Kentucky’s Governor has till the end of the week

(Story Courtesy of Kentucky Today)

FRANKFORT, Ky. (KT) – Gov. Andy Beshear still has until the end of the week to decide if he will sign, veto or allow to become law without his signature, legislation passed during the last two days of the General Assembly, but we now know the date most new laws will take effect.

Each year, the Reviser of Statutes for the Legislative Research Commission requests an Attorney General’s Opinion on the official effective date. This year it will be July 15.

The Attorney General’s Opinion states: “Under Section 55 of the Kentucky Constitution, the General Assembly having adjourned on April 15, 2024, sine die, it is the opinion of this Office that the first day of the 90-day period after the session is Tuesday, April 16, 2024, and the 90th day of that period is Sunday, July 14, 2024. When that 90th day has expired, ninety full days will have passed after the adjournment sine die of the 2024 Regular Session of the Kentucky General Assembly. Thus, legislation (except for general appropriation measures and those containing emergency or delayed effective date provisions) passed during the 2024 Regular Session of the Kentucky General Assembly will be effective on Monday, July 15, 2024.”

The opinion was written by James M. Herrick, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Civil and Environmental Law.

According to the Kentucky Constitution, “No act, except general appropriation bills, shall become a law until ninety days after the adjournment of the session at which it was passed, except in cases of emergency, when, by the concurrence of a majority of the members elected to each House of the General Assembly, by a yea and nay vote entered upon their journals, an act may become a law when approved by the Governor, but the reasons for the emergency that justifies this action must be set out at length in the journal of each House.”

Other legislation may have an earlier or delayed enactment date. An example of a later date is the medical cannabis bill passed by the 2023 General Assembly, which doesn’t allow its sale in Kentucky until Jan. 1, 2025. Budget bills have an effective date of July 1, which is the first day of the state’s fiscal year.