2025 08 11 America Talks with Nancy Tate and Tony Weaton

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:28):
In a world of uniparty politics, Americans are not seeing
the fascism is not bearing to the left or the right,
but a corporate endeavor to control policy for self enrichment
and aggrandizement to non existent issues, to socially condition the
masses for global influence and control. This is today's new
ward order. We the people are not happy with it.

(00:50):
This is America talks.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yep, everybody well to America talks. But we live in
a day and age when Donald Trump can come adry.
Do you see metropolitan police, I'll tell you what things
are really going on, stepping up a storm out there.
And apparently when states and cities can't take care of
their own matters, the President of the United States must
step in, and yes he does have the legal authority

(01:22):
to do so. But does this mark a time when
we would need a constitutional convention within our country?

Speaker 3 (01:29):
Aj? What do you think?

Speaker 4 (01:30):
But as far as constitutional convention, no, I don't believe
we need to have a federal constitution right now, as
far as the convention goes. As far as our states go,
without a doubt, we do have states that need to
have constitutional conventions, and Kentucky undoubtedly is one of them.

(01:53):
That's why we have our guests here tonight, Conny Watley
and Nancy Tay. Nancy is actual release State rep for
District twenty seven. Do I have that right, Nancy?

Speaker 5 (02:04):
It's correct, Yes, sir, District twenty seven meeting Hardy Haunts, Yes, sir.

Speaker 4 (02:08):
Okay, all right, and Tony is actually the head of
Constitutional Kentucky. Ty. Let the listeners out there know what
Constitutional Kentucky is?

Speaker 3 (02:24):
Uh you muted?

Speaker 6 (02:31):
Okay?

Speaker 7 (02:32):
Is any now?

Speaker 5 (02:34):
I don't.

Speaker 7 (02:38):
The man sets out in the hand of the suits
and asked, we are currently in September the stay the
program which am after Constitute and uh small Yes, it
was in a different ends so you can get h

(03:01):
more standing and meet people. That's the questions and get
behind uh students, classes and sus podcast.

Speaker 8 (03:20):
Okay, who you did that?

Speaker 6 (03:31):
You never use the living I didn't have another to
work with really now?

Speaker 3 (03:45):
Yeah, A static? Yeah, I thought. I don't know if
it was on my end or not.

Speaker 6 (03:50):
But I subject.

Speaker 9 (03:53):
At the time.

Speaker 10 (03:58):
For that.

Speaker 9 (04:01):
Uh thanks, thanks, that's happens.

Speaker 3 (04:24):
Did you get any what he said to Jakie? You
can't give us an update.

Speaker 6 (04:27):
What he was saying.

Speaker 4 (04:29):
I could barely get anything out of that table.

Speaker 6 (04:32):
Flaptop. See what happens.

Speaker 4 (04:38):
Okay, Okay, he's switching over the laptop.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
All right. Uh so while he's doing so, shall we
uh introduce Nancy and uh and we'll pick it back
up with him after.

Speaker 4 (04:53):
All, right?

Speaker 11 (04:54):
Not just uh.

Speaker 12 (04:56):
So?

Speaker 4 (04:56):
Uh so, Nancy, I have to ad the following question,
what got you understood? In Kentucky need to have a
constitutional convention.

Speaker 5 (05:06):
So one of the things that, of course, one of
the things that I when I was elected and every
year I take a pledge that I will uphold the
Constitution of the United States of America and of Kentucky.
And so since I'm taking that pledge, then I obviously
want to make sure that I understand the Constitution as
well as possible.

Speaker 10 (05:24):
So, you know, because when I say, it's because.

Speaker 5 (05:26):
It's very legal terms and it's been interpreted very many
years at very different times.

Speaker 10 (05:33):
But you know, so as I'm looking through this, as
we know of the United excuse me, the Kentucky.

Speaker 5 (05:39):
Became a great common birth of Kentucky in seventeen ninety two,
and then since its inception in seventeen ninety two, we've
had four constitutions of which we are living for the
constitution that was adopted in eighteen ninety one. And so
you know, when I think about eighteen ninety five, that's

(06:00):
one hundred and thirty four years, and we know that
a lot at chants in four years. I go back
and I look at all the reasons why potential that
we might want to modify our constitution, about all those
and all the reasons why I think that we need
to modify the constitution.

Speaker 11 (06:24):
Now.

Speaker 4 (06:24):
It's interesting that we are having this discussion right now
because I know the last time there was an effort
to replace Kentucky's constitution that was actually back during the
governorship of Burt comes back to the early sixties, and
that was that was the closest that we actually came
to actually having another constitutional convention. But as we can say,
it's been sixty years from now and very little has

(06:47):
changed except for one major thing. The Republican Party now
has practically almost full control of the state of Kentucky,
with the exception of the government.

Speaker 5 (06:55):
That's correct, you knowing the interesting that you bring up
the sixties because in nineteen sixty six, in Gatewood versus. Matthews,
the Kentucky Supreme Court actually gave the General Assembly the
authority to change the constitution, to actually call the convention
of state, and to notify the constitution without the general

(07:17):
population electioning, electing that, in voting on that. And the
way that they came to that conclusion was with our
constitution in eighteen ninety one. The three previous constitutions did
not require the general population moving on their own.

Speaker 10 (07:34):
So the Constitution of eighteen.

Speaker 5 (07:36):
Ninety one actually said that now we have to call
the convention of state and the process for calling the
convention of state.

Speaker 10 (07:44):
So the Kentucky Supreme Court in nineteen.

Speaker 5 (07:47):
Sixty six said that we, as the General Assembly had
the authority to change the constitution without the general population
because the Constitution of eighteen ninety one was the only
constitution that has required that process. Now, to think back
to what actually happened in the sixties and what was

(08:07):
happened to be in the sixties, I can understand how
the Kentucky Supreme Court should come to that conclusion.

Speaker 10 (08:12):
But I doubt that with our the composition of.

Speaker 5 (08:15):
Our current Kentucky Supreme Court that they would uphold that
decision from nineteen sixty six.

Speaker 4 (08:24):
And unfortunately I do have to agree because and I
John prepared your ears with this one. Despite how red
of state Kentucky is. Right now, the conservative justices on
the court.

Speaker 5 (08:36):
Unfortunately correct enough correct, So so what were the only
thing that we could count on which one might be
able to count on, is that.

Speaker 10 (08:43):
The justices would use the precedent in the previous courts, right,
But I don't know what we should count on that.

Speaker 5 (08:53):
I think the way you continue with the convention of
State and then potentially change that them two fifty in
order to reflect what the previews general assemblies had in mind.

Speaker 4 (09:07):
Mm hm. So I know that I'm a fan of
going ahead and proceeding with the constitional convention in Kentucky.
I know that you are as well. Tell me where
are you standing?

Speaker 6 (09:19):
I think the uh matter what power can control?

Speaker 7 (09:25):
The fact is power howers not an art power legislators
and as the community what kind like that?

Speaker 12 (09:37):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (09:37):
I'm telling your mic is still giving a spit.

Speaker 6 (09:43):
YouTube. That's you loving fuss doing.

Speaker 10 (10:08):
Okay, you know what Toney's working on that.

Speaker 5 (10:11):
One of the things I might want to add also is,
you know, one of the suggestions and some of the
conversations that I've been involved in, you know, we've talked
about how would.

Speaker 10 (10:19):
Be proceeded with there. So you know, from a general
as similar perspective, how would be perceived with this.

Speaker 5 (10:24):
And if you look at the committees that the House
currently has, the House currently has a committee called Election, Constitution,
Amendment and Inner Government Affairs.

Speaker 10 (10:34):
And so from my perspective, well, that's there's not not
a committee like that in the Senate. That committee has
been in the House for a really long time. So
to me, that will be a great way the segue
into how to actually start this convention of state.

Speaker 5 (10:52):
Even if we actually called it and we got a
fourth of the elected the voters, the voters that we
qualified orders to get us to approve it, we've got
that community that would actually have some precedents, some credence,
you know, some credibility to chis processed.

Speaker 4 (11:17):
I know that, I know that you know the way
that it's actually supposed to be done by according to
whether the Constitution said. Besides, I know that you acknowledged
earlier the Supreme Court decision from the sixties. But the
way that the Constitution can take currently outlines that is
that we are to put that decision up before the voters,

(11:39):
after of course it passes in the General Assembly. And
then from there they would bother on whether or not
we should have a constant constitutional convention or not. I
think that if the Republican Party was to sell this
need for a constitutional convention appropriately and say, hey, this
was written back when the Democrats were in charge, back
in the eighteen ninety it's not as effective as it

(12:02):
should be now because you can tell that the Democratic
Party controlled the state for well over a century. We
need to actually have a blueprint for a conservative state,
and I think that the majority of Kentucky's Entugy's populace
would both.

