By Teri Carter, Kentucky Lantern
In this unfortunate legislative session, it was clear our Republican supermajority — mostly older white men — just wanted everyone who did not look like them and/or disagreed with them to shut up.
And they had the power to make it happen.
During the first week, the House and Senate minority argued that the Republican supermajority’s rules for both chambers would stifle debate and limit their constituents’ voices. The GOP side of the aisle did not want to hear it.
Then Senate President Robert Stivers publicly lamented — right there in the sacred well of the Senate — that reporters might not write the stories he, personally, would most like to see. “They want to write about division,” Stivers said of the press. “They want to write about dissension. … Every day, I want to look at the people who write the stories, who speak the language, who go on the TVs and the radio to talk about all the positives that this body leans on, not the negatives that they want to sell advertising and get advertising dollars for.”
Listening to his speech, it was hard not to hear echoes of President Trump who regularly calls the press “enemy of the people” when they report straight news (which is their job) in lieu of flattering puff pieces.
The elimination of DEI — because who needs other voices, equal opportunities or inclusiveness? — was the driving force this year in Frankfort.
When a Black woman approached committee chair James Tipton following adjournment of an anti-DEI hearing — on video you can hear her say, “I study race. I teach students about critical race theory. Like, how am I supposed to explain that?” — Tipton called for state troopers to remove her.
Not to be outdone in the shut up-department, Rep. John Blanton championed House Bill 399 to make loudly interfering with legislative proceedings a crime, a bill that allows lawmakers, in addition to law enforcement, direct authority to decide who should be arrested.
So much for free speech.
In a Senate committee during the final full week to discuss House Bill 495 — cancelling Gov. Andy Beshear’s restrictions on conversion therapy and prohibiting Medicaid from paying for some forms of gender-affirming care — committee chair Stephen Meredith got all up in a lather as he repeatedly interrupted and shouted down Fairness Campaign executive director Chris Hartman. And when Hartman said softly, as he finished testifying, “I am disappointed, Mr. Chairman,” Meredith’s flip, snarky response was, “Wouldn’t be the first time, thank you.”
Everyone in the committee room sat quietly, in shock I think, obeying the rules of decorum with mouths agape at the blatant disrespect they’d just witnessed from Meredith. And yet what we all know is this: a woman or a Black person would not get away with such behavior in a thousand years, and they would certainly not be chairing a committee with manners like that.
But so it goes.
During a heated Senate debate over House Bill 4, Democrats tried to show their Republican counterparts how prohibiting DEI programs would harm college students who are members of minority groups, but Republicans did not care to listen. They were on a mission to get the bill (which failed to cross the finish line last year) to the governor’s desk so they would have time to override his expected veto.
In the final hours of the HB 4 debate, Minority Floor Leader Gerald Neal, who is Black, argued that historically not everyone has had the same “level of playing field” before discussing slavery in America, which was followed by Reconstruction in the South, Jim Crow laws and legal segregation. What then ensued was a dustup between Neal, a man known as the soft-spoken gentleman of the Senate, and Floor Leader Max Wise, who is white, even as HB 4 would pass with ease.
And in that final, busiest full week of this session, House Speaker David Osborne found time to pen a 600-plus word response to the Kentucky Lantern (which does not publish pieces by elected officials) to one of my columns, titled “‘Pattern of commentary driven by ideology rather than facts,’ Speaker responds to false and misleading commentary.”
Ah well. To paraphrase the oft-repeated words of beloved writer Anne Lamott: If this supermajority wanted folks to write more warmly about them, they should have behaved better.
I did correct a detail in the column that the speaker pointed out and that I had gotten wrong. I apologize for the error. Contrary to the speaker’s assertions, I care about the facts; I want to know and write the truth. What I won’t do is shut up.
I am a woman with a voice that refuses to be stifled.
I refuse to kowtow to those who would silence dissent.
I will continue to bear witness and tell my fellow citizens exactly what I witness in an arrogant Frankfort supermajority that bristles when everyone doesn’t stand up and applaud.
If their ideas are so good, should they not welcome robust discussion?
It seems this GOP supermajority of mostly older white men would rather all of us pesky women and minority groups just shut up and go away and let them have their good ol’ boy fun.
The inability of our Republican supermajority to hear, or even acknowledge, that other life experiences and views exist is what I witnessed throughout the 2025 Kentucky General Assembly.
It was not democratic.
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It was racist, sexist, embarrassing, and unprofessional.
It was shameful.
Kentucky Lantern is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com.
