Ky. Senate president says lawmakers plan to override Beshear vetoes amid 'very successful' session

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers touted what he characterized as a "very successful session" Thursday morning, even though he admitted that he and fellow Kentucky legislators "have a few things to clean up."

Stivers' assessment came less than 24 hours after Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed a number of controversial bills, including an omnibus education bill, a bill allowing new cities to be created in Jefferson County, and a bill that would require participants in school sports to play on teams that match their biological gender.

During a Thursday morning news conference, Stivers addressed several of Beshear's vetoes and gauged their chances of being overridden.

Stivers again threw his support behind House Bill 314, a bill giving some residents of Louisville the power to form new suburban cities. That bill, which was among those vetoed by Beshear on Wednesday, has been criticized by Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer for threatening to undo the 2000 merger by creating a number of smaller cities in Louisville.

But Stivers said the state had been "very responsive, fiscally" to Louisville of late, citing state and federal funding apportioned for improvements to the Louisville Waterfront, the Botanical Gardens, the Fair and Expo Center and the KFC Yum! Center. He contrasted that with some communities he said he'd heard from that said they were paying taxes and "can't even get trash pickup."

Additionally, Stivers countered criticism that the state legislature did not have the statutory authority to create cities -- and said that the legislature would likely override Beshear's veto.

"First of all, it is a statutorily created situation that is there in the first place, so if we weren't to get involved, we shouldn't have gotten involved 20 years ago."

In regards to Senate Bill 1, a bill some refer to as a "transgender ban," Stivers defended the bill's effect of requiring participants in school sports to play on teams that match their biological gender. He said it was being "mischaracterized" in some circumstances, and that the current situation of allowing transgender students to play in sports was effectively, "putting female athletes potentially out of competition."

Stivers said there is "just a physiological difference -- size, weight, muscle mass" between transgender women and biological women.

But Beshear argued that the bill is unnecessary.

"You will not find one example of a competitive advantage by a transgender athlete in Kentucky," he said. "You will not find one."

Stivers predicted that the governor's veto would be overridden.

Beshear also vetoed the omnibus education bill, a bill that would shift key school governance decisions to superintendents and away from school-based decision-making councils, as well as designate a set of historical documents and speeches to incorporate into classroom work -- a perceived response to the national debate over critical race theory.

But Stivers argued that the public had falsely zeroed on critical race theory as a catalyst for the bill, and said the bill doesn't address that, only setting up a list of required documents and topics that should be taught in schools.

"This is a list, but not an all-encompassing list," he said. "People want to teach and extrapolate out what these mean or don't mean."

Stivers addressed a number of additional issues the General Assembly plans to address during its Veto Session on April 13-14, which he promised to be "a very structured two days."