KENTUCKY — On this week’s “In Focus Kentucky” program, we’re sitting down with Kentucky’s 86th Secretary of State, Republican Michael Adams of Paducah.
Adams has been in office serving the Commonwealth since 2020 and he is currently in the middle of his second four-year term.
During this segment, Adams reflects on legislative priorities of the Secretary of State during the 2025 Kentucky General Assembly and his office’s role in enacting legislation passed by the legislature, with or without the governor’s signature.
“Well, I actually didn’t know this when I ran for this office, but under our unique system in Kentucky, if the legislature passes a bill into law over the veto of the governor, the Secretary of State signs the bill. And so I remember my first session, my staff came in late one night that said, you need to sign this bill, and it was actually my own bill. It was photo ID to vote. I had no idea that I would actually sign my own bill into law. That was pretty special. And I’ve signed maybe 200 give or take, since that time. It’s unique in our system, but what I think is especially unique is I’m aligned politically with the legislature, and the governor is not, so it creates a political dynamic where basically, I’m dunking on the governor, if you will, by signing good policy into law that he refused,” Adams said.
The secretary also explained why there are no primary or general elections in the commonwealth during the 2025 calendar year.
“Well, if the vein in my forehead seems a little smaller this year, it’s because we don’t have elections in 2025. We might have a special election here, or there a wet, dry vote. Things like that pop up, but there are no statewide elections this year. We changed our constitution back in the 90s to give our voters and our candidates everyone else a year off once every four years. So this year is our year off for everybody, for me, for our county courts and for our voters, but we use this year to continue the conversation with legislators, with county clerks, what we could what can we do to improve the elections? Do we have a number of ideas that we’ll be offering first of the year when the legislature comes back,” Adams said.
You can watch the full In Focus Kentucky segment in the player above.
