Kentucky GOP Senator Max wise is taking over as the Senate majority floor leader starting in January, replacing long-time Sen. Damon Thayer from Georgetown after he decided not to run for reelection this year.
In an interview with Kentucky Public Radio, the Campbellsville lawmaker discussed his party's priorities ahead of the 2025 legislative session.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
There's a few pieces of legislation that you've become known for, especially school safety related and the ban on gender affirming care for transgender youth. Are we going to see renewed efforts on those fronts now that you're in a leadership role?
I'm not going to say that I'm going to be champion for this certain issue because I'm in leadership. I think this position, a lot of times, is just managing people and personalities.
I think a lot of it's being a traffic guard and being able to say stop and go to a lot of people. Some people may like to hear that, and some people may not want to hear that, but it becomes what it entails as the floor leader.
What are some of the big ticket items that you think will be the priority? I know we've heard about tax cuts.
Definitely. I think sound physical economic policy that we've done over the last few years as a Republican controlled super majority will continue to be there. I know we're going to look forward to seeing that state income tax drop from 4% to 3.5% starting in 2026. I think we're just going to continue to go down that pathway.
Obviously, Amendment 2 failed. Was that disappointing to you? What's next since that door remains shut, or is it really shut? Is there anything that you think can and should be done this year in the legislature when you talk about school choice and education.
I think parents should have the best decision for their child, but also the voters spoke, and the voters spoke in an overwhelming voice on that. So I think what we will be doing as legislators is [asking], ‘What innovative ways can we continue to work with our public school systems?’
I see one of the big roles of leadership as managing the relationship between chambers, right? Because it has to pass both of those to get to the governor's desk. Last session, we had a few major pieces of legislation die in the middle. Top of mind is legislation to ban diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at public universities. Any appetite to pursue that further?
For whatever reason — and I wasn't in leadership that time — it didn't make its way to the governor's desk. That doesn't mean that we can't come back and look at that and revisit that issue again. It was discussed in the interim in the education committee.
But it's one of those issues that many members of our caucus were disappointed that didn't get passed. We've had discussions from our university presidents on things that they're doing around DEI, but I do think some of our colleagues — and myself included — we want to see that it's not just changing a name plate and saying, ‘Well, we changed the office name of what DEI is.’
Now, we want to really look at this as, ‘Is this sustainable, and is this worth taxpayer funding for contracts for DEI?’ So those are some of the things I think we are going to tackle.
Kentucky's near total abortion ban and calls for more exceptions to that ban, in particular, have come up many times in the past sessions without any movement. Do you think we're going to see any change on that this session? Is it a priority that you've heard about from other members?
I don't know in 2024 if it was still as much of a policy issue that we saw with the Trump presidency winning the popular vote and carrying the number of electoral votes that he did. Because some states still had that as a ballot initiative. I'm not for sure if it really was that persuasive for a lot of voters in 2024. It's kind of a wait and see. I've also not been approached by any of our pro-life advocacy groups that are out there asking me about anything yet.
Is there anything else you think I should have been asking about that I should be looking out for this session?
After next week, with our caucus retreat, it's going to be kind of game on after that. We're less than, what, 35 days out or so from the legislative session beginning here. Looking forward to getting to work and working on behalf of my constituents in the Commonwealth in my new role.
State government and politics reporting is supported in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
