Tagged: Kentucky General Assembly

Kentucky lawmakers have achieved a compromise that would set up a regulatory framework should the federal government legalize industrial hemp.

The so-called hemp bill—Senate Bill 50—gives control of licensing of future hemp farmers to the Industrial Hemp Commission, but allow the Kentucky State Police to do background checks on the farmers.

The state Department of Agriculture would be given many administrative roles for licensing hemp farmers and the University of Kentucky would be charged with researching the issue.

Kentucky military personnel serving overseas will be able to get ballots electronically under legislation approved late Tuesday in the Kentucky General Assembly. How they send them back is still to be determined.

Working until the last minute of the 2013 session, legislators went back to the original Senate version of the military voting bill that allowed for electronic sending of ballots to overseas military, but snail mail return of the ballot.

Kentuckians in wet and moist counties may soon be able to buy alcohol on election days.

 The Kentucky House of Representatives has passed Senate Bill 13, sponsored by State Senator John Schickel, a Republican from Union. Under the bill, small businesses and tourist destinations along Kentucky's Bourbon trail would also be able to stay open during election days.

FRANKFORT — Kentucky's legislative leaders have passed two bills to shore up the state's underfunded pension systems, effectively staving off a special session on the issue.

The new plan would reduce a personal tax credit of $20 to $10, generating about $33 million in revenue that would go to General Fund, but lawmakers would use it for pensions. The plan would also use revenue from technical changes in the state's tax code, as well as money from federal tax changes.