2025 Regular Session - Day 24 - HB 399, Rep. John Blanton

thank you Mr Speaker House Bill 399 is not a new bill to this body we passed it last year um uh and what house bill 399 will do is it will ensure that the general assembly has an opportunity to legislate without interference from people who wish to prevent us from doing our work on behalf of our constituents most of you will remember the interruption of our legislative process two years ago uh things got so out of hand in the gallery that many of you had your buttons pushed that day to speak and you weren't allowed to speak because of this disruption each one of us represents 45,000 plus or minus people we're the voice of our constituents and whether I agree with the argument or not you have that right to represent your constituents and be their voice on that topic but that day that didn't happen because of what occurred in the gallery I am a a staunch advocate of the first amendment I think it's one of our best and strongest amendments that we have in our constitution um it is as an American as it gets has been able to have a voice uh amongst our government but when you take that and you prevent a legislative body from doing its work you cross a line we're sitting here to do the work of the people and we should be able to do so House Bill 399 was drawn up with three specific scenarios El in mind first when you physically obstruct physically obstruct or impede a legislator or legislative employees ability to go into a room or go from one room to another with the intent to prevent the general assembly from conducting business you've cross the line that they would be a class B felony for the first offense and a class I mean excuse me misdemeanor um and a Class A misdemeanor for the second offense second when you enter into a legis lative chamber or room that is set aside for use of legislators or refuse to exit notice it doesn't say that you exit then you going to be charged you're refusing to exit they're going to ask you to leave and if you refuse uh with the intent to prevent the general assembly from conducting business you've crossed a line again a Class B misdemeanor or a Class A misdemeanor on the second or subsequent offenses third when you engage in disorder or disruptive conduct inside a legislative building you actually prevent prevent the general assembly from conducting business you've crossed the line when you actually prevent it from happening not that you're attempting but you actually prevent it from happening it says it's a Class A minetor now on the original bill it says the second offense will be a Class D Felony and I'm getting ready to to yield to the gentleman from Boon 66 here in just a moment for a friendly floor Amendment uh that is going to address some things I've heard your voices of concerns what about out in the retunda what about out on the grounds well we want to lay that out we're not talking about out out in the retunda this is the people's house they have the right to come here and protest that's their First Amendment right we don't want to hinder that from happening and I think this amendment will do that we're going to add an extra Class A Mis amender on the third that I talked about um rather than going from a Class A Mr Manor to a Class D it would be a Class A and then a Class A and then on third offense it' be a Class D but I'm going to let him go into all that so with that Mr Speaker I would yield to the gentleman from Boon 66 for a friendly floor Amendment Mr Speaker I would like to point out that I believe it's important to an Act statute tail statutes tailored to deal with the issue instead of Simply relying on more General offenses such as KRS 519020 for obstructing governmental operations which seems more appropriate for an attempt to prevent an executive a branch agency from doing its work it's class A misdemeanor and in our judicial branches judges have the power to deal with interruptions in the courtroom by use of criminal contempt proceedings if necessary so the executive branch has protections judicial branch has protections and all this bill is doing is giving the legislative branch equal equivalent protections for the legislative branch when we're doing our work couple things that's been said all I don't like people's loud voices that's not true and I'm not afraid of loud voices not at all believe me I've been in in far worse scenarios and situations and most of you in this room a loud voice does not scare me not at all sir second thing I've heard people say oh we're going to send people to prison for 5 years for protesting because it's a Class D Felony not true it's blatantly taken and putting misinformation out there a class St felony in Kentucky it carries 1 to five year penalty keep in mind this would have to be a third offense never in the history of this Commonwealth has anybody on a nonviolent Class D Felony gotten five years and spent 5 years in prison in Kentucky never has it happened Never As a matter of fact you know how much time you serve if you were to get the max on a Class D Felony on a nonviolent offense 20% now I'm not too smart but my calculation of 20% of five is one one one year that would be what they would be looking at so to say they're going to spend 5 years on a Class D Felony is just not true so with that Mr Speaker if there's no questions I would move passage of House Bill 399 as amended by house committee sub one and house floor Amendment four