Some Thoughts about Louisville’s Mayoral Primary Race from an Independent

There’s been a lot of gnashing of teeth since the primary election results of May 19^th rolled in. How could we end up with two Democrats in November and no Republicans? To compound matters, one of those Democrats is the much disliked current mayor, Craig Greenberg, the bane of nearly every Jefferson county resident; viewed by many to be one of the worse mayors since the city/county merger of 2003.

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".

 

In Focus: State Rep. Jason Nemes discusses updates toKentucky Law that governs partisan and non-partisan races in Louisville

Commonwealth Secretary of State’s Election Results