Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include information from the Florence City Council meeting.
Erlanger and Florence joined the ranks of other regional leaders when its city councils unanimously passed a resolution to oppose twin partisan elections bills, Senate and House bills 50, at a caucus meeting on Tuesday.
Senate and House bills 50 would mandate that candidates for many local positions, like school board members, city wards, mayors, city legislators and conservation officers, declare their party affiliation. Likewise, passage of the bills would require such positions to go through primary elections in addition to normal general elections.
The Senate bill is sponsored by Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer of Georgetown, whose district includes a chunk of Kenton County. The House bill is sponsored by Rep. Matt Lockett of Nicholasville.
“From what I understand, there is bipartisan support for nonpartisan elections,” said Erlanger Mayor Jessica Fette at the meeting. “So, anytime you have Democrats and Republicans seeing eye-to-eye to keep the partisanship out of elections, I really think we need to take note.”
The Florence City Council stated, “Our leaders oppose any bills that would add substantial costs, require more poll workers and add partisan politics to local offices.”
Florence council also added that “within the state of Kentucky, there are 415 cities and only five of them partake in partisan elections. We ultimately see no significant benefit to requiring partisan elections that would warrant additional cost and challenges presented by the requirement. The city of Florence believes decisions are best made at the local level.”
The council urged residents to contact their local legislators and oppose the bill.
Several other polities in the region, including Independence, Walton, Fort Wright, Ludlow and Villa Hills, have all passed similar resolutions. Erlanger’s resolution was modeled after the resolutions that passed in Independence and Fort Wright.
The Kenton County Mayors Group, of which Fette is a member, also passed a resolution opposing the bills, albeit one with no official institutional power. At least two Kenton County commissioners and a member of the Covington City Commission have also expressed opposition to the bill, even though neither body has taken any official action.
In a video talk with KET, a PBS affiliate, earlier this month, Sen. Thayer gave his reasoning for sponsoring the bill.
“I believe voters should have the most amount of information possible when they go in to the polls to cast their vote,” said Thayer. “The number one step we could take to tell people about who they’re voting for is for people to declare their political party when they’re running for a current nonpartisan office.”
Erlanger’s resolution levels many of the same criticisms that other leaders have expressed about the bill: It incurs unnecessary expense on local positions that don’t pay well, and it discourages people from running at a time when there is a dearth of candidates running for local office. Other criticisms include that the law already allows local polities to run partisan races if they choose and, finally, that party affiliation isn’t something that tends to come up in local governance.
“We don’t need more partisanship in this world,” Fette said before allowing the clerk to call for a vote.
The Senate bill has been sent to the Kentucky Senate Committee on Local and State Governments, where legislators will choose to either revise the bill or let it expire. The House bill is currently awaiting committee assignment. The current session ends March 30.
