The Kentucky House, for a fourth time, has approved a constitutional amendment calling for the automatic restoration of voting rights for felons who have paid their debt to society. Lexington Rep. Jesse Crenshaw’s bill, which has never passed the Senate, sailed through the House 83-16. House Speaker Greg Stumbo, meanwhile, is promising to kill a billboard bill that’s moving in the Senate. “If I have the authority and the support to it, I’m gonna kill it. As Paul Mason said one time on this very floor when debating this issue, laws are made by fools like me, but only God can make a tree," he said.The bill, which has Senate committee approval, would let billboard companies enter public rights-of-way to chainsaw trees and vegetation blocking private signs. Various versions of the bill have been offered over the last 18 years, but none have ever reached the governor’s desk.
Rick Howlett was midday host and the host of LPM's weekly talk show, "In Conversation." He was with LPM from 2001-2023 and held many different titles, including Morning Edition host, Assignment Editor and Interim News Director. He died in August 2023. Read a remembrance of Rick here.
