Joe Sonka
Enterprise Statehouse ReporterJoe Sonka is Kentucky Public Radio’s first enterprise statehouse reporter. He joined the team in October 2023.
Joe has covered Kentucky government and politics for nearly two decades. He grew up in Lexington and moved to Louisville in 2011, covering city and state government at LEO Weekly and then Insider Louisville. He became state government reporter for the Courier Journal in 2019 and was a lead reporter for the newspaper's 2020 Pulitzer Prize-winning series on former Gov. Matt Bevin's controversial pardons just before leaving office.
You can email Joe at jsonka@lpm.org and find him at non-Twitter apps such as Threads (@joesonkaky) and BlueSky (@joesonka.bsky.social).
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The Kentucky Legislative Ethics Commission has voted unanimously to further its investigation into Louisville Rep. Daniel Grossberg. -
Kentucky’s secretary of state quickly certified state Rep. Nima Kulkarni’s candidacy after a judge denied a lawsuit seeking to block her candidacy. -
Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman is telling prosecutors that hundreds of new “risk free” games resembling casino slots are illegal under state law. -
Louisville Democrats chose state Rep. Nima Kulkarni to receive their general election nomination Friday, and court motions to block her nomination have been withdrawn. -
Kentucky’s new Office of Medical Cannabis received more than 700 applications from businesses in the first three days of this week, ahead of the Saturday deadline. -
The Louisville Democratic Party is expected to choose a general election replacement in the Kentucky House District 40 race Friday evening, though legal questions remain. -
Voters in dozens of cities and counties across Kentucky will vote in November on whether to allow medical cannabis businesses to operate there. -
Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams says local Democratic and Republican parties will choose the general election nominees of a state House district in Louisville, following the disqualification of state Rep. Nima Kulkarni. -
Kentucky’s individual income tax rate will lower from 4% to 3.5% in 2026, as the final budget numbers from the 2024 fiscal year met the conditions for a tax cut under state law. -
Democratic Rep. Daniel Grossberg has been removed from all of his interim committee assignments. The Louisville lawmaker's attorney says one investigation into alleged misconduct toward women has been closed with no impropriety found.
