New KY laws on porch pirates, transgender athletes and more go into effect. What to know
Emboldened by their super-majorities in the General Assembly, Kentucky Republicans quickly ticked off their priority list during this year’s 60-day legislative session, passing laws targeting transgender students, package thieves and more.
Under Kentucky’s Constitution, new laws are enforced 90 days after the state legislature adjourns, unless the law specifies otherwise, are appropriation bills or include an emergency clause to make them effective immediately upon becoming law.
With the General Assembly adjourning April 14, Thursday, July 14 is the effective date for most new state legislation enacted this year.
Here’s what you need to know about these new Kentucky laws.
A ban on transgender athletes
Senate Bill 83 prohibits transgender women and girls in Kentucky from participating in sports that align with their gender from the sixth grade including all the way up to college level sports.
The legislation declares “an athletic activity or sport designated as ‘girls’ for students in grades six through 12 shall not be open to members of the male sex.”
To prove their sex, students have to provide one of the following:
An “original, unedited birth certificate issued at the time of birth” or
An affidavit “signed and sworn to by the physician, physician assistant, advanced practice registered nurse, or chiropractor that conducted the annual medical examination … under penalty of perjury establishing the student’s biological sex at the time of birth.”
The law also applies to public and private colleges and universities, as well.
The new law supersedes an existing policy from the Kentucky High School Athletic Association requiring students to participate in sports based on the gender on their birth certificates unless their gender legally has been reassigned. That can be demonstrated through certified medical records, a driver’s license, a passport or other formal documents.
The measure drew opposition from Rep. Killian Timoney, R-Lexington, who worried the law would draw expensive legal challenges for the state to fight.
Clamping down on porch pirates
Senate Bill 23 makes mail thieves — colloquially called porch pirates — Class D felons, if convicted.
Those offenses carry a prison sentence of between one to five years.
Under this new law, the offense now applies to packages delivered by a common carrier or delivery service, not just those dropped off by the U.S. Postal Service.
Cuts to public benefits
Urged on by the politically powerful Kentucky Chamber of Commerce and the pro-business lobby, state lawmakers passed House Bill 7, which cuts back on the state’s principal food assistance and Medicaid programs.
The law imposes harsher punishments for public benefits fraud and a “community engagement” program state officials must create for able-bodied, adult Medicaid recipients without dependents, according to a previous Lexington Herald-Leader article.
While concrete data on welfare fraud is hard to come by, the Congressional Research Service reports “SNAP fraud is relatively rare,” referring to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps.
The CRS found that “for every $10,000 in benefits issued to households participating in SNAP, about $11 were determined by state agencies to have been overpaid due to recipient fraud and were required to be repaid by the overpaid household ($73,403,758 in fraud claims established).”
By comparison, $1 out of every $6 owed in federal taxes is not paid due to tax fraud or evasion, according to the Brookings Institution.
Student mental health
Put simply, House Bill 44 allows local school boards to include provisions in its student attendance policy for excused absences due to a student’s mental or behavioral health status.
Public comment required
House Bill 121 requires local school boards to, at each regular meeting, “include a public comment period of at least 15 minutes.”
Any board rules and policies regarding conduct during school board meetings shall apply during the public comment period, according to the legislation.
The legislation was introduced as the Jefferson County Board of Education, which oversees the largest district in the state, had not conducted public comment for several months, WFPL reported in January.
A full list of the 26 state laws going into effect Thursday is available online.
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