music >> Wexner's name was added back.

>> Within 40 minutes of me catching you red handed.

[MUSIC] >> Red handed.

>> Sharp words between a Kentucky congressman and the US attorney general over what has and hasn't been released from the Epstein files.

[MUSIC] >> If you're in the auditor's office, just do the work.

That's all we're asking.

>> The governor questions a report on questionable spending.

[MUSIC] >> Joe Biden won the election, and it's time to focus on the current reality.

[MUSIC] >> And Kentucky's Republican secretary of state says it's time to move on from the 2020 presidential election.

[MUSIC] >> Production of Kentucky Edition is made possible in part by the KET Millennium Fund.

>> Good evening and welcome to Kentucky Edition for this Thursday, February the 12th, I'm Renee Shaw, and we thank you for spending some of your Thursday evening with us.

Since 1990, parents and teachers have been able to serve on what are called site based decision making councils, which make policy decisions for individual schools.

Senate Bill 152 proposes changing these councils to advisory bodies and putting the policymaking authority in the hands of the principal or superintendent.

Our Mackenzie Spink brings us to the debate over parental involvement in public schools that kicks off tonight's legislative update.

[MUSIC] >> Bill sponsor Senator Aaron Reed says Senate Bill 152 is about streamlining authority in schools, not cutting parents out of the equation.

>> When authorities refused, accountability is weakened.

So Senate Bill 152 restores a clear chain of command so that when a school succeeds, we know who led it.

And when a school struggles, we know who is responsible for fixing it.

Let me be clear this is not an attack on teachers or parents.

It's a structural reform designed to improve clarity, efficiency and accountability in our schools.

>> If Senate Bill 152 passes, the site based decision making, councils would be turned into school based advisory councils, meaning that those parents and teachers could provide feedback and recommendations but not enact school policies anymore.

Opponents of the bill say parents and teachers should retain policymaking power because they know their individual schools best.

>> Where school based decision making works well is when you have a have strong leadership and the parents and teachers feel empowered to have an authentic part in actual decisions by changing the council role to merely advisory, you would be diminishing the voices of those closest to the students, the parents and the teachers.

>> The lawmakers opposing the bill expressed that they did not see a need to change the current system, asking for more on the ground evidence.

>> Do you have any evidence that you can present to us today to demonstrate that that site based decision making councils don't work?

I've never heard any indication in, in my discussions that that the reason why the schools don't do well is because of the existence of site based decision making councils.

On the other hand, I am aware that those high performing schools have a lot of parental involvement.

>> I don't have any any list of folks right in front of me here, but I have received many calls in my colleagues here on on the committee have also received many calls and interaction with parents and teachers throughout the districts in the state.

>> The supporters of the bill say the powers of school based decision making councils butt up against the powers of the school board muddying the waters.

>> You know, the school board is a constitutionally elected body, whereas the Tbdms are not a constitutionally elected body.

They are an elected body, but not constitutionally.

Doesn't that take a little bit of power away from the school board?

If if SB Dems are able to override the school board?

>> Supporters of the bill say that if administrators and the council have a good relationship, the two entities will work together, not against each other.

Senate Bill 152 passed along party lines.

It will next head to the Senate floor for consideration for Kentucky edition.

I'm Mackenzie Spink.

>> Thank you.

Mackenzie.

On a separate matter, Senate Bill 114, sponsored by Senator David Givens, would require school board members in districts with more than 25,000 students to be appointed by the superintendent, rather than elected by the public.

As it stands now, that bill has not yet been assigned to a committee.

Yesterday we told you about Senate Majority Caucus Chair Robbie Mills idea to boost the state's housing supply through Senate Bill nine.

The bill would make more residential development lots available and speed up the building process, which could make homes more affordable.

Mills said there would be plenty more housing legislation to come.

Well, today, two state representatives made good on that promise.

They discussed three new housing bills, which look to reform zoning and planning regulations in an effort to speed up developments.

Our Emily Sisk was in Frankfort today for the discussion and has the latest.

