When did Kentucky's 1993 special-session laws and Senate Bill 7 take effect?

Plain-English summary

The Legislative Research Commission asked for the effective date of ordinary laws from Kentucky's first extraordinary session of 1993 and for dates under Senate Bill 7, the Kentucky Code of Legislative Ethics. The Attorney General gave May 18, 1993, as the normal effective date for acts without an emergency clause or delayed date. The opinion said Section 55 of the Kentucky Constitution excluded the adjournment day from the ninety-day count and included May 17 as the ninetieth day.

Senate Bill 7 had an emergency clause. The AG said the act as a whole became effective on the afternoon of February 18, 1993, when the Governor tendered the signed bill to the Secretary of State. Section 87 then set a transition schedule. The opinion described most of the bill as taking effect 210 days after the act's effective date, which it calculated as September 16, 1993. It separately calculated deadlines for actions required within 45, 60, 75, 90, 150 and 180 days of February 18.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 1993. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here.

Common questions

When did ordinary laws from Kentucky's first 1993 special session take effect?

The AG concluded that the normal effective date was May 18, 1993, for acts without an emergency provision or a delayed effective date. It counted ninety full days after adjournment under Section 55 of the state constitution.

When did the Kentucky Code of Legislative Ethics become effective?

The opinion said Senate Bill 7 as a whole became effective on the afternoon of February 18, 1993, because it carried an emergency clause and the Governor then tendered the signed bill to the Secretary of State. It also said Section 87(13) made the majority of the bill effective 210 days later, on September 16, 1993.

How did the opinion calculate the transition deadlines?

It applied KRS 446.030, which excluded the triggering day and extended a period ending on a Saturday, Sunday, legal holiday or a day when the relevant public office was legally closed. On that basis it placed the 45-day deadline on April 5 rather than Sunday, April 4, and the 150-day deadline on July 19 rather than Sunday, July 18.

Background and legal framework

Section 80 of the Kentucky Constitution authorized extraordinary legislative sessions. Section 55 set the ordinary ninety-day delay after adjournment and an emergency exception. The AG cited Johnson v. Sampson and Royster v. Brock for when the signed emergency act became effective. KRS 446.030 supplied the method for computing Senate Bill 7's transition deadlines.

The original opinion has an internal date inconsistency: its opening describes final adjournment as Tuesday, February 16, 1993, while a later sentence calls the adjournment day February 15. This page reports the opinion's stated May 18 conclusion and preserves both dates in the original text below.

Citations and references

• Section 55 of the Constitution of Kentucky (ordinary effective date and emergency exception).
• Section 80 of the Constitution of Kentucky (extraordinary sessions).
• KRS 446.030 (time computation).
• Johnson v. Sampson, 232 Ky. 648, 24 S.W.2d 306, 310 (1930).
• Royster v. Brock, 258 Ky. 146, 79 S.W.2d 707, 711 (1935).

Source

• Landing page: https://www.ag.ky.gov/Resources/Opinions/Opinions/OAG93-025.htm

Original opinion text

OAG 93-25

March 15, 1993

Hon. Vic Hellard, Jr.

Director

Legislative Research Commission

Room 300, Capitol Building

Frankfort, Kentucky 40601

RE: Effective Dates of Legislation Enacted During the 1993

First Extraordinary Session. AGO Corr. No. 93-(O)-326

Dear Mr. Hellard:

By letter of February 24, 1993, you ask that this office issue an opinion concerning the normal effective date of legislation enacted during the 1993 First Extraordinary Session of the General Assembly, which adjourned sine die (finally for the session) on Tuesday, February 16, 1993. You also ask that our opinion indicate the effective date of Senate Bill 7 (1993 [1st Extra. Sess.] Ky. Acts ch. 4), passed during the session with an emergency provision, as well as certain dates in a "transition schedule" contained in that legislation.

Extraordinary sessions of the General Assembly are authorized by Section 80 of the Constitution of Kentucky.

The effective date of legislation is governed by Section 55 of the Constitution of Kentucky, which provides:

No act, except general appropriation bills, shall become a law until ninety days after the adjournment of the session at which it was passed, except in cases of emergency, when, by the concurrence of a majority of the members elected to each House of the General Assembly, by a yea and nay vote entered upon their journals, an act may become a law when approved by the governor, but the reasons for the emergency that justified this action must be set out at length in the journal of each House.

(Emphasis added.)

The language "ninety days after adjournment" (emphasis added), quoted above, indicates that the day of adjournment sine die, February 15, 1993, must be excluded in computing the 90 day period set forth in the above cited Constitutional provision, and that the 90th day, here May 17, 1993, through the end of that day, must be included. See Opinion of the Attorney General (OAG) 89-1, and OAG 91-38. It is the opinion of this office that the "normal" effective date for legislation enacted during the 1993 First Extraordinary Session of the Kentucky General Assembly, that is, the effective date for legislation which does not contain an emergency provision or a delayed effective date, is May 18, 1993.

Senate Bill 7, 1993 (1st Extra. Sess.) Ky. Acts ch. 4, the "Kentucky Code of Legislative Ethics," you indicate, contained an emergency clause (Section 92). Accordingly, in keeping with Section 55 (above) of Kentucky's Constitution, the Act as a whole became effective when the Governor tendered the bill, which he had signed, to the Secretary of State on the afternoon of February 18, 1993, thus completing the last act in such regard which he had the power to perform. Constitution of Kentucky, Sections 88 and 91, Johnson v. Sampson, 232 Ky. 648, 24 S.W.2d 306, 310 (1930); Royster v. Brock, 258 Ky. 146, 79 S.W.2d 707, 711 (1935).

Your letter points out that Section 87(13) of SB 7 makes the majority of the bill effective two hundred ten (210) days after the effective date of this Act," and that earlier subsections within Section 87 establish a "transition schedule' with other specific dates calculated from the effective date of the Act. This "transition schedule" is actually a listing of deadlines within which certain actions called for in Section 87 of the Act are to be completed. You thus ask, in substance, that we indicate the dates of the various deadlines in accordance with the terms set forth in Section 87 of Senate Bill 7.

As the terms in question call for computation of a time period, Kentucky Revised Statutes (KRS) 446.030 is applicable. Subsection (1)(a) of that statute provides, in part pertinent here, that:

In computing any period of time prescribed . . . by any applicable statute . . . the day of the act . . . after which the designated period of time begins to run is not to be included. The last day of the period so computed is to be included, unless it is a Saturday, a Sunday, a legal holiday or a day on which the public office in which a document is required to be filed is actually and legally closed, in which event the period runs until the end of the next day which is not one of the days just mentioned . . . .

Upon application of the above provision, it follows that requirements to be completed within the periods listed below, in view of the effective date of the Act in question being February 18, 1993, must be completed by midnight on the dates indicated:

Within forty-five (45) days of the effective date of this act = on or before April 5, 1993, since the 45th day is Sunday, April 4.

Within sixty (60) days of the effective date of this act = on or before April 19, 1993.

Within seventy-five (75) days of the effective date of this act = on or before May 4, 1993.

Within ninety (90) days of the effective date of this act = on or before May 19, 1993.

Within one hundred fifty (150) days of the effective date of this act = on or before July 19, 1993, since the 150th day is Sunday, July 18.

Within one hundred eighty (180) days of the effective date of this act = on or before August 17, 1993.

Two hundred ten (210) days after the effective date of this act = September 16, 1993.

Sincerely,

CHRIS GORMAN

ATTORNEY GENERAL

Gerard R. Gerhard

Assistant Attorney General

(502) 564-7600

GRG:par