Throughout this week’s edition, readers will find content related to the now underway 2026 legislative session. We aim to continue providing coverage of happenings from the General Assembly on a weekly basis between now and when the session wraps in March, so be sure to follow along for those updates. For now, I’d like to point out a few specific bills that have caught my eye.
House Bill 227 – Rep. Matt Lockett (R, 39th District) is the primary sponsor of this bill, which seeks to create new sections of the Kentucky Revised Statutes (KRS) to “establish requirements to protect minors from AI companion platforms and social media platforms using addictive features and predatory data collection.” It also addresses problems related to age verification for users of AI companion platforms and prohibits platforms from maintaining accounts for children without parental consent. As the parent of a newly minted teenager and a seven-year-old (seven going on 17), I am all for legislation that will help to protect our kids while they are online. I have said this before, but it holds doubly true now that AI is factoring so heavily into the equation. As with any other form of technology that has ever been introduced, it’s great as long as it’s being used to do something good. Unfortunately, a lot of people want to do the opposite. I will be keeping a close watch on this bill, and I hope that it will succeed.
House Bill 175 – With this bill, Rep. Beverly Chester-Burton (D, 44th District) is proposing the creation of a new section of the KRS that will establish a three-day sales tax holiday occurring the first Friday-through-Sunday each August. Tennessee has something like this each year, I believe. It’s an interesting proposal. We’ll see where it goes.
House Bill 288 – Rep. Kim Banta (R, 63rd District) has filed this bill, which proposes an amendment to the Constitution of Kentucky to prevent senators from serving more than four terms in office, not including partial terms of two years or less. The bill also proposes that members of the House of Representatives should serve no more than six terms, not including partial terms of two years or less. If successful, it would apply to those elected to office starting in November of 2028. I know that the idea of term limits is something that many folks out there support, but I’m not holding my breath on this one.
House Bill 217 – Rep. Kim Holloway (R, 2nd District) has filed this bill, which would, according to a press release that I received over the weekend, “allow Kentuckians to designate part of their income tax refund to help contribute to the animal control and care fund, in turn supporting animal shelters across the Commonwealth.” According to the release, the legislation would “create a simple and voluntary option for taxpayers to support animal welfare efforts without increasing taxes or impact their overall tax liability.” With animal shelters all over the state dealing with overcrowding and increasingly limited options for funding, it will be interesting to see if this bill ends up gaining traction. I think the chances are pretty decent that it will.
House Bills 186 and 259 – With these bills, Rep. Shane Baker (R, 85th District) is proposing that candidates running for local and state offices be natural born citizens of the United States. HB 186 would require candidates for local offices to be natural born citizens and hold citizenship solely in the U.S. HB 259 would propose amending the Kentucky Constitution to require candidates for state and countywide offices to be natural born citizens and solely a U.S. national. I personally am not in favor of this, as I feel it is too restrictive and would disqualify many smart, capable, patriotic American citizens from being able to serve in elected office. America is supposed to be the Land of Opportunity. In my opinion, the pre-requisites being proposed in these bills suggest the exact opposite. It’s too extreme, and I urge a re-evaluation.