Speaker 10 (12:17):
I think that what we have to do is we
have to have give the justifications for why we need that.
And you know, one of the reasons why we need
to do that is because according to Section twenty five,
it says that we have the right to own slaves.
I mean, I'm sure that most people would agree that
we don't need that part in our constitution anymore.

Speaker 13 (12:35):
Of course, the people that are going to argue against
say basically, why don't we just swipt that peace out
and not worry about the rest of it.

Speaker 10 (12:43):
But if you look at section it says that idiots have.

Speaker 5 (12:48):
For him participated in the election who can who's determined
who's an idiot?

Speaker 10 (12:54):
I mean, you know, on any given anybody can determine
the idiot.

Speaker 4 (12:59):
Us are right, you know, even though that and I
hate to say that, but it's true, even though that
we may put those of them in within that would
negate that language. At the same time, the language is
still there.

Speaker 10 (13:13):
That's exactly right. And I think because I can think
about the when we trying to me in the Constitution
suggest that in the Constitution in order to change the
language public schools, that section was actually the participation on

(13:36):
the battle in the Constitution have changed to a couple
of schools.

Speaker 14 (13:44):
So PEO people are powering them, but making can't make commendations.

Speaker 10 (13:52):
And that was actually.

Speaker 5 (13:58):
And how they not being in the on the ballots,
no wonder we can't get concentration changes.

Speaker 4 (14:13):
We started to deep dive into the issues of why
we think a constitutional permission should be called.

Speaker 12 (14:21):
I do.

Speaker 4 (14:31):
Actually have a short hair of the reasons why. I've
got intense and up. So we had to make the list.
Let's see here we are so right now in Kentucky
we have a fully elected judiciary being somebody who is
a legal color like myself. I can tell everybody, for

(14:54):
a fact of the matter, elected you. The reason why
I say that is because when you have an elected judge,
he's not just concerned about what the documentation says when
he's making a decision or what president says. He's also
worried about what his constituency says. This is part of
the reason why the Supreme Court the way the appointment

(15:15):
system is the way it is, so that justices are
adhering to president and what the actual text says instead
of what the constituency might say. In theory. Now you
have those that want to feer away from that with
the idea that the Constitution is a living document, which
we know is not. It's an enduring document means that

(15:38):
it can be changed from time to time when.

Speaker 15 (15:40):
We need it.

Speaker 4 (15:42):
But then you have certainstances like what we have with
the Kentucky Constitution, where it just needs to either be
scrapped entirely or we just need to have a convictions
say like you mentioned that would completely almost rewrite it
for all distant president.

Speaker 16 (16:00):
I press, okay, well, we have an audio man.

Speaker 10 (16:16):
Would have system for really that past. It's a bat.

Speaker 4 (16:41):
I'm not sure what's going on with our audio tonight
and bad.

Speaker 10 (16:45):
Right.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
I'm sitting of playing with things, trying to figure it
out myself. That's why I just cancel my camera be distracted.
But I don't know if Tony because it's his on
his end, or I know I can pull it up
on Facebook can hear it? And somebody else said you
can't hear the unappeared Facebook channel.

Speaker 17 (17:16):
I'm on this storm on the post.

Speaker 4 (17:20):
Hear somethingunny? I can hear. I can hear. It's perfectly
fine right now.

Speaker 10 (17:24):
Yeah, I can hear.

Speaker 4 (17:27):
All right, Tony, I missed that. I early. I want
to bring that into the the gush again. Where do
you stand on Kentucky's need for a constitutional convention? Tune
right now?

Speaker 3 (17:41):
I don't think Tony can hear us?

Speaker 7 (17:45):
Hm hmm.

Speaker 17 (17:51):
I can't hear you, guys. I'm not sure what the
problem is.

Speaker 11 (17:58):
Hang on just a moment. Yeah, yeah, let me see here.

Speaker 3 (18:45):
I think we're just having a bad tech day.

Speaker 4 (18:49):
Yeah, that's what it sounds like.

Speaker 10 (19:00):
Hear me, now, can you hear me?

Speaker 17 (19:03):
We could hear you, ike fine.

Speaker 9 (19:04):
Nancy, Yeah, can Tony?

Speaker 10 (19:09):
Can you hear us now? M h.

Speaker 4 (19:15):
I can hear Nancy.

Speaker 12 (19:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
I think Tony's probably gonna have to go out and
come back in in order to get his audio connected.

Speaker 9 (19:34):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 4 (19:37):
Okay, he just went out. So okay, Nancy, that was
my first Kentucky needs to judiciary as far as how
we appoint them, because as you know as well too,
and as well bring this up. If Andy wasre once you,

(20:00):
Oh yeah, we can hear you, Tony.

Speaker 10 (20:07):
I can hear you, Tony.

Speaker 4 (20:11):
I can hear you too, Yeah.

Speaker 8 (20:22):
Yeah, yeah, I still got no sound.

Speaker 3 (20:38):
I don't did you check your h Tony?

Speaker 1 (20:40):
Oh you can't hear me?

Speaker 3 (20:46):
You guys can go. You can go ahead and continue.

Speaker 4 (20:56):
Hmmm, well it's continuing on right now. Uh, Kelly, can
you hear me at all?

Speaker 3 (21:04):
You know we can hear you?

Speaker 4 (21:07):
Okay, Ananthy, can you hear me?

Speaker 10 (21:13):
I can? I can hear you, yes, Okay, you can
hear me.

Speaker 4 (21:17):
I know, John can hear me? Tell you?

Speaker 5 (21:18):
Can you?

Speaker 3 (21:22):
Tony can't hear us?

Speaker 4 (21:24):
Mm hmm okay.

Speaker 3 (21:30):
So I'm saying if you and Nancy continue.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
It might be somewhat entertaining for those listening, and uh,
hopefully Tony will get in here soon.

Speaker 17 (21:38):
How about that when you hear me now, I can hear.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
I can hear you?

Speaker 12 (21:49):
Mmkay oh.

Speaker 3 (22:08):
Yeah, you can't hear us.

Speaker 4 (22:10):
Okay, so uh maney, I'll go ahead, hang on the
judiciary real quick. We all thought another problem with judciary.
It's some of the local elections in Kentucky regarding town
council and of course most mayorships in Kentucky, those are

(22:34):
in non part of the elections, as is the judiciary.
To me, that's the problem.

Speaker 10 (22:45):
Yeah, I understand.

Speaker 5 (22:46):
You know, we've been here a lot of conversations regarding
to local elections, especially the ones that are nonpartisan. And uh,
I've been involved in a lot of conversations about that.
And the concern about making partisan actions at this point
is because of the when we have to face it,
it's these elections get pretty.

Speaker 9 (23:04):
Hostile, you know.

Speaker 5 (23:06):
And and when I saw the situation was it in
Minnesota where there was the legislator that was actually killed
and her husband and so you know, And so the
fear is is that if we change the local elections
to whether that are partisans, then that will discourage people
from actually warning For those physicians, I think that the

(23:30):
people are already discouraged that that would even further discourage them.
So I truly as as a as somebody who has been,
you know, put in pretty precarious situations at times. I
can certainly understand why there would be some concerns about
the local.

Speaker 4 (23:45):
Elections, definitely, But but but.

Speaker 5 (23:56):
I do agree with you from the judicial Yeah that
there that that maybe that will be okay for that
to be partisan or to actually go into how other
states are. There's a recommendation on who those positions should
be filled back violent, so that that's I think you.

Speaker 10 (24:13):
Started to go in this direction by the governor, let's say,
but then they should be a three to by the Senate.

Speaker 17 (24:22):
They have to be.

Speaker 5 (24:25):
Absolutely if you look at the composition. You're bringing this
up earlier, and it's a fact if you look at
the composition of I think it's thirty one, thirty one,
thirty eight. Yeah, thirty one to thirty eight are currently Republican,
which is a representation of the will of the people.

(24:45):
And so if the Senate confirmed those justices, then I
would be perfectly located that uh Me and T. J.

Speaker 4 (24:53):
Roberts have had this conversation, and I am right there
with you all. Only the federal system is the best
thing for Kentuck need to adopt in that regard, which
is take the nomination and then the Senate makes the
appointment that's correct.

Speaker 10 (25:07):
Then the compromation that's correct.

Speaker 13 (25:08):
Yeah, and then let's just say hypothetically that the concession
turns back to the you know, thirty one thirty eight
or Democrats, and they would have the opportunity to do
that a compromation and nomination as well.

Speaker 4 (25:22):
But one of the things that I would love right
now because there's things If we have that system, it
would force any basher to have to find people that
the Senate would approve.

Speaker 10 (25:33):
That's correct, or we wouldn't adjust this that's correct in
that district. I agree with you. So yeah, we would
have to find some We would have to find people
that are moderate and order white linking for the Senate
would yes, and not just popularly the populars. They would

(25:55):
have to be constitutionalist consu.

