Wednesday was the final day for “veto-proof” legislation to pass the Kentucky General Assembly in the 2026 session, with the Republican supermajority speeding through nearly 80 bills to final passage and sending them to the governor.
Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear now has a week and a half to either sign or veto bills — or allow them to become law without his signature — before the legislature returns April 14 for the final two days of the session. In those days, Republicans could easily override any vetoes, as they have at least 80% of the seats in each chamber and only need the votes of a majority of members.
In addition to the two-year state budget and other major taxing and spending bills, Republicans on Wednesday passed high-priority legislation targeting the administration and oversight of public K-12 schools in Jefferson and Fayette counties.
Also clearing both chambers on Wednesday were bills garnering a lot of attention over the past few months, including major omnibus bills affecting Medicaid and gambling, a contentious budget for state courts and a bill implementing major reforms at the beleaguered Kentucky State University.
But there were some GOP bills that did not quite make it past the finish line, including ones putting up barriers to open records requests, fully banning child marriage, regulating data centers and moving drivers licensing services back to counties. These bills could pass into law in the final two days of the session, but would not be able to survive a veto from Beshear.
Here is a roundup of the key bills sent to the governor, and those that didn’t make the cut.
Medicaid work requirements, co-pays and oversight
One of the top priority bills for Republicans this session was omnibus legislation to enact new federal eligibility requirements for Medicaid, as well new oversight structures to rein in spending and potential fraud in the government health care program.
The version of House Bill 2 passed in that chamber in February went further in some areas than the “Big Beautiful Bill” passed by Congress last summer, quickly implementing new work reporting requirements and adding new $20 co-pays for certain services and $5 co-pays for prescription drugs. It also made it harder for poorer counties in Kentucky to get a waiver from some of those work reporting requirements because of having a high unemployment rate there.
The amended version of HB 2 that passed the Senate on Wednesday, and to which the House agreed, loosened some of those new requirements, pushing back dates of implementation, lowering the co-pays to $5 and $1, respectively, and not changing the hardship waiver for poorer counties. It also kept oversight features in the bills related to a new public dashboard to track Medicaid spending and increasing auditing.
While all Democrats voted against the original version of HB 2, the softer version gained more bipartisan support as it cleared both chambers Wednesday.
A new age restriction of sports betting among gambling changes
House Bill 904 was another late-amended bill that was among the last pieces of legislation to clear both chambers Wednesday night with 150 pages of changes to gambling statutes in Kentucky.
One of the major changes in the bill is raising the legal age to make wagers on sporting events from 18 to 21, as many legislators have criticized the prevalence of gambling addiction among young men.
The bill also for the first time regulates and taxes fantasy sports, while moving oversight of charitable gaming into the Kentucky Horse Racing and Gaming Corporation.
The bill does not add state regulation of new and rapidly-growing prediction markets — such as Kalshi and Polymarket, where people can bet on a wide variety of future events — as the sponsors said this can only be done at the federal level. However, the bill and an accompanying revenue bill does add new taxes on such wagers in Kentucky, and prevents companies with horse racing or sports betting licenses from affiliating with prediction market companies.
In the Senate, some lawmakers expressed concern that this latter provision could prohibit companies like Churchill Downs from airing the Kentucky Derby on NBC if the network sold ads to sites like Kalshi or Polymarket.
“The possibility that a signature industry — not just in Jefferson County, Louisville but in Kentucky — that a central brand cannot project itself potentially on national advertising media, that’s serious stuff,” Democratic Senator Gerald Neal of Louisville said. “There’s no way I could support this without a clear answer that suggests that will not be the outcome. That’s like sticking a gun up to your head economically.”
Churchill Downs issued a statement saying the company would work with the governor and lawmakers to “correct language that could adversely impact” Kentucky’s horse racing industry and expressed confidence that those changes will be made in the last two days of the session.
Some Republicans also voted against HB 904 for a provision that would add “fixed odds” betting on horse racing, as opposed to parimutuel or pooled betting, saying that this amounted to an expansion of gambling that would require a constitutional amendment.
Judicial budget passes, with chief justice ‘deeply disappointed’
Despite pleas from Kentucky Supreme Court Chief Justice Debra Lambert, the legislature passed the judicial branch budget Wednesday, without funds Lambert said the courts need to maintain services. Although lawmakers increased their allotment slightly compared to an earlier version of House Bill 504, Lambert said in a statement she is “deeply disappointed” by the final budget, but that the legislature gets to call the shots on spending. Lambert said she is still reviewing the budget and its potential impacts on the courts.
“We know we will have significant layoffs but will focus now internally on taking care of our people and the citizens we serve with as much care and dignity as possible,” Lambert said.
HB 504 does include an increase in state General Fund spending for the judicial branch — $14 million more in the first year and then an additional $16.9 million the following year. However, when taking into account things like a mandated 2% employee raise and huge spikes in employer health insurance costs, the budget really amounts to a 7% cut compared to the last budget, according to Jason Bailey with the left-leaning Kentucky Center for Economic Policy.
“You may have slightly more overall but substantially more goes to these new dedicated costs leaving you less to operate your programs with,” Bailey said.
Lambert previously said the judicial system would no longer be able to afford specialty drug, mental health and veterans courts under the previous iteration of the budget. Lambert did not immediately say Thursday whether the small increases that made it into the final version would be enough to keep the courts that cater to defendants struggling with addiction and mental illness open.
Republicans defended the judicial budget, saying they did not cut the budget, but increased it, even if it’s not the level the Administrative Office of the Courts says it needs.
