Making Kentucky Sick Again
Rep. John Blanton, R-Salyersville, is back with a bill to create a new crime, "interference with a legislative proceeding," aimed at Capitol protesters who lawmakers think have gotten too loud. Above, Blanton presents a similar bill in March 2024. It was passed by the House but died in the Senate. (LRC Public Information)
Every legislative session has a theme.
In 2023, Kentucky's GOP obsessed over sexuality and doubled down on humiliating already-vulnerable trans kids.
Last year, Reps. Jason Nemes and Jared Bauman drove the Safer Kentucky Act (omni)bus into law, which made homelessness a crime and inexplicably did not bother to address gun violence prevention.
This year, they're playing with people's lives. In other words, Making Kentucky Sick Again.
Following the conspiracy-theory medical advice of anti-vaccine crusader Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of Health and Human Services in the Trump administration, the Kentucky Senate has made the boneheaded decision to create a task force to study what we already know: that vaccines save lives. Meanwhile, an unvaccinated child has died in Texas for the first time in a decade amidst a measles outbreak, and a case of measles has been reported here in the commonwealth.
House Bill 16 aims to get rid of basic water fluoridation. Kentucky currently requires water utilities serving more than 3,000 customers to add low levels of fluoride to drinking water which, according to the National Institutes of Health, helps prevent cavities and tooth decay. Rep. Ryan Dotson, R-Winchester, called fluoridation 'mass medicating without informed consent.'
House Bill 173 would preempt local government from maintaining a registry of residential rental properties for any purpose, including lead hazard assessment and correction.
Senate Bill 89 has opened the door to more pollution of groundwater, wetlands and small headwater streams.
House Bill 137 is an industry-backed bill that could exclude evidence gathered by citizens and community groups from being considered in proceedings to enforce air pollution rules.
Kissing the rings of millionaire and billionaire mine owners, Rep. John Blanton has filed House Bill 196 to reduce the required number of trained, certified coal miners who are able to respond to medical emergencies inside the mines.
And because all of the above is not enough, Rep. Blanton has also filed House Bill 399 — let's call it the 'Jail Loud Dissenters Act' — because it seems our masculinity-obsessed GOP supermajority is terrified to hear from citizens who might too loudly express anger at their onslaught of dangerous, terrible bills.
This is not a joke.
Arrest authority and purview typically rest with law enforcement, but HB 399 'would give the House speaker, Senate president, committee chairs and House and Senate sergeants-at-arms the authority to order the arrests of anyone they believe is guilty of a new criminal offense, 'interference with a legislative proceeding.' First-degree interference with a legislative proceeding would be a Class A misdemeanor for a first offense, punishable by up to one year in jail. Further offenses would be a Class D felony, which carries up to five years in prison.
Yes, this means what you think it means. Lawmakers want to cosplay as State Police and decide if you should be arrested.
This has felt like an extraordinarily long winter.
Dangerously cold temperatures for days on end; ice and snow keeping children out of school; yet another devastating flood; the price of groceries is through the roof; a return of the measles (the measles!!); thousands of federal employees here in Kentucky getting the same emails going out nationally from unelected multibillionaire Elon Musk's DOGE, demanding they prove their worth by listing five things they did last week or be fired.
Every legislative session has a theme.
Humiliating and terrifying the trans community in 2023.
Punishing the homeless and pretending to make us safer in 2024.
Making Kentucky Sick Again in 2025.
I HOPE ELECTED REPUBLICANS ARE HAVING A GOOD TIME PLAYING WITH OUR LIVES.
Oh. Sorry, Rep. Blanton. Was that too loud under HB 399?
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