The Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce held its annual Legislative Recap Breakfast on Thursday morning. They had three Northern Kentucky Representatives and one Senator talk about important aspects of the 2022 General Assembly Session.
Besides being from Northern Kentucky, the legislators all had two more things in common: they are all Republican and they all chair essential committees in the General Assembly.
Sen. Chris McDaniel (R-Ryland Heights) chairs the Senate Appropriations and Revenue Committee. Rep. Adam Koenig (R-Erlanger) chairs the House Licensing and Occupations Committee. Rep. Kim Moser (R-Taylor Mill) chairs the Health and Family Services Committee. Rep. Sal Santoro (R-Union) chairs the House Budget Review and the Subcommittee for Transportation.
They were chosen to sit on the panel because they played instrumental roles in important legislation this session.
“We selected committee chairs in issue areas where priority legislation are housed, and with the Republican supermajority, it’s how it’s structured,” said Tami Wilson, the vice president of Public Affairs for the NKY Chamber. The Chamber elaborated that they are not partisan but that the panel reflects the makeup of the General Assembly.
It’s also important to note that there are only two democratic legislators in NKY. There also aren’t that many across the state of Kentucky. In the House, there are 75 Republicans and 25 Democrats. In the Senate, there are 30 Republicans and eight Democrats. It’s the first time in Kentucky history that Republicans have had a supermajority in both chambers, which led them to fully control important issues of the session, such as budget, infrastructure, abortion, taxes, and education.
The two democrats in Northern Kentucky are Rep. Rachel Roberts (D-Newport) and Rep. Buddy Wheatley (D-Covington), both of which have been on previous panels for the NKY Chamber. When most think of Northern Kentucky, they think of Boone, Campbell, and Kenton counties. However, the NKY Chamber also represents Carrol, Gallatin, Owen, Grant, Pendleton, and Bracken counties.
This is about 450,000 people, or 10 percent of the population of Kentucky, said Brent Cooper, the president of the NKY Chamber during the breakfast.
In the northern most counties, there are 10 House seats. If you take into account the additional counties, there are 13 House seats. There are also four Senate seats in Northern Kentucky, all of which are held by Republicans.
But, how exactly did the legislature become so Republican-dominant, and what does that mean for Northern Kentucky?
The Democratic brand in Northern Kentucky
When Campbell County Democratic Party Chair Crimson MacDonald went to high school in Boone County, she doesn’t recall there ever being a democratic candidate.
“Even though I was in high school, I was nerdy enough to follow politics, and I don’t remember ever having a Democrat to vote for or to volunteer for,” MacDonald said. “It just wasn’t part of the landscape.”
She has been in Campbell County for 10 years, and she says getting candidates to run for office is still hit and miss. One candidate who always was on the ballot was Democrat Dennis Keene, who represented the 67th District before Rachel Roberts. Keene now serves in the Beshear administration as the Commission of Local Government.
Before Roberts ran for the House, she ran against Sen. Wil Schroder (R-Wilder) in the 24th District. But, candidates typically aren’t well funded, and their name recognition is often low, MacDonald said.
“So, yes, in general, in Northern Kentucky, we do have fewer Democrats on the ballot,” MacDonald said. “It is very hard for us to fill the ballot with candidates from the local level up to the statehouse.”
Northern Kentucky has 10 House seats and four Senate seats after the latest round of redistricting. There will be no Democratic candidates running in the 60th, 63rd, or the 78th district. No Democratic candidates will face a primary.
“So, the democratic apparatus in Northern Kentucky has long been light on supporters and light on people and light on infrastructure,” said Ryan Salzman, a political science professor at Northern Kentucky University and Bellevue City Councilmember.
MacDonald thinks that it’s twofold. First, redistricting caused some reshuffling that forced the original Democrat running in the 68th into the 67th against incumbent Rachel Roberts. The party then scrambled and was able to get Kelly Jones to run in the 68th.
