Government

Two 24-year-old Democrats from opposite ends of the Commonwealth hope to be the newest and youngest members of the General Assembly next year.

Kendrick Bryan is from Elizabethtown and hopes to unseat longtime lawmaker Jimmie Lee. Tyler Murphy is from Greenup County and is challenging state representative Tonya Pullin.

Bryan and Murphy'’s bids for office come after a trio of young Republicans in their 20's successfully ran for the state House two years ago.

The Tennessee House has passed Governor Bill Haslam's $30.4 billion dollar spending plan after rejecting several efforts to restore programs and make a greater reduction in the state's sales tax on groceries. The chamber voted 66-30 yesterday to pass the bill. Approval was delayed by more than an hour by a spirited debate over Haslam's plan to close a Youth Development Center in Bledsoe County. But after a break - and heavy lobbying by Republican leaders and Haslam staffers - the chamber moved on. The Senate has yet to vote on its version of the spending plan.

A bill regulating hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is advancing in the Illinois legislature. The state Senate unanimously passed a bill yesterday addressing the decades-old but debated technology used to reach previously inaccessible natural gas reserves deep underground. The bill comes as energy companies are pushing to prospect possible drilling sites using fracking in southern Illinois. The legislation allows the state's Department of Natural Resources to regulate fracking.

A controversial national legislative group may not have the same pull in Kentucky as it does in other states.

For weeks, the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, has been under fire for its work pushing model state laws. The group has been linked to "stand your ground" gun laws, which have been in the news since the shooting death of a Florida teenager in February.

Many of ALEC's corporate members, including Kentucky-based Yum Brands, have ended their association with the group.

The Kentucky Supreme Court has ruled that students and staff members
at the commonwealth’s universities may legally store guns and other
deadly weapons in a car's glove compartment, but that the schools may
continue to regulate them elsewhere on campus.

Attorney General Jack Conway isn’t upset the General Assembly’s so called “Pill Mill Bill” failed to place the KASPER prescription drug monitoring system with his office.