Joni Jenkins has long been one of our favorite state reps. When she got elected by her peers to be the new Democratic Minority Caucus leader in the House, we were both thrilled and ready with bunches of questions. So, in the midst of her first week (and the day before the filing deadline), we caught up with her in her office and put our questions to her. This is pretty much a verbatim transcript of the interview, except for our short discussion of her 17-pound cat, Fat Cat Bernie. (My comment: “That’s not a cat, that’s an ottoman!”) Here is our interview with Joni Jenkins, who was accompanied in the interview by Susan Klimchak of her office.
Were you the only person considered for the leadership role, or were you the only person vying for it?
Nobody else ran. I was the only nominee, and it was unanimous.
Congratulations!
Thank you.
Has Rocky given you any advice, and if so, what are the top two or three pieces of advice he has given you?
Listen to the lawyers. (laughs)
I don’t know that he’s actually sat down and given me advice. But I certainly have watched him for 26 years.
You know: remain calm, try to bring the very diverse caucus to consensus on some issues, and do that not heavy-handedly.
Well, since you say you watched him for 26 years, what did you learn from the watching?
There’s no I in team. (laughs) Almost every caucus meeting, he would get up and say “There’s no I in team!” It sort of became an inside joke for caucus members.
When he was the majority floor leader, he was the traffic cop on the floor. And just the calmness and confidence that he handled that with. And, as the minority leader, surrounding yourself with good people, so that when an issue comes up where the majority might be trying to do something that “ain’t good for Kentucky,” that you call them on it. You do that knowing that you have statute and rules on your side.
How did Rocky practice caucus discipline? And how would yours be different?
I think Rocky and I would be very different leaders in that way. I think things have changed so much. I always point to the way 25, 26 years ago, they designed offices. The offices here are so very dissimilar: there are big offices, and there are really tiny offices. And that was designed to reward people and punish people.
I don’t see things that way. I’m not their parent, I’m the leader. And I think you lead by example, and I believe in servant leadership. Leaders go last.
I will not have an agenda of my own any more – which I did before when I wasn’t in leadership. The caucus becomes my major focus. And helping develop them.
I’ve talked to many people — and Susan is going to kick me when I say this — I look at myself as a transitional leader. I’m not going to be in leadership for twenty years, as has been in the past. I’m going to get old, for one thing. (laughs) I see my role as a floor leader in developing that amazing caucus that we have — and we have an amazing caucus. The freshman class that came last year was big, but boy, it’s the best class I’ve ever seen. Smart people, people who are here for the right reasons, who really, really want to do a good job. Do their homework, and are prepared, and ready to be passionate about the issues that they care about. I see a ton of leadership potential in there.
I want to make sure that we develop them in a way that I can, in some years — I don’t know how many years — but in some years sit on my back porch and watch them from afar and say “I had a role in that – that new Speaker of the House, or that new floor leader.”
In the Republican caucus in the House, I don’t want you to identify the difficult ones. But I’m wondering if you could identify any that are easier to work with.
You know, I have a pretty good relationship with most of that caucus. Some of them I know better than others, because I served with them a bit longer. You know, they have 17 new people too. So, I’m still just getting to know some of those folks that were elected in ’18. We’ve only been through one session together. And it was my first session in leadership, so I was kind of focused on MY new 17 over here.
Every member of their leadership, I have a really good relationship with. David Osborne and I have served together for 20 years, I guess, or however long he’s been here — I got here first — we have a really good relationship. The other day we were talking about being civil to each other on the floor, and I said “You know, you really hurt my feelings when you gaveled me.” And he kind of laughed and said, “Well, maybe it hurts my feelings that I have to gavel you.” So we have that kind of relationship.
Well, that leads right into my next question, which you’ve probably already given away the answer to. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being “we can’t stand each other and we never talk at all,” and 10 being “we’re best buds and we talk all the time,” what’s your relationship to Mr. Osborne?
I would say maybe a 7 or an 8. We don’t talk all the time, we don’t go out for a drink together. But when something’s happening, we talk. He texted me when Bam got sick immediately, and let me know what was going on. I think back to when Darryl Owens was here and had some difficulties; I wasn’t in leadership then, but he texted me and asked “Is there something we should know about Representative Owens?”
So, we have that kind of relationship. We’ve been mad at each other. He’s wrong, sometimes! And I let him know when he’s wrong.
Are there key pieces of legislation from the Democrats, and do you think you’ll get them passed?
You know, we’re in the super-minority; we can count. We have some great pieces that are coming out. Representative Joe Graviss is working on a redistricting commission piece, working with the League of Women Voters and some of the Republicans. I think that’s a real uphill battle, so even if we have very little hope of it getting passed, we think it should be “out there” as good public policy, and let folks look at it outside the legislature as well.
We have Lisa Willner is following in Jim Wayne’s footsteps, working on a tax reform bill. Now, are the Democrats going to pass tax reform? No. But I think it’s important, as we did in the special session – a lot of people thought we were crazy for working on our own pension bill. “It’s not going to pass; why are you even doing that?” But we felt very strongly that on big policy issues, we need to not just say No; we also need to say “There’s a better way.” And, that it’s very important for it to be out there. I don’t think we can just be the party of No.
Are there any of your important bills that you think can get passed? Is there anything where you know you’ve got bipartisan support, or you are hearing that they might go with you on it?
