A few Northern Kentucky Republicans face tough battles for reelection in the House.
One of those is incumbent Rep. Ed Massey (R-Union). Massey, along with Rep. Adam Koening (R-Erlanger) and Rep. Sal Santoro (R-Union), are facing Republican challengers from the sect of the party accusing the trio of not being conservative enough.
Massey has come under particular scrutiny from the Commonwealth Conservative PAC. The PAC accuses the Boone County Republican of being “liberal” on its campaign website, liberaledmassey.com. Massey’s opponent, Steve Rawlings, agrees with the attacks and thinks he is a better fit for office.
Let’s take a look at what each candidate plans to offer voters.
Rep. Ed Massey
Massey came into the House in 2019 after being in public service for around 30 years. First, he served as a firefighter/EMT, then as a school board member. When his predecessor, Addia Wuchner, who is now the executive director of Kentucky Right to Life, decided not to run, Massey thought he would step up to run in a special election.
“I think I’ve had a pretty good run serving as chair of judiciary for the past two years, and I’ve had the fortune of passing around, I believe, 30 pieces of legislation,” Massey said.
The NKY lawyer was then reelected in 2020. Since joining the House, he’s worked on various education, veteran affairs, and judiciary bills.
But, Massey has been attacked for his vote against House Bill 9, the controversial charter school bill that will bring a pilot charter school to Northern Kentucky.
“I actually am very much for school choice,” Massey said. “In fact, if people knew the community that I live in, we created Ignite Institute, which is a school of choice. It’s a partnership between Boone and Kenton County.”
Massey noted that the school allowed all parties the opportunity to open up, listen and collaborate with people.
Massey said he doesn’t know that much about his opponent besides the fact that he is a retired lawyer. While his opponents attack, he says he has more in common with them than most people think, but if you disagree with them just once, they’ll attack you.
“I believe ironically, he was recruited into the role by some pretty extreme people who if you vote 99% of the time with them, but vote against them one time, they will still go after you,” Massey said. “And so they saw to it that all of us in Northern Kentucky we’re going to be challenged.”
Steve Rawlings
Rawlings said he is seeking to restore constitutional principles that have been lost in the past two-plus years.
“I seek to end mandates and vaccine requirements to promote freedom for both employers and employees to pursue their goals unhindered by constantly changing new rules and requirements,” Rawlings said.
(There are no mandates in the state of Kentucky at the moment).
He also said he would promote school choice and pursue policies allowing greater parental control and involvement in their child’s schooling.
“Education should be kept under local authority, with teachers and parents working together,” Rawlings said. “I will lead efforts to stop the teaching of divisive critical race theory and vote for legislation that advances age-appropriate education.”
(There is no legislation or curriculum to teach critical race theory in Kentucky).
He said his platform includes reducing the tax burden and opposing efforts to raise taxes. He said he would also fight to restore election integrity in Kentucky.
“Research has proven that Kentucky elections are not secure,” Rawlings said. “There is a cyber threat to our voting machines and systems. I will advocate for hand counting by pen and with paper ballots.”
Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams has stated to LINK nky that Kentucky has some of the most secure elections in the country.
“Our voting machines do not connect to the Internet; those who make these wild claims about our elections being hacked have no experience running elections themselves and just want to exploit others for political and financial purposes,” Adams said in April when the Northern Kentucky LiberTEA Party had a presentation touting election fraud in Northern Kentucky.