Northern Kentucky held nine seats in the state House of Representatives and four seats in the Senate between 2013 and 2022.
Now, the region has 10 House seats – 10% of the 100-seat chamber – and five seats in the Senate. Population growth in NKY’s core counties of Boone, Campbell and Kenton is one reason for the change.
Another is something called partisan redistricting.
Kentucky state lawmakers are required under the state constitution to redraw all 138 state legislative districts and U.S. congressional district boundaries every 10 years “as nearly equal in population as may be without dividing any county, except where a county may include more than one district” based on census data.
Unlike constitutions in several other states (including Ohio), though, Kentucky courts have ruled its constitution doesn’t outright ban partisan gerrymandering – or drawing districts in a way that benefits one party over another party.
With GOP supermajorities in both the Kentucky House and Senate since 2016, Republicans control the redistricting process in the commonwealth – including in Northern Kentucky. They redrew the region’s lines in 2022 by tightening the bounds of some district lines while expanding others.
Moving across the border into all three core NKY counties was House District 78, which now includes all of Pendleton County, southwest Campbell County and parts of southern Kenton County.
Over in the Senate, District 20 – which under the 2013 map included all of Carroll, Henry, Shelby and Trimble counties and the eastern edge of Jefferson County – now includes historically blue (or Democratic) Franklin County, southern Boone County and part of western Kenton County plus all of Carroll, Gallatin and Owen counties. Sen. Gex Williams (R-Verona) is the district’s senator.
Changes were also made to NKY’s congressional 4th District, held by U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie. When lawmakers redrew the district back in 2012 (a year earlier than redistricting of state legislative seats in 2013) the 4th District included the eastern edge of Jefferson County – one of only two Kentucky counties President Joe Biden carried in 2020 (the other was Fayette).
Lawmakers cut Jefferson County out of the district in 2022. The district was then redrawn to include northern Nelson County plus northern Carter County and all of Robertson County – both closer to Massie’s home turf in Lewis County.
Now, as state legislative and federal elections loom in 2024, the current state legislative and congressional maps have received a closer look – most notably from the Kentucky Supreme Court. In December, the court upheld current state House and congressional maps that had been challenged in part for “extreme partisan gerrymandering” by the Kentucky Democratic Party and others, including state House Minority Floor Leader Derrick Graham (D-Frankfort).
In short, the court framed redistricting as an “inherently political process” required of the Kentucky General Assembly by the state constitution. The majority did not agree with arguments that the state House and congressional maps went beyond the pale of constitutional partisan gerrymandering.
Graham, House Minority Whip Rachel Roberts (D-Newport), and House Minority Caucus Chair Cherlynn Stevenson (R-Lexington) released a joint statement after the court’s Dec. 14 ruling, calling the 2022 congressional and state House maps “textbook examples of extreme partisan gerrymandering, from how they were drawn in secret to how they effectively decided the outcome of most races by the end of the primary. This entire process should have been rejected today; instead, we fear it will now become standard procedure.”
When LINK nky asked Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer (R-Georgetown) about the court challenge last October, he dismissed claims that the 2022 maps were unconstitutional. He also said he doesn’t expect the supermajorities in the House and Senate that led the redistricting process to “go away or even shrink any time in the near future. It’s something I’ve worked toward for a long time,” Thayer said.
He didn’t tell LINK that he wouldn’t run for his seat in the Senate supermajority past 2024. Thayer – a five-term senator who now represents all of Grant and Scott counties plus a large portion of Kenton County (including Independence) and part of northwest Fayette County – announced in December that he will not seek reelection this year. He last ran for his seat in 2020.
“There are exciting private sector opportunities I wish to pursue that will require more of my time and energy, which I am currently not afforded with the great responsibility that comes with being a member of our citizen legislature,” Thayer said in a Dec. 13 release.
He’s not alone in deciding to step away from the General Assembly. Other incumbents in NKY have announced they won’t run again.
NKY incumbents say ‘no’ to reelection
The first NKY incumbent to announce he wouldn’t run for reelection this year was Sen. John Schickel, a Union Republican who represents Senate District 11 in Boone County, including the county’s largest city of Florence.
Schickel dropped the statewide announcement Nov. 14.
The former U.S. marshal and Boone County jailer represented all of Boone County in the state Senate for most of his state legislative career, beginning in 2009. That changed when the Senate created a new district map in 2022 that moved Verona and Walton (in Boone County) and the rest of southern Boone County to Williams’ district. The last time Schickel ran for his seat was in 2020.
Schickel said in his November announcement that he will continue to represent his district – including Florence, Burlington, Union, and points both north and west to the Ohio River – fully until his last day in office in December. Asked why he decided not to run again, Schickel said, “I have always thought citizen legislators should not make a career out of their service because I strongly believe in the founding principles of a government of the people and by the people. For that reason, I will not seek reelection in the coming year.”
