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May 19th , 2023        Political Note #561 Colonel Pamela Stevenson Kentucky Attorney General

2023                          General Election

Today’s Note and the few that follow are about promising candidates for other statewide positions.  Pamela Stevenson is running for Attorney General of Kentucky.

This is the first in a series of pieces about candidates for statewide office in 2023.  Three states belong in this group – Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi.  I have already written about the candidates for governor in these states.  Links to those Notes are below.

Three questions.

  • Can a National Democrat be elected Attorney General of a Southern or a Border state?
  • Can an African American be elected Attorney General of a Southern or a Border state?
  • Can a woman be elected Attorney General of a Southern or a Border state?

Exclude Virginia which, despite its election of a Republican Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General in 2021 has become a safe Democratic state in Presidential elections and Senatorial elections.  Virginia has become almost as much a part of the northeast politically as the former border state of Maryland.

Consider North Carolina, with a legislature and Supreme Court controlled by extreme Republicans.  Since 1975, all five elected Attorneys General have been national Democrats.

Florida is a contrast.  Since 2002, all five elected Attorneys General have been Republicans, two of them women.

In the 21st century,

  • Arkansas elected two Democratic Attorneys General who served between 2003 and 2007. One of them became governor
  • Kentucky has elected two Democratic Attorneys General. One of them is now the governor
  • Mississippi has elected two Democratic Attorneys General. One of them served for 16 years. He tried, but failed to be elected governor
  • Missouri has elected two Democratic Attorneys General. One of them was a former Republican. The other was elected governor.
  • Georgia had one Democratic Attorney General, appointed by conservative Democrat Zell Miller. A Black man, after the appointment, he was elected in 2006.
  • Louisiana has elected two Democratic Attorneys General. One of them became a Republican.
  • Florida had a Democratic Attorney General only for the first two years of the century.
  • Texas has had no Democratic Attorneys General in this century.
  • South Carolina has had no Democratic Attorney General in this century
  • Alabama has had no Democratic Attorney General in this century or in the last quarter of the 20th
  • The Justices of the state Supreme Court appoint the Tennessee Attorney General.

Republicans have been able to elect women and minorities as Attorney General.  Florida has done it twice.  Kentucky’s current attorney general is a Republican and a Black man.  He is now running for governor. Mississippi’s current attorney general is a Republican woman.  She will be opposed by a Democratic woman in November.  Democrats in Georgia elected an African American man as Attorney General.   He is the last Democrat Georgia elected as Attorney General. The only Democrats elected statewide recently in Georgia are  their two current US Senators and that Attorney General from 2006.  The only Democrat elected statewide in Alabama was Doug Jones as US Senator – for two years.

Colonel Pamela Stevenson is hardly a favorite to be elected Kentucky’s Attorney General.  If she can raise enough money to tell her story, she has some things going for her.  At 64, she has already had a substantial career.

Colonel Pamela Stevenson (If you write about a genuine Colonel from Kentucky, especially one running for office, you must note that person’s service rank That is a rule.) was born in Louisville and grew up there.  She went to a local high school, Louisville’s small, diverse, downtown magnet school, and then left for the outside world.  Initially, she went 100 miles away —  to Indiana University in Bloomington.  She had earned an Air Force ROTC scholarship to attend Indiana’s flagship university.

Seven years later, in 1984, Colonel Pamela Stevenson had two degrees from Indiana University – a BS and a JD.  She would be an attorney in the Air Force.   She became a defense attorney and a prosecutor. She became a commissioner of the appellate court and a judge advocate.  She was the legal advisor to the Judge Advocate head of technology.  She explained what her work became:  “I… became a JAG [Judge Advocate General] …so I spent most of my time in the legal world, training people, prosecuting. I was chief criminal defense attorney, negotiating contracts, running my own office and deploying to Croatia, Bosnia and Africa.”  Over the years, she deployed to 11 different countries.

