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August 15th, 2023 Political Note #582 Buddy Wheatley Kentucky Secretary of State
2023 General Election
Buddy Wheatley is no Jimmy Carter; no Bill Clinton, no Doug Jones. They were southern politicians who became national figures. Buddy Wheatley is not a national figure.
Buddy Wheatley graduated from the University of Kentucky, got another BA from Northern Kentucky University from which he also got his law degree.
The two future US Presidents got their degrees from national institutions. Jimmy Carter, from Georgia, got his Bachelor’s Degree from the United States Naval Academy. Bill Clinton, from Arkansas, got his BA from Georgetown and, after his time at Oxford as a result of a Rhodes Scholarship, got his JD from Yale.
Buddy Wheatley, from Kentucky, might be a little more like Doug Jones, the former Democratic Senator from Alabama. Jones got his BA from the University of Alabama and his JD from Alabama’s Samford University. Before he was elected US Senator, though, Doug Jones was the US Attorney from the Northern District of Alabama.
If Buddy Wheatley is elected Kentucky’s Secretary of State, he can say he was a two term State Rep and a former fireman and local fire chief. In another world and another time, Buddy Wheatley might have been a “good ole boy.” Like Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Doug Jones, Buddy Wheatley has found a way to be a Democrat, a respected man, and a politician without being a “a good ole boy.”
Like these other men, Buddy Wheatley may be as friendly and as convivial as a “good ole boy.” Like these other men, he is ambitious, he is not overtly racist or misogynistic. He is loyal to national values, not just local ones. Like these other men, he is no “good ole boy.”
Buddy Wheatley’s ambitions are modest. He is running for Secretary of State, not for President or US Senator. He brings his family history to the campaign. His brother was a firefighter in Covington. His dad was a firefighter in Covington, His grandfather was a firefighter in Covington. And his great grandfather was a firefighter in Covington, Kentucky.
Buddy Wheatley was a firefighter in Covington. Unlike those other members of his family, from 2005 to 2008, he was fire chief. Unlike those other members of his family, his wife is a doctor. He has a clear and simple message for his campaign. Kentucky is one of the “most restrictive voting access states in the Union. In 2022, we actually made it harder to vote. I will bring back more voting locations and precincts to make it easier to vote.”
Buddy Wheatley does have a scandal to his credit. In 2008, while he was the police chief, he crashed and totaled a city-owned vehicle. And he left the scene of the accident. Six hours later, when he showed up, his blood-alcohol level was at .5 – below the drunk driving limit. Covington punished him. He was suspended without pay for two weeks, required to pay Covington the value of the vehicle, and his 1.25% merit-based pay was revoked. Not that long afterwards, he left the job to open up a labor law practice representing unions and union workers throughout the state of Kentucky.
Buddy Wheatley is running on his expertise as a labor lawyer as well as his regular guy work as a firefighter. He has a long list of things he would do to offset Kentucky’s embarrassingly low voter turnout – 41.8% in 2022. Kentucky Fried Politics reports that long list:
- Increase polling locations – Under the current Secretary of State, polling places have significantly decreased. In order to ensure everyone in Kentucky has access to the polls, regardless of ability or transportation, we need to increase polling locations, not restrict them.
- Recruit more poll workers – With added polling places, we will need more poll workers, to ensure our elections are secure and effectively run.
- Extend voting hours – So many working Kentuckians aren’t able to make the 6:00 PM deadline to vote, and, as all parents know, the mornings are difficult when you have children. We need to extend the 6:00 PM cutoff to 7:00 PM, in order to make sure working Kentuckians are able to cast their ballot.
- Extend early voting to 2 weeks – Working families struggle to get off work to vote. The average length of early voting in the US is 23 days – and Kentucky only has 3. Our elections system can support 2 weeks of early voting, and it will ensure everyone in Kentucky has the opportunity to vote.
- Allow Independents and other registered voters to take part in our primary elections – This is to ensure our general election candidates represent all of
- Eliminate straight party voting – Most other US states have already done this, and it’s time Kentucky catches up to the rest of the country.
Buddy Wheatley is running against the Republican incumbent Michael Adams. Adams is a national Republican. After graduating from Louisville, he got his law degree from Harvard. He has worked for Mitch McConnell and former governor Ernie Fletcher and was counsel for the Deputy Attorney General under GW Bush. He was the attorney for the Republican Governors Association, represented the disgraced Missouri governor Eric Greitens, and served as Mike Pence’s attorney. He claims to be a proponent of expanding the voting rolls, but initiated a photo ID requirement to vote, which passed over Governor Beshear’s veto and removed some 175,000 voters from the rolls because they had not voted recently. Republicans dismissed Beshear’s complaint that the offices where people could get their photo ID were closed, explaining that those offices will be open for business in the spring or the summer.
Adams won the election of 2019, won his effort to pass voter ID, and deserves credit for working cooperatively with Governor Beshear to expand opportunities to vote during the pandemic. Buddy Wheatley is a Democrat who can win an election in the South, whose focus on expanding the opportunities to vote permanently is worth taking seriously. He is in a position to stop a Republican with national ambitions. The November 7 election is just a few months away. Don’t wait too long to help.
Other 2023 Elections
Democrats for Governor:
Incumbent Andy Beshear Kentucky, Formerly, the Attorney General. Len’s Political Note #533
Shawn Wilson Louisiana, Formerly the State Secretary of Transportation. Len’s Political Note #549
Brandon Presley Mississippi, Formerly one of three elected public service commissioners. Len’s Political Note #535
Democrats for Attorney General
Colonel Pamela Stevenson Kentucky, former Senior Official in the Air Force Judge Advocate system and state rep Len’s Political Note #561
Greta Kemp Martin Mississippi, Litigation Director for Disability Rights Mississippi running against a Republican who truly deserves to be defeated. Len’s Political Note #563
Democrats for Treasurer
Dustin Granger Louisiana, Financial Advisor. Len’s Political Note #562
Virginia State Legislature – Republicans have a 51-46 majority with 3 vacancies in the House of Delegates and Democrats have a 22-17 majority in the State Senate with 1 Republican who does not caucus with the other Republicans.
The seats below are competitive. See Len’s Political Note #573 of July 6, 2023 (Delegates) and Len’s Political Note #573 of July 10, 2023 (State Senate)
House of Delegates
Joshua Thomas House District 21
Susanna Gibson House District 57
Joshua Cole House District 65
Kimberly Pope Adams House District 82
Michael Feggans House District 97
Jessica Anderson House District 71
State Senate
Incumbent Danica Roem Senate District 30
Incumbent Monty Mason Senate District 24
Incumbent Clint Jenkins Senate District 17
Del Schuyler VanValkenurg Senate District 16
Russet Perry Senate District 31