I think there are groups of Democrats and Republicans working together on some things. Rep. Terri Branham Clark has been working across the aisle on the misclassification bill; I think there’a really good chance of that.
And sometimes it means that we as Democrats have to say “Okay, we won’t be the primary sponsor.” And that happens a lot. Speaker Pro Tem David Meade and I continue to work on child welfare. And I just filed a bill yesterday where I’m the primary sponsor and he’s the primary co-sponsor.
I think Attica Scott’s maternal health bill is very important, and I think that’s got a good chance of passing. But, you know, the budget’s going to take up all the air in the room.
Does KCEP have any traction here among Republicans? Do they listen to them at all?
There are a few Republicans – you know, Jeff Hoover said something about it during the pension session, that we ought to be paying attention. You know, “we think they’re all left-leaving, but facts are facts, and data is data.” I think there are some.
The two bills in the Senate that are getting all this attention — the immigration bill and the voter ID bill — here’s three choices. Do you think that they really want those bills? Or are they something to run on for November? Or, are they distractions and they really want something else?
I think they are very political bills. And, I think Senate Bill 1 is going to be very problematic. We have a small work group here in the House that is looking at that. I think it’s going to be a huge fiscal impact to local communities. And Rep. Rob Wiederstein and Nina Kulkarni are in that small work group, so I just called them up one day and said “Have you looked at what this does to the foster care system? We’ve got almost 10,000 kids right now in state custody; if you’re going to start having everybody start asking people for papers, what are you going to do if they don’t have them? And what are you going to do with their kids?” I think it’s going to have a huge impact.
So I think that they see it as a big political dog-whistle kind of thing for them, but I think there are a lot consequences should that bill pass.
I’m in a group that meets weekly, of activists and activist organizations, and everybody was just beside themselves about that bill. And it occurred to me as I was driving back to Louisville, I wonder if the Republicans are Machiavellian enough to file that as their SB1 and get everybody paying attention to it, and they don’t really care, except that it gets all the air out of the room — and over here is the think that they really want to pass. And everyone’s worn out by the time they get to it.
That could be. Could be the budget. Tax credits, vouchers. Although, David Givens on KET said there’s not appetite for vouchers or charter school funding.
Are you disappointed in the lack of candidates?
Yeah. But I’m also realistic. We all looked at that map from November. And we can beat our chest about the Governor, and I’m really glad Andy won — but, you know, he won by 5,000 votes against a psychopath.
We’ve tried to be strategic about where we’re recruiting, in areas that we can win. I know everybody’s like “Yay, let’s flip the House!” I need to be realistic. The first step is taking away the super-majority. And we’ve got some incumbents with tough races we’re going to have to protect. And a lot of open seats. And I have 10 incumbents not running. And most of them I didn’t know about till December.
Did you happen to look at Robert Kahne’s analysis and the maps?
Oh yes, we did.
I thought that was a really good road map of “here’s where you should work.”
It really was.
We may get most of the slots filled by tomorrow. But these candidates are killing me. “I want to come in on Friday.” I’m like “that’s pushing it.” And, we don’t have a friend in the Secretary of State’s office. I tried to get everybody to file before the end of the year, before Alison and Mary Sue Helm weren’t there.
And they’ve added this new wrinkle with the election finance system, that’s web-based and kicks people off. And that’s been a nightmare.
I’m not aware of that. What are you talking about?
Well, now everyone has to file their campaign reports electronically. I think it’s a good thing. I purchased the software and have done it for years, because I think it’s more transparent, easier for my treasurer. But now, when you file your paperwork to run, you have to register with KREF electronically and get THAT paper before you can go over to the Secretary of State’s office and file.
If you go over there without the paper, there’s some question about the legality of that. They have the filing paper, that’s signed by two people – and that’s what the statute says to put you on the ballot. Now, we’ve got some concerns that they may come back and say “Oh, these people didn’t do their KREF right” – even though it’s a new system and the web site has been really, really wonky.
But what I understand is that a Supreme Court justice — I don’t know which one — had a WHOLE lot of problems getting his filing papers together because of that. So perhaps we will have a “friend” on that level. (chuckle)
Is there anything that I should have asked about that I didn’t?
I will say, on — what is this, day 3? — I do think that with the election of Andy Beshear, there has been a different feel to things. I see a relief among the majority. And we’ve had several meetings where we’ve talked about how things need to change. A lot of it is rhetoric that we’re hearing on the national level, and civility is at an all-time low. But also, 34 new people last year. Speaker Osborne and I have talked about when you first came, they set you next to a veteran. Well, we don’t have enough veterans. The procedures, and the rules, a lot of that takes time. Figuring out the decorum, and what’s appropriate and not appropriate.
The first time I stood on the floor of the House, 26 years ago, it was overwhelming to me. And I sat for a couple months, and just watched.
When I taught at Humana, we talked about culture. And my definition of “culture is “this is the way we do things around here.” And it’s passed along without writing. It’s passed along by watching. And the old saying is “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Culture overwhelms everything. So, changing the culture does take time.
Yes, it does. And I think when both leadership teams in the House are both pretty new, a lot of the heavy-handedness that my own party may have had in the majority, you can’t say “Y’all did this,” because “y’all” is not there any more. It’s a new day. So I think that’s going to help.
And I hope that the civility that we’ve seen the first couple of days, we will see on day 59 and 60 as well.
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