The other, lesser known, Democrat is Shameka Parrish-Wright,
the current metro council represent for District 3, which covers some of the city’s West End and
much of Shively. First elected in 2023, she serves on the Budget, Planning and
Zoning, and Public Safety committees as well as on the Commission for Persons
with Disabilities.
As a community organizer for 25 years, Shameka is the
executive director of VOCAL-KY, a social activist organization dedicated to
ending AIDS, the failed drug war, overcrowding jails and homelessness. She was the co-chair of Kentucky Alliance
Against Racist and Political Oppression and was active with Black Lives Matter
and the protest movement pertaining to Breonna Taylor.
In addition, she has
been involved with numerous other social justice groups such as The Coalition
for the Homeless, Kentucky Reproductive Freedom PAC, the Anne Braden Institute
for Social Justice Research, and other progressive causes. In short, all things
many on the Far Right would consider “socialist” or “communist”. That leaves
local Republicans and conservatives between a rock and a hard place with many
looking for someone to blame.
Several have suggested Rep. Jason Nemes (R-Middletown), who
proposed making the Mayoral and metro council races nonpartisan. He was a lead
sponsor of HB 388 making Louisville, one of just six cities with partisan races
out of the state’s 400 other cities. The idea was to bring Louisville more in
line with the other cities and communities in the Commonwealth and in keeping
with the growing trend nationally.
HB 388 was also based on recommendations made the bipartisan
Louisville Metro Comprehensive Review Committee (which, by the way, excluded
Independent and third party participation or input). Thus, no longer will the mayoral
or metro council races reflect a candidate’s party affiliation. As a result,
uninformed voters by and large, weren't sure who they’re voting for.
Just because no party loyalty label ("D" or "R") was shown on the ballot, the candidates were still very much partisan. In a true non-partisan election, candidates shouldn't be tied to any party, otherwise you end up with what we got---two Democrats running. Of course, it could have just as easily gone the other way with two Republicans facing off in November.
In non-partisan elections, voters need to be educated to look at a candidate's position on issues and make their decision about who to vote for based on that. Given that most voters are generally conservative leaning (though not extreme), the moderate Right and moderate Left should do well while the extremists on both sides would likely be defeated. This would bring us back to where rationality and compromise are the order of the day.
The second big issue was that most voters, despite their near
constant kvetching about Mayor Greenberg, didn’t bother to vote. Of the 585,088
registered voters in Jefferson County, just 151,288 showed up at the polls. That
works out to be a measly 25% of the vote. Where was the other ¾ of the county’s
voters? As an aside, of Louisville’s 7,655 Independents and third party voters, 6,516 turned out to
vote. That’s an 85% turnout.
Therefore, it looks like the fault (or blame if you prefer) rests with the leadership
of both the Democratic and Republican parties for failing to get their people out
to vote, and especially that of the local Republican party for not helping its voters
to know who on the ballot was a Republican! An apparent failure in understanding non-partisan ballots.
I should also mention that it is my understanding that Republican
metro council members, as well as other elected Republicans, decided to “stay
home” as well. While technically the party doesn’t openly endorse during a
primary, individuals, elected or not, most certainly can support a candidate of
their choice. Afterall, since this was a “non-partisan” race, there would
obviously be no bias or violation of bylaws since no one on the ballot was a “D” or “R” (or “I”
if we were so allowed).
I suppose if anyone is looking to fix blame on the mayoral election
outcome, Republicans can look to their party leaders and to other elected
Republicans for not supporting their own as well as failing to alert their partisan
“congregation” just who was and wasn’t a member and working to get out the vote.
From my perspective, this is a not just a failure of leadership, it’s a
betrayal of Republicans and conservatives alike.
Finally, we need to look at our fellow voters. Three-fourths
of those eligible to vote stay home,. Most of those were in the county while
urban Louisville came out to vote in force---as it usually does. It makes me
wonder just how much worse things are going to have to get in Louisville to get
us off our collective butts and do something aside complain. To paraphrase
President Teddy Roosevelt, “if all you want to do is complain and offer no
solutions, then sit down and shut up. We
need doers to change the system. Not whiners".
Commonwealth Secretary of State’s Election Results
