FRANKFORT, Ky. (FOX 56) – Just over a month out from election day, Kentuckians are making up their minds on who gets their vote in November, but they also have questions to vote on too. There are only two questions on the ballot next month.
On one hand, you have a question about legislative and executive power, and on the other an ultimatum deciding the future of abortions in Kentucky.
The multi-paragraph Amendment 1 really only decides something simple; should the state legislature now have the power to call a special session.
“For many decades, the governor would propose a budget and now the legislature is ignoring that and proposing their own budget so what this would do is take away one of the governor’s last great powers when it comes to policymaking,” FOX 56 Political Analyst Jonathan Miller said.
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- List of central Kentucky no-excuse early voting sites
As Miller explained, it follows a trend that started decades ago as more executive branch power has been assumed by the General Assembly.
“Right now, only the governor can call a special session and the governor can define specifically what’s going to be decided in that special session which gives him or her a lot of flexibility and authority. The legislature through this amendment would be allowed to call itself back into session for whatever it decided,” Miller said.
It would not be an unlimited authority as special sessions are capped to 12 days annually, but Miller said this isn’t the issue that will likely bring voters to the polls
“If Amendment 2 passes, there will be no right of abortion unless the mother’s life is endangered,” he said.
Amendment 2 will decide if Kentucky’s constitution does not protect the right to an abortion. The question was already on the ballot before Roe v. Wade was overturned earlier this year.
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“Where the dynamic before was this is an opportunity for voters to say whether they are pro-life or pro-choice, now it is about what you think about the limits of abortion,” Miller said.
Since the right to an abortion is no longer protected at the federal level, Kentucky’s trigger law immediately outlawed abortion except when the mother’s life is at risk. When lawsuits came down, they looked to the state constitution for those protections, which are still being decided in court. This amendment could change that.
“We should expect to see and we’ve already started to see millions of dollars being spent on both sides of the issue,” Miller said.
The nation has already seen a “dry-run” of abortion-banning amendments when in August deep-red Kansas voted overwhelmingly to protect abortion rights by 20 percentage points. Miller said Kentucky is a more culturally and religiously conservative state, so he expects the anti-abortion sentiment to be a bit stronger here.