Speaker 4 (26:03):
I know. Another thing might as well point this out
as well. I am not a fan of the legislator's
current calendar, which is they have that one mandatory session
that the start of the year, regardless whether it's the
third day to sixty day. I just don't like it's
just having that lump sum on in one one session.
My opinion is and I'm not for a full time legislator.
I want to make that clear right now for making

(26:24):
the legislature full time in regards to session. But I
do see the necessity for us to reread the session
out over the year, and especially because the Legislature was
at a session whenever andyb Year was doing his tiering
in on Kentucky during COVID and the Legislature didn't have
the chance to do anything about it. Daniel Cameron did

(26:47):
what little bit he could, but had the Legislature been
on top of him in the middle of all this,
I think we would have seen a different outcome, much quicker.

Speaker 10 (26:57):
Well the persons, I agree with that suggestion that.

Speaker 9 (27:04):
In the session so.

Speaker 18 (27:16):
Exact insist suppress.

Speaker 12 (27:37):
M hm.

Speaker 4 (27:42):
I can dadly agree with the also mentioned also lab
the legend. Please you have the ability to put back
let's turn to atomics. That was a hunting issue last
year and this has been a whole block for the
legislature again trying to pass fool to wait, but right
now the only school guaranteed funding in Kentucky right now

(28:04):
in the public pool. We tried to have a minute
play here but it did not meet anywhere near the
board that it needed to be able to become law.

Speaker 10 (28:16):
Yeah, and after kind of between the degree. I don't
remember exactly what bill when as it was passed whenever,
it was not dueto proof. But the deal that we
passed was that funding.

Speaker 12 (28:28):
For the.

Speaker 5 (28:34):
School resource officers and privates could be turned by the
General ascember by the boat by that holo repicicententuctus that
passed the sas the Senate and the House.

Speaker 14 (28:47):
But it was detoed by the weaponor because he said,
but it was over the constitutional general symbols to be
sun resource for private spials and it said the fast trinity.

Speaker 12 (29:07):
Hmm.

Speaker 4 (29:08):
And it needs to be pointed out that the legislature
has tried to pass a few bills on school choice
thus far. But the reason why none of them have
been able to stick is because as soon as they
reached the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court says no because
of what the current constitution says.

Speaker 5 (29:25):
That's correct, and it's going to be very interesting to
see how that conflicts with the federal executive orders, right
and so, and if we potentially are not provided federal
funding because we don't have school choice.

Speaker 4 (29:44):
I've been I have been floating that around that the
possibility is there that it could happen. So, yeah, undoubtedly,
you know, school choice will be a hunting issue if
we were to have a chin and the last thing
I wanted to go ahead and mentioned as well. I
also believe, as we've seen with you know, Amendment to

(30:06):
falling down the way it did, we had a pro
life amendments in twenty twenty two that would have had
an opportunity to get passed, but it fell short as well.
I can say this as a it's just a general
I'm not a fan of the way that the amendment

(30:27):
process is for the Kentucky Constitution itself in regards to Yeah,
the general silly will pass it, but then you leave
it up to a populist that can be easily deceived
by the mainstream media, and the next thing, you know,
that amendment falls on its butt.

Speaker 5 (30:46):
Well, especially when you check in the constitutional Amendment number
two that you're talked about, whenever you look at outside
money outside of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Speaker 10 (30:55):
I believe that if I.

Speaker 5 (30:57):
Recall correctly, like we were outspent like a to one
or ten to one, and most of that money, like
eighty to ninety percent of that money came from out
of state, which was very percessive. And if we were
allowing out of state money to eat, I guess to

(31:17):
condense us or to discourage us for what we as
the people need to do for our own state, for
our own children. And I think that's very unfortunate that
we're doing that, that that our process about that to happen.
And I like the way that you use the word deceived,
because it was very deceptive. It was there were brit

(31:37):
out wise, it was total notion that was communicated. That
was very unfortunates that happened.

Speaker 17 (31:46):
Fortunate, Yeah, and which.

Speaker 4 (31:55):
Is why I wanted to mention that I believe that
when can he has a constitutional convention and we do
go ahead and rewrite these things. My opinion is the
amendment process should be this, the General Assembly should pass
an amendments, but instead of going to the people as
it does now, instead send it to the fiscal courts

(32:15):
and let them decide it.

Speaker 5 (32:18):
Yeah, And I think that's one of the reasons why
the Gatewood versus Matthews in nineteen sixty six said that
the current process for amending the Constitution in itself is
inconstitutional Is Is that interesting? That's the interesting part. One
of the things too that I want to point out
is the Section ninety nine, and that's for the each

(32:40):
one of the positions that have to be elected in
all of the one and twenty counties. You know, it
says that we have to have a judge, a county
court clerk, a county attorney all one hundred and twenty counties,
a sheriff, a jailor a county surveyor, an assessor, a
justice of the peace, and a constable. So one of
the things that I find very interesting, and I'm talking

(33:02):
about this, if you look at just Harden County and
the jail. The jail in Harden County in twenty twenty three,
the budget itself.

Speaker 10 (33:10):
The proposed budget was two million.

Speaker 5 (33:13):
The budget that for twenty five twenty six will be
five point eight million. So from twenty twenty two to
twenty three we went from a two million to a
twenty five to twenty six to a five point eight
million of a twelve million dollar budget. So in twenty
two it was a two million of a twelve million,

(33:34):
and now it's in twenty five twenty six is a
five point eight million in a twelve million. So just
the requirement to have a jail in every county because
of inflation, could potentially bankrupt every county.

Speaker 4 (33:49):
Mm hm, And it needs to be brought up. And Nancy,
you know this as well as I do, and I
know that me and Tony have had discussions like this
as well. Well. Kentucky right now depends a lot on
federal funding, a lot, so much to the point that essentially,

(34:10):
worst case scenario, the federal government where collapsed tomorrow, Kentucky
would not be able to sustain itself. We'll be we
begne with the federal government as well.

Speaker 5 (34:19):
Yeah, I think that that's the probability, God forbid, I'm
going to say, is unlikely.

Speaker 10 (34:25):
But when you have what a thirty.

Speaker 5 (34:27):
Six to a forty trillion dollar debt in the United States,
that's a thirty six to forty trillion dollar debt, and if,
as if we as American people, do not learn to
control our appetite for spending, we will be bankrupt. And

(34:48):
I think that that's God forgoid that that happens. But
you know, it's not impossible. I mean, look at Venezuela.
What happened to Venezuela. They went from one of the
richest countries in the world to where the one of
the poorest countries in the world.

Speaker 4 (35:02):
Mm hmmm, and it needs to be brought up. We
need to look at We'll go ahead, County, go ahead.

Speaker 15 (35:08):
Well, I was gonna say, we needn't look at the
you can look at the one hundred and twenty counties
we have.

Speaker 12 (35:14):
Uh.

Speaker 15 (35:14):
When you send in their budget meetings or you send
in one of their physical meetings, you understand that they
can't use any loopholes to get across away from things, and.

Speaker 17 (35:27):
So their budget it goes up every year.

Speaker 15 (35:30):
And it's partly because they have a bad have a
spending just like any other like the federal government anything else. Uh,
but there's everybody, everybody's out there trying to attract that money,
and yet they do nothing to attract people to help
pay that bill. We're in a position now, let's say

(35:51):
Spencer County for example. Uh, they fought and fought for
the fire department and the police department to get has
the duty kept pay. That was gonna cost him an
astronomical more money. I don't remember exact numbers, but it
was three times what their normal budget was and they
they had to turn it down.

Speaker 17 (36:13):
So they lost revenue from from taxpayer people out. I've
lost you again.

Speaker 5 (36:21):
Yeah, the counties, uh huh yeah yeah, And unfortunately, Tony,
the reason why the budgets are being proposed from that
perspective is that in order for the counties and the
cities to be competitive, they have to pay their employees
a competitive rate. And you know, that's that's that's a

(36:44):
fight all of us, all of us small businesses and
all of us kidding, cities and counties are in exactly
the same boat with with in order to be competitive.

Speaker 15 (36:55):
Yeah, and that's that's the thing that we see more
than anything, is that people got to go in another
county to work. And uh, when you get these little
bend and breakfast uh cities like tatoes Will, for example,
you know, they can't do a whole lot with what
they've got, So most of the people move out, or
don't move, they just go out and spend money in

(37:17):
other counties.

Speaker 17 (37:18):
So the whole the there's got to be a way
that we can eliminate a lot of things that are unproductive.

Speaker 15 (37:30):
I guess some kind of say, uh, but there's so
many avenues of things out there that just don't make
sense that we're spending money on It's it's every county
does it.

Speaker 17 (37:40):
It's just a matter of priorities. And I think for
some time we.

