in Kentucky’s 2024 general election, a tiny fraction of the nearly two million who voted.
The new version of HB 139 also adds language specifically permitting political parties to endorse, support or oppose nonpartisan candidates and explicitly allows judicial candidates to disclose their party affiliations and political viewpoints. It revives provisions from an elections omnibus that passed the House but failed to make progress in the Senate.
In a letter to GOP Rep. DJ Johnson, one of the bill’s sponsors, Chair Charles Boteler with the Kentucky Judicial Campaign Conduct Committee said the courts have already guaranteed First Amendment speech rights for judicial candidates and the legislature should not get involved.
“The General Assembly has, wisely in our view, left the issue of candidate speech to the courts,” Boteler wrote.
The bill specifies that the races would still be considered nonpartisan and that judicial candidates can’t claim they are the official nominee of a political party.
Kentucky sharing voter information with the federal government
Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong, a Louisville Democrat, said the new elements of the bill are giving her “heartburn.” She particularly pointed to the provision taken from House Bill 534 that allows the State Board of Elections to enter an agreement to share Kentucky’s private voter rolls with the federal government to identify noncitizens.
The bill originally referred specifically to the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements Program or SAVE — distinct from SAVE Act moving through Congress — that has been taken up by several other Republican-led states.
However, an investigation by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune found that the administration rushed the rollout and it has made persistent mistakes, especially when analyzing the status of naturalized citizens. The program has also faced resistance from states that are wary about turning over their voter rolls to the federal government. Kentucky Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams and the board of elections is currently embroiled in a federal lawsuit over their refusal to hand over private voter information.
“I am still concerned about the data sharing with the federal government — the lack of specificity — this body losing control as we sort of enter into some of those negotiations and concerns around false positives in other states, and making sure that we are not disenfranchising voters through that process,” Chambers Armstrong said.
Johnson defended that provision of the bill, noting it wouldn’t take effect until 2028. It was also that long lead time, and the promise to continue discussions in the meantime, that moved the Kentucky County Clerks Association from opposing the bill to a neutral stance.
“I will simply say it's an ongoing process that I know is going to improve as we go forward, and by 2028 I think we'll have a good system,” Johnson said.
