The sun rising on the Kentucky Capitol in Frankfort on March 27, 2025.(Joe Sonka / KPR)During his 10 day veto period, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear fully or partially vetoed 29 bills and resolutions. The Kentucky General Assembly’s Republican supermajority returned to Frankfort Thursday, quickly d ispatching nearly all of them with overrides.A dozen of those bills contain emergency clauses to go into effect immediately, including one that would block Medicaid spending on gender-affirming medical care and another that would strip the state’s ability to regulate pollution in certain water sources.Most of the other bills lawmakers voted to override the vetoes of will go into effect in mid-summer, 90 days after the end of the legislative session Friday.Most of the discussion on the House and Senate chamber floors Thursday was from members of their small Democratic minority, voicing their strong criticism of the legislation, before the large Republican supermajority easily voted to override Beshear’s actions and steer them into law.Friday is the last chance for lawmakers to push through legislation before they are constitutionally blocked from further action this year, unless Beshear brings them back for a special session.HB 695 MedicaidOne significant bill that received a veto override was House Bill 695, which was amended in the final hours before the veto period two weeks ago to mandate a work requirement for Kentuckians to be eligible for Medicaid coverage.Kentucky currently has a program to encourage people on Medicaid to gain employment, but now able-bodied people who don’t have dependents will have to demonstrate they are either working, in job training or school, or engaged in community service in order to maintain their coverage. According to the latest census survey, a majority of Kentuckians on Medicaid are already working, with all but 2% of the rest indicating they are either ill, disabled or fulfilling the current community engagement requirements.Louisville Democrat Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong said these programs have already played out in other states and have hurt indigent Medicaid recipients who are already working but fail to fill out burdensome paperwork.“Yeah, they were effective at reducing the cost of Medicaid because it took people who were sick and who were poor and it kicked them out of the program,” Chambers Armstrong said. “It did not lead to an increase in people who were participating in the workforce.”Democratic Rep. Rachel Roarx of Louisville said the work reporting requirements are merely “tripwires made out of bureaucracy and paperwork,” citing other states like Georgia where the costs of administering the requirement outweigh any government savings.The work requirement proposal of former Gov. Matt Bevin nearly a decade ago estimated that nearly 100,000 Kentuckians would lose Medicaid coverage, but it was blocked by a federal judge.HB 495 Conversion Therapy and Gender-Affirming Medicaid CoverageHouse Bill 495 would reverse the governor’s executive order limiting the discredited practice of “conversion therapy” that seeks to change a youth’s sexual orientation or gender identity, in addition to prohibiting Medicaid from covering hormone therapy for transgender patients.Beshear’s veto statement called conversion therapy “torture on our kids,” but did not reference gender-affirming medical care.Democratic Rep. Lisa Willner of Louisville implored Republicans in vain to “stand in the gap between our constituents and their oppression” and uphold the veto, saying they should choose to be “on the right side of history.”Both chambers overturned the veto on a nearly party-line vote.HB 398 OSHALawmakers overrode Behsear’s veto of House Bill 398, which would roll back enforcement of any Kentucky worker safety regulations that are more stringent than federal minimums. Supporters say it will cut down on confusion for employers crossing state lines, but Beshear argued that would come at the expense of state autonomy and worker safety.Al Gentry, a Louisville Democrat who himself lost his right arm in a workplace accident, said “I'm voting no today because it sucks to lose limbs in unsafe workplaces."SB 89 water pollutionSenate Bill 89 has been a bill of specific concern for rural areas that rely heavily on ground and well water for drinking and household use. Environmental advocates say that — even with some concessions towards the end of the session related to public water system — many groundwater sources could still be polluted without oversight from the state.This was one of the few bills for which Republican lawmakers rose to defend their decision to override the governor’s veto.The bill’s lead sponsor Sen. Scott Madon from Pineville said he had received “death threats” over the legislation. Madon said he believes the compromises made in a committee substitute adequately safeguard water, especially in Louisville.“The governor and others have led everyone to believe that we're completely doing away with any oversight of this bill, and we're not,” Madon said. “That's just simply not true.”Sen. David Yates, a Louisville Democrat, said clean water is essential to Kentucky industry and citizens alike. Supporters say the bill is meant to address overreach from state regulatory authorities, but Yates says it goes too far.