>> We kept hearing all across the state that the American dream, for a lot of people of buying a home was just not possible anymore.

>> In response to that concern, three House bills were filed to cut down on construction and inspection regulations.

Today, Representative Susan Whitten, co-chair of the Kentucky Housing Task Force, and Representative Richard White of Morehead, discussed their legislation.

House Bill 617 looks to reform planning and zoning standards.

Local governments cannot require more than one parking space per housing unit.

The bill also prevents local governments from requiring residential lots to be a certain size, with the goal of building smaller, more affordable homes instead of large, expensive properties.

>> We really need to be able to incentivize these developers to build these smaller houses.

If they can build ten really large houses right now.

But if in that same plot of land, they can build 15 or 20 smaller homes, then that's going to be an incentive for the developers.

And that's really what we're trying to do.

>> The Louisville Republican said this type of legislation has been successful in other states, and she referenced a study on just how many new homes this could bring to the state.

>> This specific provision could add 3600 additional single family homes in Kentucky every single year.

>> Whitten also sponsored House Bill 618, which updates Kentucky's building code so that buildings with up to four units are treated the same as single family homes.

The bill also allows qualified third party inspectors to review construction.

Whitten said this should speed up the development process.

>> This simply provides an alternative to builders, developers and homeowners when local inspection capacity is limited.

>> And Representative White's House Bill 530 creates a 60 day shot clock for governments to issue building permits.

If authorities fail to review the permit application within those 60 days, it's automatically approved.

The Eastern Kentucky Republican said he'd heard stories from rural constituents that inspectors were waiting to review properties until ten or more developments were ready.

White said Kentuckians can't wait that long and his bill should fix the problem.

>> It has to be more prompt in the getting to the people to have it done.

>> Heather LeMire, state director of Americans for Prosperity Kentucky, has worked with the legislators to draft these bills.

She said it would be a huge step in the right direction to get the bills across the finish line.

>> If all three of these bills passed, we would consider this really the gold standard in housing reform.

>> For Kentucky.

Edition I'm Emily Sisk.

>> Thank you, Emily.

Representative Whitten said today she would support using state dollars to address housing affordability.

On Tuesday, we heard from the state auditor's office about what it said was questionable spending in the executive branch.

Well, today, Governor Andy Beshear said the auditor's claims were wrong and that her office didn't do that much digging.

>> So I have not seen a report, and I don't think it can be a report because they never asked us any questions.

And you have to do that if it's an audit report.

All they did was take lines and they didn't ask questions because if they'd gotten the answers, they couldn't have done the political attack that it was in.

For instance, they they she her individual under oath, by the way, giving false information.

Claimed Office of Medical Cannabis spent $339,000 on advertising for medical cannabis.

They didn't.

They spent $93,000 to create training and educational videos for the public.

The videos were for prospective medical cannabis licensees.

They were for law enforcement about what's legal and what's not.

They were for patients, providers and for local government officials who would have the dispensaries and other businesses in their community.

>> The governor says his advice to the auditor's office is, quote, do the work.

End quote.

Now, turning to Washington politics.

Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky's fourth district continues to question the Trump administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

U.S.

Attorney General Pam Bondi testified about the case on Capitol Hill yesterday, and at times, she mocked lawmakers who questioned why the Justice Department continues to redact certain information while also exposing sensitive information about victims.

Here is part of her exchange with Congressman Massie, who asked why businessman Les Wexner's name was redacted from an FBI document listing him as a coconspirator in a child sex trafficking case.

>> Within 40 minutes, you asked me a question.

Within 40 minutes, Wexner's name was added back.

>> Within 40 minutes of me catching you red handed.

>> Red handed.

There was one redaction where he's.

>> Listed as a coconspirator.

>> And we invited you in.

>> Gentlemen.

>> This guy has Trump Derangement syndrome.

He needs to.

You're a failed politician.

You need.

>> To watch.

>> The video.

>> Chairman, please restore his time.