The next announcement that a NKY incumbent would not seek reelection came a few days before Christmas, on Dec. 20, from House Minority Whip Rachel Roberts (D-Newport). Roberts – the region’s only Democrat, now in her second term in the General Assembly – represents the historically Democratic stronghold of House District 67, which includes Newport, Bellevue, Wilder and a southward stretch tapering along the Licking River.
Democrats who have served for decades are bowing out, too. Graham (who challenged the 2022 House and congressional district maps) and Lexington Democrat Ruth Ann Palumbo – now in her 17th term (and 34th year) in the Kentucky House – both announced in December that they will not seek reelection this year.
Reboot or move on?
The exodus of three high profile state lawmakers from Northern Kentucky and other prominent state legislators during the 2024 election cycle is intriguing. That’s true both for Republicans, who hold supermajorities in both the House and Senate, and Democrats, who managed to get one of their own reelected as governor in an otherwise deep red state.
None of the incumbents mentioned have cited the state’s 2022 redistricting maps as a reason for their decision not to run again. D. Stephen Voss, associate professor at the University of Kentucky Department of Political Science, tells LINK nky that it’s pretty common for incumbents to decide not to run for reelection after redistricting. That goes for both parties, no matter which is in the majority – or supermajority, as it may be, he said.
The rapport that incumbents lose with their constituents after districts change is usually a factor, he said.
“This was a redistricting scheme drawn by the Republicans to help Republicans,” he said. “It might make sense to have Democrats quitting, but why the heck would we have Republicans quitting, right?
“Well, change is bad for them,” said Voss.
“Even if they used to have a Republican district and they still have a Republican district, or they had a Democratic district before and after, it’s still change. It still means the territory with which they had a relationship was disrupted. And so they kind of have to start rebuilding those relationships as a representative. It’s a lot of work. If you’ve already done it once and now you’ve been asked to do it again, you may just want to move on rather than reboot,” he said.
Power struggles between parties may also be a factor, Voss told LINK.
In October, Thayer described to LINK his party’s relationship with Beshear as “a stump we have to plow around” at the same time that Beshear was campaigning on a record of signing “627 bipartisan bills” passed in the GOP-led Senate and House. Thayer – whose district changed when a portion of Fayette County was added to it in 2022 – instead credited Beshear with over 80 vetoes overridden by Kentucky state lawmakers since 2020.
“Odds are it’s just not as fun a place to be,” especially for Democrats in the minority, said Voss.
Unpredictability of voters is another risk after redistricting, according to Voss. Just because one party has won elections in the past and has configured voting districts with the intent of continuing to win elections doesn’t mean it will, he said.
“Voting tends to be less stable than we give it credit for,” Voss told LINK. “In the short term there’s still risk because (the majority party) just reconstituted the terrain that their members need to represent. So, if the Democrats have a good year next year, it would make it harder for Republicans to win even in Republican territory because they don’t have those bonds with those voters.”
Could 2030 bring more change?
It’s also possible that Kentucky’s state legislative, and maybe congressional, district lines could change again after the next census, in 2030.
Back in 2016, the Kentucky State Data Center at the University of Louisville projected 15% growth in population in Boone County between 2020 and 2030 (from 139,018, slightly more than the county’s actual recorded population of 135,968 in the 2020 census, to 163,722). It predicted more modest growth of 4% in Kenton County (from 169,386 in 2020, close to the actual recorded population of 169,064 in the 2020 census, to 176,039 in 2030). For Campbell County, it forecast growth of less than 1%, from 92,898 in 2020 (close to the 93,076 reported in the 2020 census) to 93,473 in 2030.
That growth would coincide with a statewide population increase of roughly 10% over the next 15 years, per the center’s projections. Voss said he expects most of Kentucky’s population growth – through 2030, at least – to happen in what he called the “Golden Triangle” – the area bounded by NKY, Louisville and Lexington. “Other things equal, NKY will see a gain in clout because, with more people comes more representation in the legislature,” Voss told LINK.
At the same time, a shift in population could mean lost districts in other regions, specifically Eastern and Western Kentucky, said Voss. Gains in some counties and losses in others squares with the Kentucky State Data Center’s 2016 projections, per its report: “Of Kentucky’s 120 counties, 79 (66%) are projected to exhibit declines in total population between 2015 and 2040,” according to the report.
Without knowing exactly whom voters will elect in the future, there is a degree of uncertainty as to how much power NKY will ultimately hold. But “other things equal,” to quote Voss, NKY’s standing appears strong.
“Mathematically, yes, NKY is going to be gaining influence,” Voss said.