As if the leges in Frankfort don’t already have enough to do, they’ve decided to re-open the War on Louisville. A bill moving through the legislature would dramatically change how Louisville elects its leaders. And this is being done in Frankfort, without any input or vote by the citizens of Louisville.
House Bill 605 – Make it all non-partisan
HB 605 would make all elections for Louisville offices into non-partisan affairs, with the top two vote-getters in the primary moving on to the general election. This would include the offices of mayor and Metro Council. One of the obvious implications of such a system is that if one party has multiple strong candidates, they could split the vote and allow a lesser candidate from the other party to prevail. Jeffersontown Mayor Bill Dieruf, who is rumored to want to run for mayor, is in favor of the proposal, and will testify to such in a House committee hearing.
One of the key objections to the bill is that it is being voted on in Frankfort, instead of in Louisville. As noted in the Courier-Journal, Jean Porter, a spokeswoman for Mayor Greg Fischer, said the change would be “significant” and should be thoughtfully debated.
“There are examples of both models — partisan and nonpartisan — in large cities in the U.S.,” Porter said. But “legislation authorizing city-county merger in 2000 specified partisan elections, and that’s what Louisvillians voted for that year.
“The mayor would argue that any further change be decided by the voters of Louisville, not the legislature.”
Reactions to the new War on Louisville
For the most part, Republicans were in favor of bill, and said the it would find support in Frankfort. Various Louisville leaders spoke out against the bill, most especially about the fact that the changes were being forced on Louisville from Frankfort, instead of being discussed and voted on in Louisville. This comment from Councilman Bill Hollander sums up those sentiments:
“I talk to people across our community every day and I have never heard anyone, Republican or Democrat, say that they want more Frankfort meddling in our local government.”
[click_to_tweet tweet=”I talk to people across our community every day and I have never heard anyone, Republican or Democrat, say that they want more Frankfort meddling in our local government. – Bill Hollander on the two new War on Louisville bills” quote=”I talk to people across our community every day and I have never heard anyone, Republican or Democrat, say that they want more Frankfort meddling in our local government. – Bill Hollander on the new War on Louisville bill”]
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(Note: An earlier version of this article included a second bill that was actually from an earlier General Assembly session. We apologize for the error.)