JEFFERSON COUNTY, Ky. — During a House Local Government Committee hearing Wednesday, Kentucky lawmakers gave first approval to a bill aimed at making Louisville’s Metro Council and mayoral races nonpartisan.
Sponsored by seven Louisville Republicans, House Bill 388 cleared the committee on a 16-2 vote and heads to the full House floor.
"We have voices from all over the community inside the Watterson and outside the Watterson — Valley Station, Fern Creek, Middletown — all those areas need to be represented at the table, and they haven't been before now," Republican House Majority Whip, Jason Nemes, said. "If you talk to mayors of (cities with nonpartisan elections), they'll say that it helps them attract more moderates and less partisans to the office, which I think is a good thing."
Nemes is one of seven Louisville Republicans sponsoring the bill to remove candidates' party affiliations from ballots in Louisville's races for mayor and Metro Council.
The goal, Nemes said, is to incentivize candidates to campaign in a greater number of areas, around the county, before elections.
"The best way to (get candidates engaged) is to make sure somebody has to go get votes. That's what moves politicians," he said. "I want whoever it is to have to hunt votes all over the county."
Fellow HB 388 co-sponsor Rep. Kevin Bratcher, R-Louisville, pointed to the fact many other big U.S. cities use nonpartisan election systems.
"Party politics doesn't help fill a pothole; it doesn't get a street paved," Bratcher said. "There's got to be a point where you get (so much) closer to the people, that party shouldn't matter."
Among the 420 cities located in Kentucky, only six run partisan elections, Nemes said.
Rep. Pamela Stevenson, D-Louisville, was one of the committee's two "no" votes and said people living in Louisville's urban core feel strongly about keeping elections partisan.
"Why should a committed approve what the people want? The people have told us what they want," Stevenson said.
A 2022 report from the The National League of Cities (NLC) stated nonpartisan elections "tends to produce elected officials more representative of the upper socioeconomic strata" and "aggravates the class bias in voting turnout."
The bill's other provisions are born out of recommendations in last year's sweeping review of the city-county merger that took place in 2003.
"Merger was supposed to be, 'we're all one big happy city,'" Bratcher said. "A lot of people feel cheated out in the suburbs...We feel like we're not getting the services that Louisville should be offering."
Among other things, the bill also aims to make it easier for areas, like the Eastwood neighborhood, to form new independent cities.
"I always tell people, it's like a card game right now. Louisville Metro Planning (Commission), they're playing. We're on the outside looking in," Bob Federico, Chairman of the Eastwood Incorporation Committee, LLC., said. "We're not being heard. We have no voice in the community. Downtown doesn't, doesn't know what we need."
Eastwood's hopes of forming a city have been made possible by a Kentucky law passed in 2022, which brings back the ability for neighborhoods to form their own cities or join another one — the process hadn't been allowed since a time pre-merger in 2003.
Other HB 388 provisions include:
- Setting political and geographic requirements for Louisville boards and commissions
- Requiring Louisville Metro pay suburban fire departments for responding to EMS runs outside their boundaries
"I know that there's some issues in getting funding back to our fire department if they have to make runs downtown," Federico said. "So that's another part of the bill that's important."
Nemes said he understands certain critiques of the bill, but is committed to striking a balance between serving the city's urban core and its suburban communities.
"At the same time, we know that our city is struggling," Nemes said. "We're trying to make sure that we can, we can strengthen the core as much as possible."
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