“That’s a really defeating thing. You’re ramping up, you’re getting ready to run, you’re getting all your staff in place, and then you can’t run,” MacDonald said.
According to MacDonald, the second reason that candidates don’t run is that it’s just exhausting to be a legislator. Representatives and senators are paid for a part-time job, and it’s a public-facing position, meaning that a candidate’s family comes under extreme scrutiny, “and then the toxicity of Frankfort,” she said. “There is a lot of hesitation that people just don’t want the gross part of Frankfort.”
“In the recent environment, politics has become extremely partisan, hostile, and toxic,” said Danielle Bell, the Kenton County Democratic Party chair. She added that they also had a candidate redistricted out of the 64th District.
But, Republicans believe it’s not necessarily redistricting or the toxic nature of politics. It’s the Democrats and the policies they propose as to why they can’t bring forward candidates. Among the reasons are that Kentucky Democrats keep nominating candidates who cater to the progressive left, such as Charles Booker and Amy McGrath, according to Sean Southard, the communications director for the Republican Party of Kentucky.
“This phenomenon is not unique to northern Kentucky,” Southard said. “The Democrat Party has gone the way of the dodo bird in Kentucky, and they have no one but themselves to blame.”
Southard elaborated that the ideas proposed by the Democratic party are “toxic” to Kentucky voters and are out of step with Kentucky values.
“Case in point: they couldn’t even recruit candidates to run,” Southard said. “In the statehouse, I believe they left something like 43 races uncontested. That’s how bad the Democrat brand is in Kentucky.”
The Shift in Political Power Amongst the Northern Kentucky Caucus
Shane Noem, the chair for the Kenton County Republican Party, believes that it’s not easy to run for office in the era of social media and sound bites, which turns off many good people from running.
“But, I think there are larger macro trends at play here,” Noem said. “Twenty-five years ago, there wasn’t a Republican elected in Kenton County, and fast forward to today, there’s only one Democrat left elected in Kenton County.”
Noem believes that these trends happen over time, and Republicans have a message that is resonating right now.
“I think Democrats’ disarray is causing a lot of tension locally in a very conservative Northern Kentucky,” Noem said, “and I think voters align better with Republican policies right now.”
In 2016, the Kentucky legislature shifted Republican. In the Senate and House, they gained majority control for the first time in history and also elected a Republican governor in Matt Bevin. This reflected national shifts when the country elected Donald Trump as president.
Salzman believes the ebbs and flows of political party power happen, but they do tend to mirror the current preferences of the voting populace.
“Generally speaking, you’d like to see representation in legislative bodies that mirrors the ideological preferences of the community,” Salzman said. “In that way, I think the representation in Frankfort is not probably that far off from a lot of the ideological balance in the state.”
But, Salzman believes that power is starting to fall out of balance.
Where Does the Democratic Party Go From Here?
The Republican Party is fracturing in Northern Kentucky. Anytime a political party holds power for long enough, it starts to fight internally. Beginning with the Tea Party back in 2009, the Republican Party has shifted. In both Campbell County and Boone County, the party chairs (Campbell: Anna Zinkhon and Boone: Chet Hand) are running against long-term incumbents. This is highly unusual and shows the gap occurring in the party.
What we’re seeing right now in Campbell County are establishment Republicans that preach lower taxes, job creation, and infrastructure. These candidates also typically work with the Chamber of Commerce. The Northern Kentucky Republican caucus was highly successful in bringing infrastructure money to NKY this session.
“You have the people that are being combative with those more traditional establishment candidates and individuals within the party, and they have decided that the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce and the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce are the enemy now,” Salzman said.
This is leading to a natural fracture in the Republican party that could open up the door for Democrats in the future.
“I’m curious to see what happens in the primary and what that means for the Republican Party and this supermajority in the Republican Party, and especially this overwhelming majority in Northern Kentucky,” Salzman said.