Speaker 15 (37:45):
Fail to realize that the people are the ones that
are actually paying the bills and not not coming out
of their their caller, but were in there, we don't
come out. So uh, that's where every county needs to
work is how to build their county up to increase
revenue in the county without.

Speaker 17 (38:08):
You know, just running people off is a fine line.
I think we have. We fail a lot of times
in that just my people.

Speaker 5 (38:15):
Well, I think Tony, one of the things from a
General Assembly perspective that we're looking at very closely is
in order to be able to afford the appetite or
even the debt that we have here in Kentucky.

Speaker 10 (38:27):
We need to bring in good jobs.

Speaker 5 (38:29):
And so we need to bring in, you know, jobs
that are high paying and that, and and we're working
really diligently on doing that making sure that we're one
of the most job friendly, if not the most job
friendly state in the nation. And what we are doing
is we're actually competing with all the states that are
around us, the Tennessees and the Indianas and the Georgia's

(38:51):
because they are very job hungry as well. And I
think going back to Governor Bev and I think the
only the only person that I've heard talk about this
is that he said that in order for us to
be able to pull ourselves out of the debt, that
we would have to bring over a million people into
the state, and that would be over a million jobs

(39:13):
into the state in order to be able to from
from a state perspective, to be able to afford our
unfunded liability from a state pension perspective, and so.

Speaker 10 (39:24):
Unfortunately, the cities.

Speaker 5 (39:25):
And the counties are in exactly the same situation with
their unfunded pension.

Speaker 15 (39:30):
Well, one of the things that happened in Mercer County
just last a couple of years ago, we fought hard
against the solar panels.

Speaker 17 (39:38):
They took two thousand acres that we had already.

Speaker 15 (39:42):
Set aside for industry, and we had a large company
was going to come in and buy that property and
build and bring in about nine hundred jobs.

Speaker 17 (39:53):
Well, the.

Speaker 15 (39:57):
Company took away that opportunity when they can I'm in
and basically just decided that they wanted the property and
never going to put solar panels on it, and of
course the county lost. We did keep a I think
a few acres, but not enough to really bring in
large amounts of employment.

Speaker 17 (40:15):
Uh, we keep losing out those little things.

Speaker 15 (40:18):
I know Breckridge County lost quite a bit with some
of their land down there, and I'm I'm assuming me
County did too. But I mean I drive down to
Breckridge County, I see solar panels everywhere where I grew up.

Speaker 17 (40:31):
You know, it's like it is not what I want,
but for this.

Speaker 4 (40:37):
So my friend as the wagoner, he's in Hart County.
Right across from the house he lives in is a
solar farm. I bring that up for a reason because
he actually brought in the company that's in charge of
that solar field and ask, you know who it's benefiting.
You know why are y'all here? They were actually harvest
and energy hard for some solar energy for eastern Kentucky.

(40:59):
So they don't even think in that county, I.

Speaker 15 (41:02):
Mean, in the general virgeneray bring in nine or maybe
maybe ten people as employee as employees and those aren't
you know, astronautics and paying jobs.

Speaker 17 (41:12):
I mean, you have a few, but uh, I think
for the long haul.

Speaker 15 (41:16):
I'm not. I'm against olver pand you're gonna put it
on top of your on Walmart store, go for it,
you know our parking lot, go for it.

Speaker 12 (41:23):
Uh.

Speaker 17 (41:23):
I'm on for the.

Speaker 4 (41:26):
Private industry wants to do it for themselves. I am
not a fan of mainstream. Because you do it mainstream,
nobody's gonna be able.

Speaker 17 (41:31):
To keep up sporting reporting. In Mercer County, they actually
put up their own which.

Speaker 15 (41:37):
You know, I have fought of them for that because
they run nine percent of their electricity was actually run
by solar, which I was shocked the number to be
that high.

Speaker 17 (41:47):
So I know it's a long long way off from
what we were talking about.

Speaker 15 (41:51):
But all comes down that we have to decide do
we want the progress that's coming in or do we
want to stable jobs.

Speaker 17 (41:58):
Is gonna gonna bring more money back into our county.

Speaker 10 (42:02):
And I have to throw this out so we.

Speaker 5 (42:06):
Can thank the Biden administration for the Inflation Reduction Act
for our solar panels.

Speaker 17 (42:12):
Oh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 (42:13):
So you have to go back and say, follow the money.
Who's actually going to make the money for that from that?
And it's it's the companies that are putting those solar
panels in.

Speaker 12 (42:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 17 (42:23):
Now now they're trying to put the windmills in Henderson.

Speaker 15 (42:27):
County, So you know, I got a call yesterday about
that and they were trying to see what we could
do to stop it. But you know, fortunately when once
the once the utility gets involved, we're not stopping it.
They you know, they they're selling these farmers are thinking
they're doing business with with farming our industries, and all

(42:50):
they're doing is farming solar panels. That's what happened in
Mercer County and the Brecker and Cunty Also. I know
Mars Lucas, we talked about it a little bit back
Fairy fe months ago. But uh, it just seems like
we've got to make that choice. Where are we gonna
where we're gonna put a foot down. We can't do
nothing about in that domain. And once it gets through

(43:11):
Utilsa's hand, it's pretty much done.

Speaker 10 (43:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (43:15):
So tell me what I don't think I actually heard
you say, what is your opinion about the Convention of
State for the for Kentucky.

Speaker 17 (43:22):
For Kentucky.

Speaker 15 (43:22):
I think anybody that has too much power, we need
to have it, whether it's a Democrat, was Republican, independent whatever.

Speaker 17 (43:29):
I think.

Speaker 15 (43:29):
I think when you have that much power in your legislators,
we were left out, we don't have h We may
push and push and push, but let's face it, there
are probably not twenty legislators up there.

Speaker 17 (43:47):
They're gonna think like we the people. And I'm not
I'm not criticizing everybody.

Speaker 15 (43:51):
I mean at different points, I think everybody's got their agenda.
If it works for them, they're gonna vote for if
it doesn't work for them or not. And I think
that it's it's just common nature.

Speaker 17 (44:04):
You're going to do what you're.

Speaker 4 (44:06):
To follow up on that. I mean, this is just
a given. Anytime you're dealing with something, let's say a legislature,
a commissi or anything like that. Everybody there who is
there to vote has their own agenda when they walk
in that door. That's just a given.

Speaker 5 (44:17):
Well, And I think, Okay, it just depends upon what
you're saying there, because I'm going to tell you that
I represent District twenty seven.

Speaker 10 (44:24):
Harden County.

Speaker 5 (44:24):
So if you want to call that my agenda, that
I'm going to absolutely agree with you because that's what
I'm elected to do.

Speaker 17 (44:30):
Is well, I think yeah, I think you're right. I mean,
I'm not. I'm not criticizing you for that because that's
what you put you in there for.

Speaker 10 (44:36):
That's exactly right, absolutely right for my county.

Speaker 15 (44:39):
I find Yeah, earlier, the first time I met you,
who was actually at a campaign, uh.

Speaker 17 (44:55):
Train with farm Bureau. That's been a few years ago.

Speaker 5 (44:59):
Years ago, that's correct.

Speaker 15 (45:02):
Yeah, But I knew then just for talking to you
that you're going to represent your area well, and because
you had the heart of number one a fighter and
number two, Uh, you seem to understand what the community wants.
And we had a real short conversation that day, but
I remember it, and uh, I think that you've done well.

Speaker 17 (45:25):
I've had people call complain. You know her, Yeah, I
know her.

Speaker 15 (45:28):
I think she's got fine. It's just probably one woman,
but she keeps calling me all the time.

Speaker 5 (45:34):
I'm going to go back to my from my perspective
about the General Assembly. You know, everybody in there, they
do walk in with their own agenda, and that is
absolutely to represent their districts.

Speaker 10 (45:44):
And I'll say, you know, I'll.

Speaker 5 (45:47):
Stand up for my fellow agenda legislators because I think
that some of them have been in there for a
really really long time, but most of them haven't been
h if you go back and think about it, since
I've been in office, since I was elected in twenty eighteen.
So I'm in my fourth term, my seventh year because
it's a two year term, but I'm in the top

(46:08):
thirty percent for the length of service. So if there's
a lot of conversation about term limits, to me, that's
absolutely a perfect demonstration of term limits. And you've got
somebody who's in office for seven years and I'm in
the top thirty percent for length of service, so that
the attrition by itself actually produces that. Some of it,

(46:30):
of course, is the fact that we went from a
Democrat majority to a Republican majority, and that.

Speaker 10 (46:35):
To me was the will of the people.

Speaker 5 (46:37):
Absolutely, So to me, that was a perfect demonstration of
the will of the people. Now, tony two, if you
talk about you know, you're going to go down to
every little bitty, you know, bill that's passed or every
bill that goes in with all of them are big,
but every bill that's passed, some of them are little,
some of them are just a few words. But those
words are important, and those are words are important to

(47:00):
even though some of the bills I look at and go,
why in the world are we even voting on this?

