This newspaper has argued for several decades that Kentucky should become a right-to-work state and that the state’s unfair prevailing wage law should be repealed.

It was frustrating at times during past sessions to see legislation to make both a reality be introduced only to die in union-friendly House committees without a vote. Now, both are a reality.

Thanks to the overwhelming number of voters who gave Republicans a majority in the House in November, a Republican-controlled Senate in Frankfort and a Republican Gov. Matt Bevin, Kentucky is now a right-to-work state and the prevailing wage law, unless tied to federal projects, is a thing of the past. Bevin signed the right-to-work law, House Bill 1, on Saturday and it became law Monday.

After 92-plus years of the unions and Democratic bosses having it their way, it is a new day in Kentucky. Our state now has the opportunity to be a player on the world stage in attracting companies that previously simply crossed us off the list because we weren’t a right-to-work state.

Union members yelled profanities and confronted Bevin and other legislators last week in Frankfort, saying it is “union busting,” will make them weaker and will mean that employees will make less.

They simply couldn’t be any more wrong. Unions that represent their members well will continue to play an important role even without the club of enforced membership. One indication is the growth of union membership in neighboring Tennessee, a longtime right-to-work state.

Union membership is a choice that involves freedom of association. It seems only fair that there is a corresponding choice not to associate.

Getting rid of the state’s prevailing wage law, House Bill 3, was another victory for the people of Kentucky. Under the previous law, in regard to schools and other public projects, additional costs were added to these projects that were paid for by the taxpayers. It was clearly unfair for taxpayers to be on the hook for all of these years for inflated public projects in this state to benefit special interests, a luxury our revenue-starved state can ill afford.

These are two major victories for this state and we couldn’t be happier that GOP legislators in both chambers and a few Democrats crossed over to make them reality. We also applaud Bevin for signing right-to-work into law in a swift manner and for also getting rid of the prevailing wage law.

Kentucky is now indeed open for business and we believe in a much better position to compete with the other 26 right-to-work states in attracting those big companies and jobs to our state.

We were also glad to see House Bill 2 was passed by both chambers by very wide margins. The legislation, which Bevin signed into law, requires a physician or technician to perform an ultrasound, describe and display the ultrasound images to the mother, and provide audio of the fetal heartbeat to the mother before she may have an abortion. A pregnant woman may choose to avert her eyes from the images and request the volume of the heartbeat be turned down or off.

Because of this passage, women will now have time to possibly reconsider going through with an abortion. It is obviously a woman’s right to go through with an abortion after adhering to House Bill 2, but if some babies can be saved it was definitely worth passage.

Senate Bill 5, which was also signed into law by Bevin, was another piece of worthy legislation that we were glad to see passed. It prohibits abortions at or after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The bill would not apply in cases where an abortion is required to save the life of the mother or prevent serious risk of bodily harm to the mother, but it does not contain exceptions for cases of rape or incest, which may have taken an otherwise good bill too far.

We applaud the Republican-controlled legislature for actually getting a lot done in the first week of this year’s short 30-day session. Their actions and that of a few of Democratic colleagues have the potential to take our state to the next level.

It’s a new day in Kentucky.