Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers stops in Franklin

FRANKLIN, Ky. – One notable politician visited Franklin toward the end of the week to peruse the county and how they’ve developing the area.

Robert Stivers came down to Franklin to speak to other people in the political space but also to check out the progress on the Trader Joe’s warehouse currently being built off exit 6 in Franklin, and during his visit, News 40 was able to borrow the senator for some comments.

News 40 asked Stivers a few questions to which he was happy to answer, including his forecast on the governor’s race, Cameron’s sudden change of perspective of Kentucky abortion law, schools implementing SB150 that impacts transgender students and what he expects from the upcoming session in 2024.

Stivers told the station he thinks the race for governor will be close, within single digits. As far as school implementing SB150, he said it depends on the district because not everyone is tackling the issue the same way. When asked about the upcoming session, Stivers said it will be a very important one as they have some bills to reconcile in the financial space. The senator said “you can have all the good ideas in the world but you need money to fall back on”.

And finally the station asked the most pressing question that everyone is buzzing about, abortion. Recently, Daniel Cameron, Republican candidate for governor told WHAS-AM in a radio interview that he would be willing to make exceptions to the abortion law in the cases of rape or incest which piqued the interest of many being that he has been a faithful supporter of the current law which allows no exceptions whatsoever.

News 40 asked Stivers what he thought about Cameron’s sudden change and his thoughts on the issue, to which Stivers said, “It’s tough. It’s probably the toughest decision a legislative body has to make because you don’t want to cause any harm to someone, but at the same time you wat to be able to bring life into this world. I know that it can be traumatic for a woman who has had the heinous act of rape or incest performed on them, and I can understand both sides. I know that some women would not want to carry the child to term because they have to relive that, but I also know women who say ‘I hate that happened to me, but I’m glad I kept my baby.’ I don’t know what I would do if my daughter was raped, it’s tough, it’s really hard.”