Speaker 10 (47:04):
It's because it's.

Speaker 5 (47:05):
Important to somebody, right, yeah, absolutely, And I think it's
really important for us to try to reflect back on
why is why is a legislator or why is the
body voting on that bill?

Speaker 10 (47:23):
And it's because it's important to somebody. And most of
the bills, you know, you can go back to, like
this past session.

Speaker 5 (47:32):
I'm kind of rusty here, but let's just say that
there were twelve hundred bills that were followed. I can't
remember exactly how many from the state, from the House
and the Senate. Less than two hundred actually were passed
into legislation, and some of those most of those were
just updating language to a bill that currently existed, and

(47:54):
so very few of them were completely new bills. Now,
the ones that were completely new bills, if you think
back over the last couple of years, those were bills
that everyone that's participating in this session here would agree on.

Speaker 10 (48:08):
And those were, uh, we're moving men out of women's.

Speaker 5 (48:12):
Sports, yeah, you know, absolutely, and transgender mutilation of minors.
Those are things that we all fought really hard in
order for them to get for the language to be
right and for those bills to actually pass because we
knew that that was the will of the people for
those bills to pass.

Speaker 15 (48:31):
Well, I don't I don't really mean that. I guess
I said that a little bit wrong about agendas. I think,
like you said, I think most people going with the
agenda of my people want this or want that. My
problem is when they tie themselves into the gaming industry
or the horse racing and individual groups that that.

Speaker 17 (48:52):
Really don't concern the majority of the people.

Speaker 4 (48:56):
Basically, they're fighting for the one to own them instead
of the ones lead are supposed to rep Yeah, and.

Speaker 15 (49:00):
That's where I see the biggest issue for the most part.
If I had to name anybodue that that I would.

Speaker 10 (49:09):
Disagree with, what's don't name people, no, no, no, no, I'm.

Speaker 17 (49:13):
Not going to name people that don't happen.

Speaker 15 (49:16):
People don't know who it is already, So no, I'm
not many names, uh, because I appreciate you being on here.

Speaker 7 (49:24):
Uh.

Speaker 15 (49:24):
The very fact is that I just think there's there's
a handful that some of them been there too long, uh,
and they they've gotten close with some of these other
groups that it really doesn't do a lot for the
whole state.

Speaker 17 (49:40):
The horse industry for example.

Speaker 15 (49:42):
I mean, yeah, we're going to support the horse industry
because number one, the big, big industry in the state.

Speaker 10 (49:49):
Absolutely, it's absolutely.

Speaker 17 (49:52):
I don't I don't think.

Speaker 15 (49:54):
Yeah, I don't think we just give them a blank
check and say here, y'all, do what you want to.
And I think sometimes people do that, and I don't
like that when you work for the little guy.

Speaker 5 (50:07):
Yeah, And I'm going to tell you that I have
yet even you know, oh, I have only been there
seven years, but I'm going to tell you that I
have yet to see a perfect bill.

Speaker 17 (50:14):
I haven't.

Speaker 10 (50:14):
I have yet to see a perfect bill.

Speaker 5 (50:16):
Every bill that I have ever seen actually had to
have amendments, you know, modifications, because sometimes there are unintended consequences.
And it's not like we have to pass it in
order to know what's there. We know what's there, we
know exactly what's there. But and that's one of the reasons,
you know, uh, And as we get feedback, as we

(50:37):
see what the consequences are, as somebody might say, oh, gosh,
you know, did you think about Well, sometimes we can't
think about everything. Of course, you know, even go back
to you know, one of my favorite things, the safe
Haven baby boxes. We're on the like the seventh or
eighth prototype, so you know, that's a perfect example of
how there wasn't a perfect prototype the very first time,

(50:58):
and so everything that we're doing one time changes and
and our knowledge changes, and we have the right to
get smarter. So uh, you know, I would like to
see a perfect bill. I would like to be able
to be in to be the one that introduces the
perfect bill, but I have yet to see one.

Speaker 15 (51:16):
Let's get CITs back in classrooms and I'll be I'll
be a happy camper.

Speaker 10 (51:20):
Uh yeah, yeah, absolutely puts that legislation that.

Speaker 17 (51:24):
Yeah, no, I want to see him do it.

Speaker 12 (51:28):
That.

Speaker 17 (51:28):
Yeah, it'll get there.

Speaker 16 (51:30):
Uh.

Speaker 15 (51:31):
I do appreciate all you all for that because it's important.
I mean, I talk to people every day about the
Constitution and we we're failing generally, you know overall, uh
Kentucky is maybe it's a change.

Speaker 17 (51:44):
And hopefully we'll get back on the path.

Speaker 12 (51:47):
Uh. Uh.

Speaker 15 (51:48):
The the the done a lot of good things, and uh,
you know, I do appreciate that, and I'm not gonna
bad mouth every bill gets written up there. I think
the the problem we may have more than anything is
uh misinformation because you look, if you write a bill
and if it's almost perfect, somebody on here will say, well,

(52:10):
it's going to do this or it's going to do
that without knowing that. They just they trying to read
between the lines, and uh, they just need to be
written in a way that that there are.

Speaker 17 (52:21):
No in between lines and gray areas.

Speaker 15 (52:23):
And I know you can't do it on everything, but
when it comes to you know, Kentucky, we we've got
a long ways to go. We've made good strides and
in our bills we passed, I think we we are
turning the h a lot of the reds over at
least purple now.

Speaker 17 (52:42):
So because of our bills we do pass.

Speaker 12 (52:45):
Uh.

Speaker 15 (52:46):
Other than the abortion bill, you know that it's always
been an issue here in Kentucky.

Speaker 4 (52:50):
But uh.

Speaker 15 (52:54):
Yeah, yeah, Like I said, the outside money on both
though on the school little choice and that.

Speaker 17 (53:02):
Hurt us more than anything.

Speaker 4 (53:06):
With that band, with that being brought up, Tony, I
want to mention it right now. Here's one of Kentucky's
biggest problems. When we're sending stuff to the electorate, whether
you know it's you know, a state wide race or
a manage to the constitution, you name it. The US
Center race is going on, gonna happen next year. The
biggest problem that we had to contend with is that

(53:28):
Louisville and Lexington have way too much power over the state.

Speaker 15 (53:32):
Yeah, you gotta look at population centers and that's gonna
be always gonna be an issue.

Speaker 17 (53:39):
It's an issue in every every country, county and every
every state.

Speaker 10 (53:44):
Wow.

Speaker 15 (53:44):
But I think I think, uh world, Kentucky, it is
making a significant change in that. Yes, when you when
you look at the number of voters that are voted
in the county, Mercer, County, Shelby, they've always increased, where
the cities have stayed the same. One of these days

(54:06):
we're going to sneak up on them and that might
make a difference. But it's going to come down to
us getting out here and beating the bushes for the
people we want to involve.

Speaker 17 (54:14):
I mean, you vote on two days.

Speaker 15 (54:16):
Principal in character and uh, that's that's what I look
at when I pick out a candidate.

Speaker 17 (54:23):
And we have to be able to sell that to
other people.

Speaker 6 (54:26):
And even though we're not.

Speaker 5 (54:28):
One of the things that's really interesting when I'm talking
to the senators, the federal senators. When I'm talking to
Senator McConnell and I'm talking to Senator Paul, one of
the things that they have told me that has been
very interesting is that even like Senator McConnell, where he
was from Jefferson County in his Senate wide race, he

(54:49):
only he's only gotten thirty six to thirty seven percent
of the boat coming out of Jefferson County. So if
he can only get thirty six or thirty seven percent
of the boat, less than forty percent of the voat
in Jail County, then.

Speaker 10 (55:00):
You're absolutely right.

Speaker 5 (55:02):
It's going to become very, very very important for us
rule counties to actually get out and vote and to
make sure that just to use the term of President Trump,
too big to rig, I mean, it's just too big
for us to fail, too big for we the people
who represent most of the state.

Speaker 10 (55:22):
We have to get out and we have to vote.
And that's that's just pretty much.

Speaker 5 (55:26):
One of the problems that I've seen is that a
lot of the conservatives, a lot of the people that
really should care, aren't coming out and voting.

Speaker 15 (55:35):
Yeah, and I've said just before, back three years ago,
we had a conservative Conference Leadership Conference.

Speaker 17 (55:43):
We had almost six hundred people there.

Speaker 15 (55:46):
Out of that's six hundred people, I bet there's not
one hundred people being still active. They stuck to hit
back in the sand and said, well, we've got Trump,
then we don't need to do anything.

Speaker 17 (55:55):
Well, uh, that's bad news for.

Speaker 4 (55:58):
Us, Tony, I know. You know, well I had a
conversation with Jacob Clark just a few weeks back, and
that was part of the conversation. Whenever those are Republican
president and everybody gets complacent and that's the problem.

