Kenny Colston

With more than a year before the next elections, new political action committee has formed to help Republicans gain control of the Kentucky state House.

The PAC—Pro-Jobs, Pro-Kentucky—was formed earlier this month by Scott Jennings, a longtime Kentucky  GOP political operative and Mike Adams, a former political director for the Republican Governor's Association.

Pro-Jobs, Pro-Kentucky's goal is to support state legislative candidates who support economic growth in the Commonwealth, according to fillings with the Internal Revenue Service. The PAC also filed with the Federal Election Commission to be able to raise money.

In a statement, Jennings said unhappiness with Frankfort led to the creation of the PAC.

The key issue for a new Louisville-based political action committee is candidates' use of reproductive rights as a campaign issue.

Reproductive Rights for Kentucky PAC was born from the recent controversy when University of Louisville Hospital attempted to merge with Denver-based Catholic Health Initiatives. Critics of the merger raised concerns about CHI's adherence to Catholic religious directives—that certain reproductive health practices, such as tubal litigations, wouldn't be permitted at University Hospital.

The new PAC is chaired by Honi Goldman, a Louisville media relations executive and a critic of the CHI-University Hospital merger. (CHI and University entered into a partnership last year.)

Goldman said the group will support candidates who realized there are bigger issues to deal with than reproductive ones.

With this year's legislative session over, a look into lobbying spending in Kentucky shows big money is still a major player in Frankfort.

During the first two months of the this year's session, lobbyists spent $4.2 million to influence lawmakers on bills.  The Legislative Ethics Commission says that's a 10 percent increase on the amount spent in the first two months of the last short session, which was in 2011.

Full spending reports won't be out for at least another month, but so far two lobbying groups stand out from the rest: Altria Client Services and Century Aluminum. Both spent more than $80,000 this January and February. Altria lobbied for a change to tobacco taxes, which passed. Century lobbied for a bill to let aluminum smelters buy power on the open market. It did not pass.

Other big spenders include the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce and the Kentucky League of Cities.

Kentucky legislative leaders say they're proud of the 2013, with legislators having accomplished pension reforms, cleaned up other bills and passed others dealing with hemp, special taxing district and military voting.

Many of the legislature's top priorities were passed in the 30-day session, although most of them were hatched as last minutes deals in the waning days of the session.

House Speaker Greg Stumbo said the 2013 session may have been his proudest in more than a decade.

"I think that history will not have seen the chaotic events of the last day but it should record that this was a very successful session," he said.

Senate President Robert Stivers says the success of the session doesn't rest on any one person's shoulders, but collectively on the legislature.

Kentucky lawmakers have achieved a compromise that would set up a regulatory framework should the federal government legalize industrial hemp.

The so-called hemp bill—Senate Bill 50—gives control of licensing of future hemp farmers to the Industrial Hemp Commission, but allow the Kentucky State Police to do background checks on the farmers.

The state Department of Agriculture would be given many administrative roles for licensing hemp farmers and the University of Kentucky would be charged with researching the issue.

The plan was agreed upon in the final hour of the 2013 General Assembly session. House Majority Floor Leader Rocky Adkins says it's a good compromise.