Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer recently told KET he believes making local mayoral, council, and school board races partisan would give voters a better grasp of what they’re voting for when they cast their ballots.
"I believe the voters need to be informed and the best way you can inform them is tell a person which party you're a member of when you're on the ballot."Sen. Damon Thayer
House Democratic Caucus Chair Cherlynn Stevenson, of Lexington, countered that Republicans might regret moving in that direction.
"I think that they should be very careful," she replied. "I think a lot of the judicial races where we saw conservatives coming out and saying they were very conservative, a lot of those judges just lost those races."
Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton has expressed support for the city’s current system of keeping local races non-partisan. Gov. Andy Beshear has spoken out against the proposal in blunt terms, calling it an “awful” idea that would increase partisanship at a particularly polarized time.
Thayer’s bill, Senate Bill 50, is currently assigned to the Senate State and Local Government Committee.