Speaker 5 (56:10):
Well, it's actually time for us to double down. It's
actually a time for us to get even more determined
that we're going to demonstrate character, that we're going to
demonstrate the concern and to continue to to demonstrate that
we're people of integrity exactly.

Speaker 6 (56:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 17 (56:29):
Uh, And that's the only way you'll you'll ever win.
There's over you can't.

Speaker 15 (56:32):
You know, the Democrats have proven the fact that you
can't bully awate or try to bully away and win,
and that's what they have to do. And it's finally
caught up with them. I mean they were doing it
for a while, but by.

Speaker 17 (56:46):
Hooper Crook and how you look at it.

Speaker 15 (56:49):
I believe, I believe we do have have a opportunity
to improve Kentucky's politics.

Speaker 17 (56:56):
I think we we uh have more people embracing the
policies of Trump.

Speaker 12 (57:03):
Uh.

Speaker 17 (57:03):
You know, as far as Trump goes, he's not my
best friend, I no means, but I will tell you this.
I think he's a great job.

Speaker 15 (57:10):
I think he's a good job as president the last
time he's in, and I think he'll do better this time.

Speaker 17 (57:15):
And and he's starting to prove it.

Speaker 15 (57:16):
Yeah, there's some things I questioned about and then you
know it really constitutional is or not? And uh, but
I'm gonna I'm gonna follow his lead for now because
I want to see where it's going. And as a Republican,
we've got to get the chance out a chance to
see what happens.

Speaker 17 (57:33):
It does make the changes I see great things.

Speaker 4 (57:38):
Say a couple of things, Tony, I have as far
with Trump with this second term, I asked the question
on whether or not what he's doing is constitutional a
lot in his first term. I'm not getting that whole
lot with the second one. So that's a good positive stuff.
The other thing to go along with that that I
want to go ahead a mansion. I want every listener
out there now the reason why we're having this conversation
here tonight is not just for Kentucky's need to have

(57:59):
a constantutional convention. It's also for you to ask questions,
does your state need to have one? And if they
do need to have one, reach out and find out
what the procedure is in order to.

Speaker 11 (58:09):
Have that done.

Speaker 4 (58:10):
I want listeners to understand that tonight here in Kentucky.
I know that Nancy correct me if I'm wrong, But
the way that Kentucky would be able to call for
a constitutional convention, as per what it actually says, is
the Assembly would actually vote in accordance to have the convention.
Then that would go to the people, and then after

(58:32):
that goes and is voted on by the will of
the people, then what would happen is we would actually
have elections to decide who would be taking part in
the convention, and then afterwards they would schedule a date
to actually have the constitutional convention, and then we would
get down to business so to speak.

Speaker 10 (58:50):
Yeah, that's you're absolutely right.

Speaker 5 (58:51):
So what would happen is two thirds of the General
Assembly would have to vote in order to call.

Speaker 10 (58:56):
The convention of state.

Speaker 5 (58:57):
So it wants two thirds of the general as symbol
agreed to call it. That it has to be put
on the ballot for the qualified voters. One fourth of
the qualified voters have to agree that a convention of
state is required. Once one fourth of the qualified voters
vote that yes, we need that, then according to the

(59:18):
Constitution of Kentucky, one hundred delegates would be selected. One
hundred delegates would be selected, one from each Well, right now,
there's one hundred delegates in the House, so it would
be it would match the House the districts. So there's
one hundred delegates, or excuse me, there's one hundred representatives

(59:41):
in the same districts where the representatives reside. There would
be a delegate that would come out of each one
of those districts. Now, it doesn't say that it has
to be the representative. It doesn't say that it has
to be the senator. It just says that one hundred.

Speaker 10 (59:58):
Delevant the districts.

Speaker 4 (01:00:02):
In other words, they would ran to the delegates.

Speaker 10 (01:00:07):
Correct, that's absolutely there's no athmatical right my district, that's
exactly right. Now.

Speaker 5 (01:00:14):
What would have to happen is that each one of
those delegates would have to meet the same qualifications as
the representative. In other words, we would have to be
twenty four years old, we would have to be a
citizen of Kentucky. We'd have to have lived in our
district for uh or in the state for two years.
We'd have to have lived in our districts for a year.
And of course we couldn't have participated in a duel. Yeah,

(01:00:37):
in order to be the delegates.

Speaker 4 (01:00:38):
Right, it needs to be brought up real quick. If
we did decide to do a constitutional convention, we could
change the state off during that time to not include
the portion about the duel.

Speaker 10 (01:00:51):
Right.

Speaker 5 (01:00:52):
But I think also, just because there's only one hundred delegates,
does it mean that more people couldn't be involved. Let's
just say hypothetically that I'm going to represent be a
deal of good for District twenty seven. Let's just say hypothetically,
that doesn't mean that I couldn't have town halls. That
doesn't mean that I couldn't you know, what do we
need to do with our constitution? And in talking to

(01:01:14):
some of the lawyers that actually that I've talked to
and in depth about this, their recommendation is why don't
we just take it back to the US Constitution, take
it all the way back to the US Constitution, and
then what parts of the US Constitution would we want
to change. And I'm like, that is a novel idea.
That's a great idea, right, And so there are a

(01:01:37):
lot of different ways that we could skin this cat.
And I think that we just don't have to focus
on what we think might be the bad parts about it.
Make it to be exactly what we want it to
be the good part of the process.

Speaker 15 (01:01:49):
In other words, Yeah, and that's when you go to
the US Constitution, You're you're really reaching out, I mean
to be honest, because of the way.

Speaker 17 (01:02:02):
We couldn't just change it for our state, the United States.

Speaker 10 (01:02:06):
Cont No, I'm saying.

Speaker 5 (01:02:07):
I'm saying, take the Kentucky Constitution back to the very
part of the US Constitution, strip everything out of it,
take it back to just the Kentucky the US Constitution,
and have that be the starting point for love you.

Speaker 17 (01:02:21):
For some reason, I thought we said that, yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:02:25):
Right, exactly. Well, I love this. I love to use
this because if you.

Speaker 5 (01:02:31):
Look at this little book, this is the US Constitution,
this is the Kentucky Constitution. I mean it's like four
times bigger, five times bigger, and it's actually holding Kentucky.

Speaker 10 (01:02:44):
This is actually legislation.

Speaker 5 (01:02:46):
This isn't isn't a framework, and we need to make
our constitution be a framework.

Speaker 10 (01:02:51):
Like the US Constitution is.

Speaker 17 (01:02:53):
A bad decision made by our legislators in this book.

Speaker 5 (01:02:57):
And it came back from eighteen ninety one living under
bad decisions that were implemented as the constitution.

Speaker 10 (01:03:05):
Into our you know, it's bad legislation that was.

Speaker 5 (01:03:08):
Put into our constitution, exactly all of those we talked
about earlier, right, And I.

Speaker 15 (01:03:14):
Think that I think that's a very good idea that
I mean, they're you know there there are just so
many things in here that just doli in effects you
you know, kentuckyans, uh. But they do affect their businesses,
and they do affect their their economics and education and

(01:03:36):
some of these if you read it, especially in the
education part, we're failing because of this book.

Speaker 5 (01:03:45):
Yeah. Yeah, And I think if you go if you
look at the history of the Kentucky our very first constitution,
I think it took eight years to create our very
first constitution. So just because we're saying we're going to
call the convention of State and we want to do it,
we get the approval to do it.

Speaker 10 (01:04:00):
That doesn't mean that it has to be done overnight.
It can be done.

Speaker 5 (01:04:04):
Strategically and pragmatically and actually end up being a framework
that the majority of us could live with.

Speaker 4 (01:04:11):
Absolutely, and it needs to.

Speaker 15 (01:04:13):
Be a framework for the future and not uh, not
a handful of people to live back then. I mean, uh,
they were smart people. Don't get me wrong. They had
no clue that what what today is going to be like.
I think I think our founding fathers in this constitution
had a better, better idea than what what these guys did.

Speaker 10 (01:04:35):
Well.

Speaker 5 (01:04:35):
The reason why they did was because it's a framework.
It's not legislation. It's actually it's there's things that are embedded,
but there's latitude in order to interpret.

Speaker 10 (01:04:46):
I don't I agree with you.

Speaker 5 (01:04:47):
It's not a living document. It is not a living document,
but there's still latitude to a you know, to for
today's world to stick with. You know, the rights to
be arms, the rights to practice as you wanted. All
those things I think we firmly agree with and we
wouldn't change We wouldn't want those be changed at all.

Speaker 15 (01:05:10):
But I have a problem with with our second with
our right to bear arms in here because it said
is basically as the legislator's uh uh, what's the word
I'm looking for, But you know you have a right
to do it as long as the legislation said.

Speaker 17 (01:05:25):
The legislator said.