“This is one of our core, primary responsibilities. I understand that there was some abuse in enforcement, and I was all for addressing that,” Yates said. “But in this situation I believe that we have gone so far that we are turning a blind eye to one of the most important things that makes Kentucky so special.”GOP Rep. Mitch Whitaker of Fleming-Neon criticized environmental groups for what he called their “lying and fear tactics” in opposition to the bill.“I don't blame the people at all for what they're hearing, and I'm sure that I'd be scared if I were told all these lies that have been told,” Whitaker said. “But the truth of the matter is, your waters are protected.”HB 90 abortionKentucky’s near-total ban on abortion allows the procedure only to save the life of the mother, but supporters of House Bill 90 say the legislation provides clarity for doctors on what they can do in certain emergency situations without fearing legal consequences.Beshear vetoed the bill, saying it actually creates new barriers to treatment that “could delay access to evidence-based and lifesaving care.” He also noted that while a representative from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists testified for the bill, the organization itself urged him to veto HB 90.Democratic Sen. Karen Berg of Louisville, a doctor, said the bill “added a whole bunch of stuff that makes no sense to physicians.”“The problem is you cannot clarify what people are allowed to do medically if you only use totally non-medical terms that mean nothing to the health care profession.”Anti-DEI in Higher EducationRepublican lawmakers also overrode Beshear’s veto of anti-diversity, equity and inclusion legislation, which opponents called a misguided attack on higher educationHouse Bill 4, which would ban spending any resources on DEI initiatives, was one of the most controversial of the session. After failing to make it to final passage last year, it will now go into law, in spite of the governor’s veto and vehement Democratic opposition.Rep. Vanessa Grossl, a first-term Republican from Georgetown, said she doesn’t believe the state should “import more diversity,” and should instead focus on closing the gaps between rural and urban areas.“For those who have said and will say that DEI is about so much more than race, let me remind you that Gov. Beshear surrounded himself exclusively as he vetoed this bill with urbanites who are all people of color,” Grossl said.Louisville Sen. Gerald Neal, the longest serving Black senator in Kentucky history, said that HB 4 is “antithetical” to all the work in public universities to make colleges more inclusive and diverse since at least the 1990s.“It eliminates resources that help institutions foster an inclusive learning environment,” Neal said. “It sends a message that diversity is not a strength.”Some Democratic lawmakers also focused on the idea that the bill would forever label the 2025 General Assembly as the body that stood against bringing more diversity, more inclusivity and more equity to the state’s public colleges and universities.Two line-item vetoes in one bill surviveSeveral bills contained line-item vetoes, where the governor chooses specific elements to cut out, rather than rejecting the entire piece of legislation. Both chambers rejected the vast majority of these partial vetoes.Republican leadership chose to keep in place just two of Beshear’s line-item vetoes, which were both in Senate Bill 25. Originally a five-page bill, just before the veto period it was stuffed with 77 pages of provisions from multiple other bills. These included required reports from each state agency with efficiency suggestions and moving the ombudsman office under the authority of the Republican state auditor’s office.Lawmakers overrode several of Beshear’s line-item vetoes for parts SB 25 related to those provisions, but let two others stand untouched. One related to where the legislature will deliver bills to the governor while the state Capitol is under construction for the next few years, while another related to funding for a job training facility in Somerset that stirred up controversy last fall.Last year’s state budget appropriated $8.5 million to the Center for Rural Development to build a regional job training center, but faced criticism for nearly using the funds to buy land at an inflated price. The nonprofit’s board backed out of the property purchase after the criticism, but SB 25 still sought to divert the funding from the Center for Rural Development to another regional development organization.Beshear issued a line-item veto for this change, saying nearly all of the funds had already been delivered to the nonprofit last year. Chris McDaniel, the GOP chairman of the Senate budget committee from Ryland Heights, had hoped to claw back those funds with the bill, but both chambers let the line-item veto survive, with no discussion on either chamber floor about their reasoning.State government and politics reporting is supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. ...read more read less