“I don't think you can call it a cut. We also funded additional judges raises. We funded personnel raises for clerk staff,” said GOP House Speaker David Osborne from Prospect. “I think part of the misunderstanding, quite possibly, is the fact that Justice Lambert is a new chief justice in her role. There's a new director of AOC that possibly didn't understand all the workings on it.”
Child marriage, housing and data center bills fall short
Even as lawmakers passed dozens of bills in those final hours before the governor’s veto period, several remain hanging in the balance. It doesn’t mean lawmakers can’t still send them to Beshear for his signature, but they will not have the opportunity to override him should he choose to issue a veto.
One of the largest pieces of legislation to not make that coveted final passage was Senate Bill 9. On Wednesday, the bill exploded from 15 pages to 60. It combined at least eight different pieces of legislation designed to increase the state’s housing supply and help Kentuckians get into homes.
But the massive new version that passed through the House did not end up getting final approval in the Senate. In addition to some bipartisan housing components, the bill would cancel out any local ordinances designed to limit where and how short-term rentals, like Airbnbs, can operate. Osborne said he thought the Senate was onboard with their plan to merge all the legislation into one housing superbill, but apparently not.
“They were struggling to get everybody up to speed on it,” Osborne said. “It was voluminous, and perhaps we just didn't do a good enough job of communicating it.”
Several of the components jammed into SB 9 had been talked about multiple times over the course of the session. The original bill allowed local governments to designate special building zones that they could help finance and lower barriers to construction. A freshly added provision would require the automatic expungement of dismissed eviction filings and would protect kids from being listed on eviction cases that could follow them for the rest of their lives.
A bill that would allow government agencies to require a photo ID before providing public records to Kentucky residents didn’t quite make it past the legislative finish line. While lawmakers passed it in both the Senate and House, the latter failed to concur with some changes made in the Senate before the deadline. It is unclear if Beshear would veto House Bill 567 — he has not yet weighed in. But Beshear has previously defended possible changes to open records laws that transparency advocates said would make accessing records more difficult.
Senate Bill 156 would end all child marriage in Kentucky, drawing a clear red line at that you must be 18-years-old to get married. Despite a 2018 ban, some children are still getting married in the state, and a few in direct violation of that law. It is a bill that Beshear is unlikely to veto, should lawmakers pass it in the last two days of the session.
An effort to shift the issuance of drivers licenses back to counties and away from the Transportation Cabinet also fell short. House Bill 658 cleared the Senate with language allowing counties to optional take up those services, but the House chose not to act on the amended bill. The effort was inspired by long wait times at regional offices, though the Transportation Cabinet budget bill added spending for three new regional offices.
Also failing to pass ahead of the veto period was legislation to put new regulatory guardrails around energy-intensive data centers in an effort to shield existing utility customers from increased costs. House Bill 593 made it to the Senate floor but was not taken up, and its language was also inserted to a bill that made it to the House floor, which was also not acted on Wednesday night. Louisville Gas & Electric and Kentucky Utilities, the electric utility provider in the state, has lobbied against the bill.
Kentucky State, Public Service Commission and governor powers
Here is a quick rundown of other bills that gained final passage on Wednesday that Kentucky Public Radio has covered throughout the session.
- Both chambers passed an amended version of Senate Bill 185, which implemented major reforms in Kentucky State University in an effort to avoid its closure. The new version raised the limit of spending that would need state authorization (from $5,000 to $20,000), allows fraternities and sororities in good standing to keep their charter and maintains the university’s core mission as a liberal arts college and historically Black college, in addition to becoming a polytechnic university.
- Senate Bill 8 began in that chamber as a major restructuring of the Public Service Commission, which acts as the state regulator of utility companies. The Senate version would have added two members appointed by the auditor and largely barred environmental and consumer advocacy groups from participating in rate cases. However, the House stripped out both of those changes from the bill, which the Senate agreed to just before midnight on Wednesday.
- After seven years of failed attempts, the legislature finally passed Senate Bill 10 for a proposed constitutional amendment to limit governors from issuing pardons and commutations in the last 60 days of their term. Inspired by the controversial pardons issued by former Gov. Matt Bevin before leaving office in 2019, voters will decide whether or not to approve the amendment in a ballot referendum this fall. The bill was also amended late to delete an outdated line about the pardoning of people who had fought in a duel. Unlike regular bills, ballot amendment measures cannot be vetoed by the governor.
- House Bill 10, which passed with last-minute amendments Wednesday, seeks to limit the governor’s powers in the months leading up to a gubernatorial inauguration. It requires separate oversight of settlements in pending lawsuits and over travel expenses. It also requires employees hired in the 18 months before an inauguration to serve a 2-year probationary period under the new regime. It requires that another slew of governor appointees get Senate confirmation, as well.
- Senate Bill 77 sets up a framework for researching the medical benefits of the powerful psychedelic drug ibogaine also passed ahead of the veto period. Lawmakers hope the drug, which is classified as Schedule I, will prove effective at treating post-traumatic stress disorder, substance use disorder and treatment-resistant depression.
- House Bill 422, a.k.a. Logan’s Law, is on its way to the governor. After being significantly paired down, the bill edits the definition of “insanity” in criminal proceedings to require it be the result of a mental illness or intellectual disability. It also would not allow juries to find a defendant guilty on one count, and then not guilty by reason of insanity on another. Spurred by the murder of 6-year-old Logan Tipon, the bill originally eliminated the insanity defense altogether.
