The 2026 session of the Kentucky General Assembly, which concluded last month, yielded “pretty good results,” according to the Catholic Conference of Kentucky, which represents the state’s four Catholic bishops.
The conference, led by Executive Director Jason Hall, worked on a variety of bills this session related to families, criminal justice, healthcare, housing and charitable donations.
“The Church approaches issues of public policy with principles grounded in human dignity, family, community — the principles of Catholic social teaching,” said Hall in a post-session interview. “Our role is to take those principles and, with the bishops, make policy differences.
“We look for opportunities and possibilities — given the political environment — that are feasible.”
This year, Hall said he was pleased by the passage of Senate Bill 122, the “family preservation and accountability act.” The bill asks judges to consider whether a defendant is a caretaker of a child or pregnant during sentencing.
“We worked out a good compromise that has a really good result,” said Hall. “I thought it was dead in the water, but we had this meeting; came up with a compromise that got it done.”
He particularly credited Sen. Julie Raque Adams, the bill’s sponsor, with its success.
“She was a real great champion.”
The only affordable housing bill that passed, House Bill 333, also had the CCK’s support.
Hall referred to the measure as a “YIGBY” bill — Yes in God’s Back Yard. It’s a play on NIMBY — Not in My Back Yard — a common refrain for people concerned about certain types of housing being allowed in their neighborhoods.
The bill allows churches in commercial zones to bypass some planning and zoning hurdles to create affordable housing.
“It provides an opportunity, especially where you have church property or schools that close,” said Hall. We probably have a lot of those properties. They could be used with greatly reduced red tape to produce affordable housing units.”
“There should be Catholics working on these things in their community. And the CCK can help them.”
— Jason Hall, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Kentucky
Another success, Hall said, related to charitable donations to feed the hungry. House Bill 281
exempts nonprofits and religious organizations, as well as “home-based processors,” from licensing and plumbing codes when donating food to a homeless shelter or to individuals displaced by a natural disaster.
Hall said the CCK was also pleased Kentucky opted into the federal education scholarship federal tax credit program. It provides tax credits to donors giving to an approved scholarship-granting program to increase scholarships available for elementary and secondary education.
The CCK has been working on a similar state-level program for more than 20 years.
“We will at least have that level of (federal) assistance,” said Hall. “Kids will be able to apply for scholarships next year.”
In addition to the CCK’s clear successes in the session, Hall said House Bill 2, which relates to Medicaid, was somewhat troubling. The items that were most concerning were resolved, he said.
“The One Big Beautiful Bill mandated a lot of changes to Medicaid,” said Hall. “House Bill 2 was implementing those mandated changes. But as originally proposed, House Bill 2 went beyond the federal requirements — it was more stringent.”
For instance, he said, “Kentucky was going to have much higher copays” than the federal law mandated.
“We were advocating to scale that back to the federal requirement,” said Hall, noting that the CCK worked with several partners, including Kentucky Voices for Health. “We were successful for the most part.”
Hall noted that while the CCK’s role is to work on these issues on behalf of the state’s bishops, the laity has a role, too.
“There should be Catholics working on these things in their community,” he said. “And the CCK can help them.”To learn more, visit the conference’s website, ccky.org. To get emailed updates from the CCK, click “Be a Faithful Citizen Advocate” on its website and enter your email address under “sign up for alerts.”
