FRANKFORT, Ky. — The Kentucky Republican lawmakers in Frankfort spent much of their Friday overriding several vetoes from the governor.
They swept aside the veto of a criminal justice bill that would impose harsher sentences for a range of crimes. Beshear said it would saddle the state with sharply higher incarceration costs and criminalize homelessness by creating an “unlawful camping” offense.
Known as the "Safer Kentucky Act," the criminal justice bill that GOP lawmakers backed with their override vote would make a multitude of changes to the state’s criminal code, enhancing many current penalties and creating new offenses.
One prominent feature of the bill creates a “three-strikes” penalty that would lock up people for the rest of their lives after committing a third violent offense. It adds to the list of violent crimes that require offenders to serve most of their sentences before becoming eligible for release.
Supporters portrayed the bill as a necessary policy shift that would do more to hold criminals accountable and to make communities safer.
"[House Bill 5] should have been broken into multiple bills," Lexington's Democratic representative, Adrielle Camuel, said. "The good sections are really good. But the bad provisions and there are a lot of them are very bad. We all know that being homeless is not a crime. But criminalizing homelessness only makes it worse and it adds to an individual's or family's misery."
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Opponents warned the measure would carry a hefty price tag for taxpayers with no assurances that the tougher approach would lower crime.
The fiscal note attached to the legislation said the overall financial impact was “indeterminable” but would likely lead to a “significant increase in expenditures primarily due to increased incarceration costs.”
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