GA 2020 Part I Completed
Part I Completed: A great time to send your messages
The Kentucky General Assembly completed their “Part I” of the legislative session on January 13th, after extending the legislative calendar by four days to complete work on bills to restrain the Governor’s powers. Part II of the General Assembly is set to resume on February 2nd. Committee meetings continued to be scheduled for next week, so check the legislative calendar for updates.
In these strange times, we lament that KCC is not able to be “live on the scene” as much as we would like due to the restrictions of Covid-19 and safety precautions at the Capitol Annex. And the safety concerns are also complicated by the increase of armed demonstrations around the State Capitol. However despite the challenges, we are determined to keep providing you the latest information on conservation bills that are of interest to our members, partner groups, and supporters. Information on access restrictions can be found here.
The fact that there is so much turmoil around issues relating to how our branches of government operate, and how our elected officials are held accountable, this makes our job, and your participation, more important than ever. We hope the information we provide for you gives you the tools to be an effective and engaged citizen in our democracy.
So while our lawmakers are taking a brief respite from their committee work, we invite you to take the opportunity to make your calls and send your emails to express your opinion on the bills of your choice. It’s a great time to get your lawmaker’s attention before they resume their work in February.
ACT: We want to thank Rep. Daniel Elliott and Senator Morgan McGarvey for joining us at Friday’s installment of the KCC Legislative Summit. Our first of three sessions included information on bills to date, sessions on how to be a more effective citizen lobbyist, and a quality discussion with these two lawmakers on their perspective on issues and their relationships with constituents. If you attended the conference, we urge you to also contact Rep. Elliott and Senator McGarvey to express your appreciation for sharing their time.
We invite you to register for the next two sessions, which take place on the next two Fridays from 11:00 to 12:30 Eastern Time. The next two sessions will be focusing on “forward-looking” topics that we hope will build support for future legislation. We are excited to have experts on land conservation and solar energy who will be joining us. Information about the Summit can be found HERE.
Finally, we want to thank Justin Mog for inviting KCC’s Lane Boldman and Wild Virginia’s Misty Boos for being his guest on Sustainability Now last week. We discussed the recent legislative success in Virginia on wildlife corridor legislation and the possibilities for Kentucky. You can listen to the podcast here.