Speaker 10 (01:05:27):
You're saying that's in the Kentucky Constitution. What you're saying that.

Speaker 5 (01:05:33):
That's right. And so fortunately the US Constitution actually overrides
right the legislator.

Speaker 17 (01:05:40):
That's why we need change. It's just one of the
this is one of the many things that need to
be changed. And I agree.

Speaker 15 (01:05:46):
I think I think we we should consider, ah putting
together a committee to take a better look at this.

Speaker 17 (01:05:54):
I know that what was the name.

Speaker 15 (01:05:58):
Lady at north right White Witting, I can't remember name,
Martha Mary Whitting or Martha Whitie.

Speaker 10 (01:06:04):
I don't rememb her name Mary and Mary and Proctor
Mary and Proctor.

Speaker 17 (01:06:08):
No, not Mary Anne. She's not She isn't run for rob.

Speaker 10 (01:06:10):
She was Oh oh sorry, okay, so she was with.

Speaker 17 (01:06:14):
Constitution of style. She's Witting I think is her last name.
She's up north.

Speaker 15 (01:06:20):
I can't remember her name, but she was pushing pretty
hard with things, and there's other people involved. But I
think we if we were serious, we would we would
start today former committee that that we want to take
a look at this and say.

Speaker 17 (01:06:36):
What can we do to make changes? How are we
going to approach it? And uh, a little bit different
than what maybe the national groups.

Speaker 5 (01:06:44):
Trying to do well whenever you couldn't hear us, When
when you couldn't hear us, Tony. One of the things
that I mentioned was that right now we already have
a committee in the House and it's called Elections, Constitutional Amendments,
and Inner Government Affairs. So we already have a group
of legislators that are already looking at our constitution. So

(01:07:04):
wouldn't that be a great place for us to start
with a resolution calling for a convention of state and
then actually drafting the legislatures to be.

Speaker 10 (01:07:15):
On the balance.

Speaker 5 (01:07:16):
Right, Absolutely, that's a perfect place to start, and we
already have that in the House.

Speaker 10 (01:07:20):
We don't have a like committee in the Senate.

Speaker 5 (01:07:24):
But that doesn't mean that we could not and would
not have the opportunity obviously from the House to invite
our senators to be involved in that.

Speaker 17 (01:07:33):
Now the House we need to give basically things rolling.

Speaker 10 (01:07:38):
And absolutely it's our responsibility to do that I.

Speaker 15 (01:07:42):
Think seriously, the committee should hold town halls, you know,
because that way they have an idea. I mean, we
were holding town halls a lot, getting ideas with different
groups and our different counties and different you know, organizations in.

Speaker 17 (01:07:58):
Lieuislane and stuff. Uh, and we learn a lot and
we learn how to help out those communities. But if
I'm if I'm on a committee, I.

Speaker 15 (01:08:07):
Want to sit down and I want to hear what
you have to say about the constitution, what changes we
can make, how we can better the state by doing that,
and how many people would actually get involved in doing it,
you know, because that's where it's going to be the numbers.

Speaker 10 (01:08:25):
Yeah, And I think it's more than just that committee.

Speaker 5 (01:08:27):
I think it's actually every legislator needs to go back
to their district and have this conversation. And that's one
of the reasons why I think that you all approached
me about this because in the Hardin County Lincoln Day dinner,
if this was the second, that was the second time
that I've actually had and gaged my presentation regarding why
we need to call a Convention of State for the
Constitution of Kentucky to be rewritten. And I think that

(01:08:48):
it would be great for all of us to find
out as legislators, all of us to find out what
we the people think about that.

Speaker 15 (01:08:56):
Yeah, and I think it's time. I think it's something
we do. You get that question out there and try
to move forward with it, you know.

Speaker 17 (01:09:08):
But we can sit down with the committee and just
say whatever we can do to help, we will. And
if we're not wanting to do that, then you start
we're go anywhere.

Speaker 5 (01:09:17):
Yeah, and I know that people think that the only
reason why I'm doing this is because we have a
Republican super majority.

Speaker 10 (01:09:23):
Okay, maybe that's part of it.

Speaker 5 (01:09:25):
But at the same time, as you all kind of
alluded to, as you know, every one of the legislators
that are in office right now, regardless of whether they're Republican,
whether Democrat, urban, rural, liberal, conservative, we all represent our districts,
and that would be this would be a perfect time
for us to actually have that conversation and to start

(01:09:48):
grinding and trying to decide, you know, what our constitution
for the current and for the future needs.

Speaker 4 (01:09:55):
To look like.

Speaker 17 (01:09:56):
Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly, but I think we can get.

Speaker 10 (01:10:00):
That two thirds vote.

Speaker 5 (01:10:01):
That's the part that's important. From the General Assembly is
to get that two thirds vote.

Speaker 10 (01:10:05):
To even start.

Speaker 4 (01:10:07):
I mean, as long as you can even convince it
that Republicans we'll have that two thirds majority, because hey,
we just mentioned it supermajority right now, there's eighty Republicans
in the House, thirty one out of thirty eight and
within it right now, I mean, we've got the numbers
to do it. If we do just do it on
the Republican side, that's right. Well, I mean it needs
to be none.

Speaker 5 (01:10:28):
Yeah, And so in the some of the conversations with
my fellow legislators, one of the reasons why we're not
doing it. One of the reasons is because, as you
all mentioned, the Constitution that would modify the or excuse me,
the amendment that was on the ballot that would modify
school choice in the Constitution, and Constitutional Amendment number two
for the pro life to have the pro life language

(01:10:51):
in the Constitution. Since those didn't pass, you know, people
are like, oh, well, Nancy, they're just going to see
that we are just sour groups and this is the.

Speaker 10 (01:11:00):
Only way that we could get our weight.

Speaker 5 (01:11:02):
I'm like, well, you know, regardless of what happens, there's
always going to be those naysayers.

Speaker 10 (01:11:07):
So do we think our constitution needs to be changed
or not?

Speaker 5 (01:11:12):
And I think it's really time for us to seriously
think about that and not worry about those naysayers. What
do we want for Kentucky currently and in the future.

Speaker 6 (01:11:22):
Uh huh.

Speaker 4 (01:11:24):
Before I hand it back over to John, I just
want to mention that, you know, my main reasons for
wanting this, it's not just because those amenutes failed. It's
beyond the point where we've actually taken a hard enough look.
Our framework itself has got flaws.

Speaker 10 (01:11:36):
Yeah, and that's the problem.

Speaker 4 (01:11:38):
When your framework has flaws, you might as well not
even build.

Speaker 8 (01:11:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:11:42):
So, uh, John, Wan'll turn it back over to you.
First thing. An't you got any questions you want to ask?

Speaker 12 (01:11:47):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
No, I've been kind of in and out of this
beginning because of the technical issues.

Speaker 3 (01:11:51):
But I'll tell you what.

Speaker 1 (01:11:53):
Once its audio worked to solve I don't know what
it did, but it was having problems at the beginning.
But once it's worked to suffa you guys sound great,
especially Tony did. I couldn't hardly understand what he was
saying all of a sudden, I'm not.

Speaker 17 (01:12:04):
Sure what was going on. Maybe been on my end,
I guess. But anyway, I think I think.

Speaker 1 (01:12:10):
It was a platform issue. But yeah, man, you had
a lot of good stuff to say. It was a
really interesting conversation, pretty in depth. I thought, from what
I got, I want to get out of you. Like
I say, a lot of distractions going on trying to
figure out what was going on.

Speaker 4 (01:12:24):
But John, this is the reason why I knew we
needed to bring Nancy on and Tony on for this discussion,
because I knew it was going to get some attention.

Speaker 5 (01:12:32):
Oh yeah, I can see that, and I'm sure that
there's gonna be some, you know, like we said, some naysayers,
and then obviously the people that are just interested in
learning more about this topic. And I think that that's great.
The more we can talk about it, the more people
can learn about it. And the funny thing is is
that when I started this conversation, I think that I've
actually handed out over a thousand of our constitutions. So

(01:12:55):
just by us having this conversation encourages people to go
back and look at that at our constitution, which we
all need to do. We even talked about our children
from a civics perspective.

Speaker 10 (01:13:05):
At learning and knowing more about it, and I.

Speaker 5 (01:13:08):
Think that as adults, we need to continue to learn
and know more about our constitution as well.

Speaker 15 (01:13:14):
I would like to press push my website just for
a minute, Kentucky Constitutional Kentucky dot org.

Speaker 17 (01:13:21):
It's all spelled out.

Speaker 15 (01:13:23):
If you've want constitutions, We've given out almost fifty thousand
since twenty nineteen, and we want to continue to give
them out. And if you want one, or you got
a group that once one, send us an email and
we'll make sure you get them.

Speaker 10 (01:13:38):
Yeah, And I think it's also important.

