The Kentucky General Assembly returned to Frankfort this week for the final two days of the 2026 legislative session, concluding just before midnight on Wednesday.
The dominant Republican supermajority spent much of Tuesday overriding nearly every veto issued by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear over the past two weeks.
On Wednesday, they also passed a late-amended and massive tax revenue bill, but certain GOP priorities bills fell short, including one to address Kentucky’s housing shortage.
The final day of the session also involved Republicans venting frustration against the Kentucky Supreme Court over its order to block impeachment proceedings against a Lexington judge.
Below Kentucky Public Radio reporters Sylvia Goodman and Joe Sonka discussed the very busy close of the session.
Sylvia Goodman: Lawmakers didn't go quite until midnight, but we got pretty close. They got a lot of stuff done in those final two days, and also passed on quite a few things too. Let's start with Gov. Andy Beshear's vetoes. Did any of the ones he issued so far stand?
Joe Sonka: Almost none of them. The only ones that survived were three small line item vetoes to one bill, the big executive branch budget bill that outlines $32 billion of state spending over the next two years. Everything else was batted away easily by the very large GOP supermajority. This included Beshear’s vetoes of bills that targeted the governance of Jefferson County Public Schools, stripped the governor of some of his powers and implemented major reforms to the administration of Medicaid benefits in Kentucky.
Lawmakers also passed a couple major packages in those final days — all of which Beshear can veto and the Republican supermajority wouldn't be able to override them. Tell us about the last-minute revenue bill.
Goodman: This was what we often refer to as a Christmas tree bill. It was just loaded with stuff on a lot of different topics. A bill that started as four pages transformed into a 217-page one. I was on maybe page 30 by the time it had already passed both chambers Wednesday night, and I know some lawmakers were also still reading it by the time the legislature adjourned for the year.
It has all sorts of things, but mostly tax credits — economic development credits, mixed use development credits, alternative jet fuel producer credits. It also expanded exemptions to the state's inheritance tax. It did some cleanup on a giant bill increasing regulations on gambling and calls for a report on existing tax credits the state is offering to data centers.
It seems worth noting this bill had some pretty big revenue implications, but came with no fiscal impact statement.
Sonka: Just as notable in that final day of the session are the things that lawmakers didn't finish. In those final hours we're all kind of waiting around for the big priority bills, the ones lawmakers talk about all session, and sometimes they just don't make it over the finish line.
Goodman: Yeah, we saw, for example, the creation of this giant housing bill, and then it just failed.
Right before Beshear's veto period, GOP legislators jammed together more than eight different bills into this one giant amalgamation. Most of it, we got the sense that Republicans were on the same page — increasing housing stock by incentivizing developers, putting more limitations on regulations, et cetera, et cetera. But there was a definite sticking point here: a last-minute piece that would basically block local governments from enacting any limitations on how or where short-term rentals like Airbnbs can operate. From what we heard, that basically killed that highly-anticipated piece of legislation.
Senate President Robert Stivers says he saw arguments for and against it, but at the end of the day, the two chambers just couldn't agree on a compromise. He says one positive of short term rentals is they support tourism in rural areas that don't have hotels. But…
Robert Stivers: On the other side, though, it's kind of driven some house prices out of the market for middle-income people. It has taken some housing off the market that could have been used.
Goodman: The General Assembly passed a couple other little housing things, but really, Senate Bill 9 was the primary housing policy package. Another bill that you followed quite closely. Joe, tried to put guardrails up around data centers. That also didn't make it, right?
Sonka: Yeah, GOP Rep. Josh Bray had legislation to put regulations around new data centers to ensure that existing utility customers don't end up subsidizing them, as utilities will have to make major infrastructure investments in order to serve them. His bill passed the House easily, but then stalled in the Senate. Then that language was put into another bill, which was stripped out on the final day before it passed into law.
It was opposed by Louisville Gas & Electric and Kentucky Utilities, the state's largest private utility company, which prefers to set up its own rate structure with data centers, pending approval from the Public Service Commission.
Here's Lexington Democratic Rep. Adam Moore, who was a strong backer of Bray's bill and bipartisan efforts to regulate data centers.
Moore: It's incredibly frustrating. This is something that's being asked of us from both sides of the aisle, not just like Democratic strongholds. Again, I'm talking Mercer County and Mason County. We can get this done.
Sonka: Then, probably one of the most controversial and fraught issues of the session: impeachments.
This is a tangled web, Sylvia, but talk us through what lawmakers did in those last two days. The state House sent articles of impeachment to the Senate against Fayette County Circuit Judge Julie Goodman because of issues they had with their judicial opinions. The Supreme Court said the complaint did not rise to the level of an impeachable offense and said it is unconstitutional.
Goodman: Let's just say lawmakers were very unhappy about that opinion. Republican senators all but said that they are ignoring that opinion and going to maintain their right to move ahead as they please. They passed a resolution saying they will pause Goodman's impeachment indefinitely, but they still say they can pick it up next year if they are dissatisfied with the results of an independent Judicial Conduct Commission investigation.
Reporters asked Stivers if this is a constitutional crisis, that they're refusing a supreme court order.
Stivers: I think they created the constitutional crisis because, again, read the statute. Even in their articles, it talks about “it remains inviolate.”
Goodman: And he's referring to Section 109 of the Kentucky Constitution, in reference to the General Assembly's impeachment powers.
Sonka: The House and Senate also took a kind of extraordinary step and censured a sitting Supreme Court justice because they really didn't like his concurring opinion he wrote in that case.
The phrase in the resolution was 'intemperate remarks.' Basically, Republicans say Justice Kelly Thompson threatened them when he wrote that threatening a judge in order to influence the judicial process is a crime. They said that the justice went too far when he wrote in his opinion that pursuing frivolous impeachments dealing with active cases could constitute criminal behavior. They called on the Judicial Conduct commission to investigate.
Goodman: Yeah, and I reached out to Justice Thompson right after the Senate passed that resolution, and he told me he is "shocked and honored." He fully stood by his opinion, 100%.
Kelly Thompson: It is religious to me that an elected official cannot be removed after the people elected him, unless he commits a serious offense. And the legislature is trying to impeach and remove people from office because of their opinion.
Sonka: The House also referred two different impeachment petitions to an interim investigative committee, including a high-profile one against another Supreme Court justice, Pamela Goodwine.
Goodman: So we have not seen the end of that. And we'll be following that and other bills and their consequences, as always.