>> Well, that spirited hearing lasted more than five hours.

Massie is a candidate for reelection in Kentucky's fourth congressional district.

Ed Gallrein is running against Massie in the May 19th Republican primary, and he has President Trump's endorsement, as you see there.

Federal funding for the Department of Homeland Security will run out tomorrow.

If Congress can agree on a budget for the department.

The sticking point.

Reforms to a section within the department.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or Ice.

Some members of Congress are demanding reforms after two deadly Ice related shootings in Minneapolis and other incidents involving Ice agents or Border Patrol.

Congressman Morgan McGarvey, a Democrat from Louisville, talked about Ice last night during a telephone town hall.

>> We have seen ice terrorizing our communities all over this country.

They've been separating families.

They've been detaining kids.

They're using kids as bait, dragging people from their cars, not using warrants, going into people's homes, pinning parents to the ground in the pickup lines of their kids school.

We have even seen them murder people in broad daylight on our city streets.

This is something that has to stop.

So the Senate Democrats negotiated a series of reforms they want to see happen.

These are basic, common sense things.

First of all, Ice agents have to take their masks off.

Second, they have to identify what law enforcement agency with third mandate body cameras be worn and be on.

And fourth, make sure that there are judicial warrants before Ice comes into your home to go after you.

Basic common sense stuff.

This is something that every law enforcement officer in Jefferson County is already required to do.

If you want my opinion on this, this is the bare minimum.

I mean, we're talking bare minimum of what needs to be done.

I personally, I don't think this Ice agency can be fixed, and it's why I have refused to send any money, let alone billions of dollars, to this agency.

>> Congressman McGarvey said he is working with other members of the House in an effort to impeach the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem.

McGarvey says that's for her handling of Ice and also her negligence.

He says in dealing with FEMA and the response to natural disasters.

Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg says the city is, quote, stronger and getting stronger.

And in his annual state of the city address today, Greenberg touted the city's successes, including increased job growth, a drop in violent crime and better access to affordable housing and child care.

Greenberg also focused on the city's new economic development projects.

He says revitalizing downtown Louisville is key to continuing the city's economic growth.

>> When I took office, everyone thought downtown's best days were in the past.

The pandemic took its toll.

Offices were vacant, restaurants closed, and streets felt unsafe.

We reached an inflection point and with it, a responsibility because there is no great city without a great downtown.

[APPLAUSE] Downtown is everyone's neighborhood, and for it to belong to everyone, it needs to be one of the safest, cleanest, greenest, most vibrant, energetic and welcoming places in our entire city.

We need to think boldly, bringing state and federal partners and use every tool available, even create some new ones to reimagine downtowns.

Next chapter.

>> Greenburg also shared first renderings of the Humana Building Development project.

Louisville based Poe Companies has signed a letter of intent to purchase the vacant Humana building in downtown Louisville and turn it into a 1000 room convention center hotel.

It would make it the city's second largest hotel.

The project is expected to cost between 600 and $700 million.

[MUSIC] The state's chief elections official says lingering skepticism about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election should be put to rest.

Republican Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams dropped by our studios today to discuss recent actions by the Trump administration to seize ballots in Georgia, the president's push to nationalize elections and take over the voting process.

And if those actions are sowing skepticism about the integrity of the midterm elections this year.

Here's part one of my interview with Secretary Adams.

Secretary Michael Adams, thank you so very much for your time.

>> Thanks.

Great to be back.

>> I want to talk to you about some recent developments in the news, perhaps a relitigation of the 2020 presidential election.

As you very well know, the FBI seizure of Georgia ballots, Fulton County in particular, of those 2020 presidential ballots.

What are your thoughts about that action?

And are you concerned that that is precedent setting in any way for future actions like that?

And that could even impact Kentucky?

>> Well, I don't have any inside.

>> Information about it.

I assume that they got a warrant, and therefore a judge looked at this objectively and signed off on it.

I hope that it's not precedent, though.

In other litigation.