Speaker 5 (01:13:40):
I just went into my local school system, one of
my local schools, and actually talked about the Constitution and
I had the children ask them amazing questions.

Speaker 10 (01:13:49):
We actually went through.

Speaker 5 (01:13:50):
A scenario and why they couldn't do something that they
thought was really important.

Speaker 10 (01:13:56):
And it's because the Constitution prohibited us from doing it.

Speaker 15 (01:14:00):
And it's remarkable to people number of people that do
not know what constitution is. I mean, we stood in
line at the unemployment fiasco a couple of years ago
and we passed as constitutions out to everybody along with
water and they wouldn't.

Speaker 17 (01:14:15):
Know what this book was. And I said, this is
your life right here in this book, if you followed
it and that in the Bible, you can't go wrong.
And it was shocking the people didn't know what it was.

Speaker 4 (01:14:27):
And it needs to be brought up now, as you
mentioned it about those folks down in line with that
Unemployment office. Kentucky's debt right now, before Governor Bevan left
it had been cut down from forty two billion down
to thirty five billion. We have now had Andy B.
Sheeran there now for almost six years now, and now
our debt is well over fifty five billion now because

(01:14:50):
of all that, and most of that was because those
unemployment claims.

Speaker 15 (01:14:53):
Yeah, there's a lot of them, and they I know
a lot of people that were running on unemployment and
then we got bills and you have to pay it back.
I fought for a couple of those and try to
get finished, and I had to reach out to, you know,
Jennifer Decker, and I appreciate her what she's done as

(01:15:14):
far as trying to help those people out. But it's
good to know we got our legislators that will stand
up for us and try to make things right. Can't
do it all the time, I understand that, but there
are good legislators up there and there's some that you
can take her leave them, no criticism in any of them.

Speaker 10 (01:15:35):
I think it's what I would encourage people to do.

Speaker 5 (01:15:37):
Tone in and every person who listens to this, I
would encourage every person to actually make sure that they
know who their legislator is first of all, and to
make sure that they know not only their name, but
who they are, and then and to develop that relationship
with air.

Speaker 10 (01:15:51):
Frey mean, I know that that's going to be hard.

Speaker 5 (01:15:54):
That's going to say that forty five thousand of my
constituents need to develop a relationship with me. But I
can tell you that even though I get over five
hundred emails a day, I can tell you that that's
that's I can see the same people repeatedly contacting me,
and so probably one percent of my constituents actually contact me.
So I think it's really, really, really important to develop

(01:16:15):
a relationship with your legislator. And yeah, I are very
receptive to emails, conversations, town halls. I mean, uh, you know,
we knockdoors, we you know, So I think that's very
important to communicate and to reach out and make sure
that you know who your legislator is. What the constitution

(01:16:36):
says that's that's one of the reasons why we're on
the ballot every two years is to stay in touch
with our constituents.

Speaker 15 (01:16:41):
And I think I think you said it best though,
that the people that the legislators that have town home meetings,
I don't give it from one quarter or whatever. Uh,
it's our responsibility to show up.

Speaker 4 (01:16:55):
Mm.

Speaker 17 (01:16:55):
And you're not going to get everybody there. We understand that.

Speaker 15 (01:16:58):
But but if I'm having a town hall here in
Shelby County, if I don't have thirty people there, I'm
probably I'm probably failed my opinion, there's got to be
you know, there's got to be more than thirty people
interested in what I have to say. The same way
in any county. I've been to town hall meetings where

(01:17:19):
I've had I've had a legislator had four people there,
you know, and this person's a good legislator, so you
think there'll.

Speaker 17 (01:17:28):
Be more people show up.

Speaker 15 (01:17:30):
Yeah, But you know, it seems like sometimes if you're
doing very well, there's always the opposite side going to
be there to try to.

Speaker 17 (01:17:39):
Knock you down.

Speaker 10 (01:17:41):
But they need me at the same time. And I
agree with you.

Speaker 5 (01:17:45):
I mean, I've had townholls or I've had meetings with
my scheduled meetings with my constituents. I might send out
two hundred and fifty invitations personal invitations, and then I.

Speaker 10 (01:17:54):
Put it on Facebook.

Speaker 5 (01:17:55):
I put it on everything that I possibly can. I
might end up having twenty five or thirty people at
the most. It's the same people over and over. But
you know, even if it's the if, it it's the
people that actually want to challenge me. Some of my
best ideas I've gotten from my worst critics. So you know,
all I say is just just throw it on the table. Well,
let's throw it on the table, and.

Speaker 10 (01:18:15):
You will listen, absolutely absolutely.

Speaker 5 (01:18:18):
Sometimes I'll you know, I'll say, here's why we're at
where we're at. But that doesn't mean that we can't
move forward. I think all of us are processed improvement people.
And we all regardless of again whether we're Republicans, Democrats, liberal, conservative, rural, urban,
we all have all the legislators and most of the

(01:18:39):
people that attend those meetings, even if they're my worst critics,
actually have Kentucky's best interest in mind, and.

Speaker 10 (01:18:46):
We're all just approaching it a little bit differently.

Speaker 5 (01:18:49):
And that's what we have to do, is change hards
and be willing to work together and to listen each
to each other, regardless of how it's thrown on the table.

Speaker 17 (01:18:58):
So let's just throw it on the love.

Speaker 15 (01:19:00):
Believe that if you vote on something that I didn't
agree with, uh, just tell me why I'm okay with that,
you know, And I should be asking you that question
instead of going behind your back and going she voted
on this or you know whatever. That's what people do,
that's that's common nature. But my opinion is, Uh, you

(01:19:20):
ask the question. You may not like the answer, but
at least you've got an answer from somebody, and you
can't you can't say, well unless he did this, or
he did this. You know. It's all about let's get
the truth out there and explain that bill better than
than than the person I read on Facebook tried to
do it.

Speaker 17 (01:19:38):
Uh, makes a difference. All about communication.

Speaker 5 (01:19:42):
We have to keep doing it, absolutely and I agree
with that, and and communication is definitely welcomed.

Speaker 17 (01:19:48):
Yeah, Well, we appreciate you, Thank you.

Speaker 10 (01:19:51):
I appreciate you all, and it's just important.

Speaker 17 (01:19:53):
For us A thank you, John, don't know you, but
thank you.

Speaker 5 (01:19:59):
Yeahreciate the opportunity to be on and discuss this topic
because it's just it's near and dear to my heart.

Speaker 10 (01:20:04):
I said, it's actually become my new passion.

Speaker 5 (01:20:07):
You know, I'm a very passionate person and you all
know where my heart is as far as my passion
is concerned. And so this is absolutely one of those
things that for the future of the common both of
Kentucky needs to be discussed.

Speaker 17 (01:20:18):
Let's send this thing out.

Speaker 5 (01:20:20):
Yeah, that's right, and just keep having the conversations were
we need to have somebody on next time that disagrees
with us?

Speaker 10 (01:20:31):
Yeah, yeah, why we shouldn't have a call the convention.

Speaker 4 (01:20:35):
Yeah, I mean, I'd be hoping to those conversations. But
at the same time, I'm just gonna tell them out right,
do you really want to live the next century of
the way we had the last century?

Speaker 17 (01:20:46):
So yeah, I can invite the legislators be on that side,
But just.

Speaker 4 (01:20:54):
Do you want anything else?

Speaker 3 (01:20:57):
Uh No, We're a little over time.

Speaker 1 (01:20:59):
So if you guys are all finished and ready to
close out, I guess we could probably do that. Anybody
got any closing statements or anything you want to say,
I just.

Speaker 15 (01:21:08):
Say thank you for letting me be on here. I
appreciate it, and you know, I'm in good company, so
let's move forward.

Speaker 5 (01:21:16):
Of course, Well, I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to be
on and to talk about this because, like I said,
it's my new passion, and I think it's the more
we talk about it, then the more that people actually
educate themselves regarding our constitution, which is, as we've talked
about before, is actually sorely needed for people to be aware.
And then the more they know about our constitution, then
they know that there's opportunity for improvement.

Speaker 1 (01:21:41):
Absolutely, So, ladies and gentlemen, I think that's our show
for tonight. We hope you got something out of it.
I hope you've listened very closely what's being said to you.
Because your constitution is what guide your government, and if
you don't have a qualified constitution, you need to amend it.
I think that's what we're talking about tonight.

Speaker 3 (01:22:00):
It's an old saying from the Greeks.

Speaker 11 (01:22:02):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:22:03):
You may not take an interest in politics, but politics
will take an interest in you. So it's all always
always better to pay attention to your politicians, connect with
your politicians, make them more of a source of entertainment
and watching television and drinking beers late in the evening.
So with that being said, UH we wish you a
good night, we wish you well, and uh stay tuned

(01:22:24):
for more later on coming up.

Speaker 10 (01:22:25):
And you all have