A Kentucky State Police officer removed a protester who was part of a group shouting from the gallery as the House debated overriding Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto of anti-trans Senate Bill 150, March 29, 2023. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Mariah Kendell)
FRANKFORT — Kentuckians could be charged with a new crime — “interference with a legislative proceeding” — under a bill backed Wednesday by Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee.
The committee’s Democrats passed their votes on House Bill 626.
The bill’s primary sponsor, Rep. John Blanton, R-Salyersville, said the legislation was written with three scenarios in mind: when someone prevents lawmakers or staff from going between rooms, enters a legislative chamber and refuses to leave or engages in conduct that disrupts proceedings.
“When you prevent a legislative body from doing its work, you’ve crossed a line,” Blanton told the committee.
Sixteen Republicans on the committee voted yes, while four Democrats passed. Chairman of the committee, Rep. Daniel Elliot, R-Danville, said lawmakers have seen “efforts to interfere in the legislative proceedings” in Kentucky and nationally.
“Obviously we want everyone who wants to express their views to do that in a peaceable, civil manner that’s allowed under the First Amendment … but we also have to have the ability to conduct the people’s business without interference in a way that prevents us from doing that,” Elliot said.
Rep. John Blanton, R-Salyersville, speaks before the House Transportation Committee. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)
Blanton’s legislation sparked a lot of questions on both sides of the aisle. Rep. Kevin Bratcher, R-Louisville, asked Blanton if anything in the bill could hold an organizer accountable for disruptive conduct during a protest, which he likened to legal efforts to hold former President Donald Trump accountable for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Blanton said his bill has “nothing to do with Mr. Trump” but it does include definitions for conspiracy and facilitating such activities.
“Well, I think a lot of the recent protests here at the Capitol were organized by higher (groups), and it seems like they should be the ones being answered for this,” Bratcher said.
Last year, as the House voted to override Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto on Senate Bill 150, 19 protestors in the gallery were arrested. They were opposing controversial anti-transgender legislation. The bill is now a law and ended gender-affirming care for minors and required local school boards to make policies keeping people from using bathrooms, locker rooms or showers that “are reserved for students of a different biological sex.”
Rep. Pamela Stevenson, D-Louisville, asked Blanton if state troopers already had the authority to remove spectators from the gallery, as they had last year during the debates on Senate Bill 150. He replied that his bill “put it more plainly” and while the protestors had a right to be heard, they interrupted legislative proceedings.
“It stifled our ability on the floor to be able to have debate, which is healthy as well, right? We got cut off and got shot right to a vote, and so it impeded our ability to do the work of our constituents for people who want to get up, regardless of what side of the issue they was on and have their voices heard,” he said. “So it stifles our voices to some degree.”
Stevenson said while explaining her pass vote that she wanted to further review the constitutionality of the bill.
Rep. Pamela Stevenson, D-Louisville, comments on House Bill 5, or the Safer Kentucky Act, during a speech on the House floor during the 2024 legislative session. (LRC Public Information)
Michael Frazier and Rebecca Blankenship of the Kentucky Students Right Coalition told the committee that they had suggestions to avoid “constitutional vagueness” in the language of the legislation while protecting members of the General Assembly and preventing a heckler’s veto.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky voiced opposition to the bill in a statement to the Kentucky Lantern after the meeting.
“The majority party currently has the power to pass any legislation they like, and rather than focusing on actual problems facing Kentuckians, they are passing laws to silence their constituents,” said Corey Shapiro, the ACLU of Kentucky legal director. “Worse, they are creating ANOTHER new crime, and creating a circumstance where people could be arrested for simply expressing their opinions to legislators.”
If enacted, the bill says a person would be guilty of the crime in the first degree if they act “with the intent to disrupt, impede, or prevent the General Assembly from conducting business” by engaging in, conspiring to engage in or facilitating others to participate in “disorderly or disruptive conduct in any legislative building and the conduct disrupts, impedes, or prevents the General Assembly from conducting business.”
The first degree offense would be a Class A misdemeanor for the first time and a Class D felony on subsequent offenses.
Additionally, the bill says that a person would be guilty of a second degree offense if they intentionally disrupt General Assembly business, such as entering or remaining inside a legislative chamber, gallery or another room in a legislative building or by impeding a legislator, a legislative officer or staff member from moving within a legislative building.
The second degree offense would be a Class B misdemeanor for the first time and a Class A misdemeanor for subsequent offenses.
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