After 27 years in the military, Colonel Pamela Stevenson retired.  Of course, she did not really retire. She took time to study and was ordained as a minister.  Currently, she is an associate pastor. If you went looking for her, you would find her at the intersection of Christianity and the law.

Colonel Pamela Stevenson founded a non-profit law firm – The Stevenson Law Center — dedicated to serving veterans, the elderly, and working families.  As she explains. “My firm is a part of the Wellness Campus of Personal Counseling Services.  My philosophy is to equip and empower people to solve their legal problems holistically and live their best lives.”

As if this was not enough retirement, Colonel Pamela Stevenson ran for the state legislature and won.  She demonstrated promise as a non-disruptive member.  Her first bill was to reorganize the state’s Department of Veterans Affairs.  The need must have been completely apparent because the bill passed unanimously.  She intended that her next bill name a Women’s Veterans’ Affairs Appreciation Day.  Harmless.

The year after Breanna Taylor was shot and killed during an erroneous “no knock” warrant, the Kentucky legislature took up a proposal to ban those kinds of warrants. Chris Fugate, like Colonel Pamela Stevenson, a pastor and a representative, kind of friend of hers opposed the proposal.  A Christian white man and a Republican, he declaimed: “Banning no knock warrants?  That’s not the answer.  Life was good in America until 1962 when they took prayer out of the schools.  God calls us to love everyone. Our society will never get better until we’re allowed to lift up the name of Christ in the public sector again.”

Colonel Pamela Stevenson thought to herself about what life was like for Black people in Louisville in 1962.  She remembered a time when Black people could not walk down the street freely and without fear.  Colonel Pamela Stevenson responded to her friend Chris Fugate: “You want to tell me about putting God back in schools? Well, put Christ back in Christians.  Don’t you dare ever propose to know what it’s like to be less than, what it’s like to be in a country that disowns you, what it’s like to be lynched, what it’s like to be raped, what it’s like to be a nothing.”

Colonel Pamela Stevenson was no milquetoast.  Later she reflected, “And my friend who made the statement came to me.  We had a great, beautiful conversation.” She had made her way through the Air Force.  She would make her way through Kentucky politics, too. She explained that “Whether I was in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, or California (she left Kentucky out of the list) what I discovered was we parents all basically want the same thing — Our children to grow up and be better than us, to leave our children something and for our life to matter.

Colonel Pamela Stevenson decided that the way her life can matter now is to be elected statewide as Kentucky’s Attorney General.

  • She would not be the first Democrat in this century to be elected Kentucky’s Attorney General. Every Attorney General in Kentucky from 1948 to 2019 was a Democrat.
  • She would not be the first person of color in this century to be elected Kentucky’s Attorney General. Since 2019, Kentucky’s Attorney General has been a Black Republican man.
  • She would be the first woman in this century to be elected Kentucky’s Attorney General. She would be the first woman in any century to be elected Kentucky’s Attorney General.
  • She just might be the first pastor to elected Kentucky’s Attorney General.

Help Colonel Pamela Stevenson become the first woman, the first pastor, the second person of color, and the fourth Democrat to be Kentucky’s Attorney General.  State politics are a tough league to play in, but Colonel Pamela Stevenson has been playing in the big leagues and she can get elected if she has enough resources.  Act now, though.  The election is in November, 2023. 

 

 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

Democrat for Attorney General

Greta Martin                                    Mississippi, litigation director for Disability Rights in Mississippi

Democrat for State Treasurer    

David Granger                                Louisiana, CEO, financial planning firm

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 Note #540 and Len’s Note #541

Expect additional Notes after the June primary.  

 House of Delegates

Incumbent Mike Mullin             House District 69

Leonard Lacey,                              House District 64, ex state cop, pastor

Max Sawicky                                   House District 30, economist

State Senate

Incumbent Danica Roem             Senate District 30

Incumbent Monty Mason             Senate District 24

Incumbent Clint Jenkins              Senate District 17