So there's 24 states, I think, right now that are in litigation with the Department of Justice for whether they turn over voters personal information to the department attached to the voter rolls, to the extent that that is used against any of those states or against our state, I'd be very concerned about that.

But I think if they were going to do that, they would just do it.

>> Why are we still talking about the 2020 presidential election?

>> I'm not.

>> I know you're not, but I'm sure you're asked about this when you make lots of appearances.

What do you say to voters who are still Kentucky voters, who are concerned about the integrity of the 2020 election?

>> I think it's time to move on personally.

But I've said for years, I think that the election is over.

And the president was sworn in, Joe Biden won the election, and it's time to focus on the current reality.

>> Because there's not a conversation about the 2024 election results.

Correct?

>> Not that I've heard, no.

>> Let's talk about some action that has impacted Kentucky.

Last year, the you did receive a request from the DOJ about voter registration data.

What were you mandated to turn over and comply with?

And is the law very clear about what you're supposed to submit to the DOJ?

>> Well, the law is clear about some things.

It is clear that any citizen of the United States can request our voter rolls.

Any citizen of Kentucky certainly can.

And it's very normal for those requests to come.

When I ran for office, I wanted the voter file.

I wanted to find out how to reach voters so I could campaign the parties.

Get it.

The special interest groups, the PACs, the we all get it.

It's a public document.

The federal law says not just any voter in Kentucky or any citizen here, but any citizen in the country is entitled to request it and receive it.

That's crystal clear.

Federal law from 1993.

So obviously the AG asks for that.

We're going to cooperate.

We're going to provide that.

What's not clear and has never happened before, to my knowledge, is a request, not just for the public file that everyone gets, but voters personal information, their driver's license numbers, Social.

>> Security numbers.

>> Social Security numbers.

And in Kentucky, we have data protection laws.

We have limits on the government's ability to release people's private information.

And so we have kind of a square peg in a round hole that we have a vague federal law saying people can ask for the file, and we have specific state laws saying this is private information, this is not for distribution.

And so generally federal law is supreme over state law.

But if the federal law is vague and the state laws specific, it may not work that way.

So my position is we've provided and we did a long time ago, provided the public file to the Department of Justice.

That's the right answer.

What you see among my colleagues is different approaches.

We have very liberal Democrats who are saying we're not going to give you anything, not even the public file.

There's no basis for that.

That's that's not the law.

We also have Republicans on the other side who have just given up everything, and maybe they don't have the data protection laws.

I don't know in their states, but I'm more in the center.

And that's where most Democrats and most Republicans are on this issue, which is, well, we've got these laws and those laws.

We need a court order, probably to tell us which ones we need to follow, which ones Trump and which ones don't.

>> Right, right.

So for viewers who are just hearing this or hearing your explanation of it, and they're concerned about, oh, somebody has my Social Security number because Michael Adams gave it to them.

You say what.

>> We haven't done that we haven't complied with that.

And may I point out if if I had a data breach in my office, if we gave up all this stuff, I'd be sued.

My staff would be sued.

It would be a liability issue for the Commonwealth.

It doesn't change if we give it up voluntarily.

Like people have certain protections.

It's my obligation to the law to protect that, unless I'm told otherwise by a judge.

>> Since the beginning of his second term, President Donald Trump has attempted to expand the role of the federal government in the voting process.

And I want to just read verbatim what he has said in recent times.

Some of these moves are mired in litigation.

Earlier this month, he said, and reassertion of his control to get more control over voting.

He said at least in some parts of the country, that Republicans should say, we want to take over.

We should take over the voting, the voting in at least as many as 15 places.

The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.

Is there some historical precedence for that to happen, and what are your thoughts about that on nationalizing elections?

>> So I don't know exactly what the president means.

His spokespeople have said he means that Congress should have federal laws they passed that improve the election process nationally.

And the Constitution, of course, says that the states decide this stuff unless Congress steps in.

I'm not sure what he meant, so I can't really speak to that.

But as to precedent, the reason that we have a Department of Justice, the reason it was created by the Grant administration after the Civil War was because of Jim Crow and because of southern states not letting African-Americans register and vote.

And the feds had to come in and make sure that people's rights were respected.

And you did have a federal troop presence at the polls in some cases.

So I don't want to say there's no precedent.

Obviously, the precedent rationale is a little different, right?

Here's my view.

We've shown the world how well we can run our elections.

We've shown that we can do this in a respectable way, that enfranchises people, that expands access, that tighten security, that has mass support from all sides of the political spectrum.

We got this.

We don't really need the help of some bureaucracy in Washington.

>> Do you think all of these conversations, all of these actions by the white House, by the Trump administration, is sowing seeds of doubt about the integrity of the midterms, election, midterm elections?

>> I don't think I don't know whether it's having that effect.

I've not seen any effect of that.

I will say that at the grassroots level, in my perspective, it's not really catching on.

A lot of the heat that I've been getting for years and years has really dissipated the last couple of years.

I don't know if that's the intent.

It's not the effect.

At this point.

>> I'll have more of my interview with Secretary Michael Adams tomorrow when we discuss his position on open primaries, challenges in recruiting poll workers, and what his political future could hold after he finishes his second and final term next year.

All of that tomorrow night on Kentucky edition.

Federal money is headed to Kentucky to help pay for road construction, and a massive logging project is headed to the Daniel Boone National Forest.

Our Toby Gibbs has details in this look at headlines around Kentucky.

>> Jellico Vegetation Management Project appears set to go forward despite local opposition.

It's a logging project that will affect 9500 acres in parts of McCreary and Whitley County.

The Times-tribune reports the U.S.

Forest Service project will last 40 years and will be one of the biggest logging projects in the history of the Daniel Boone National Forest.

[MUSIC] During a 30 day comment period in 2024, 686 people submitted comments, with most opposing the project due to concerns over the impact on land, plants and animals.

[MUSIC] The National Optometry Board is blasting the Kentucky Board for letting optometrists practice without complying with regulatory requirements.

According to the Kentucky Lantern, the state board has allowed 21 optometrists to continue practicing even though they haven't passed all required exams.

On February 5th, the president of the Kentucky Board, Doctor Mary Beth Morris, said in a statement that optometrists are being unfairly targeted.

[MUSIC] A congressional spending bill passed last week includes money for three highway projects in Kentucky.

Weku radio says the bill means $37 million for the Somerset Northern Bypass in Pulaski County, 20 million to widen 59 miles of the Hal Rogers Parkway from London to Hazard and 36.5 million to help pay for the Mountain Parkway extension from Salyersville to Prestonsburg.

[MUSIC] A priest is losing his hair all at once and for a good cause.

[MUSIC] The news enterprise says the Reverend Chuck Walker of Saint James Catholic Church in Elizabethtown will have his head shaved March 8th.

It's part of the Saint Baldrick's event, an event to encourage people to donate their hair in solidarity with child cancer patients.

This will be his 20th year taking part.

[MUSIC] In the last 14 years, the campaign has raised $209,000 in Hardin County.

With headlines around Kentucky.

I'm Toby Gibbs.

>> Tomorrow night, we end the week on a musical note.

[MUSIC] Hear how one man is giving World War Two instruments new life and sharing the stories that come with them.

That's Friday tomorrow on Kentucky edition, which we hope we'll see you for at 630 eastern, 530 central, where we inform, connect and inspire.

And we sure hope that you connect with us on all the ways you see on your screen, the social media channels, Facebook and Instagram.

You can send us a story idea or just a shout out by email at the address on your screen.

Public affairs at Keturah.

Look for us on the PBS app that you can download on your smart devices and phone.

And of course, you can stream our programing and great content online anytime on demand at Keturah.

More coverage of the Kentucky General Assembly and part two of my interview with Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams.

That's coming at you tomorrow on Kentucky Edition.

Until I see you again.

[MUSIC] Have a great night.

Take good care.