Black Lexington voters object to Rep. Andy Barr’s vote fraud claims, Trump response
As Lexington’s representative in Congress claims vote fraud or irregularities and opposes President Donald Trump’s impeachment for inciting insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, some of his Black constituents are troubled.
They’re worried that Rep. Andy Barr is benefiting from racial division and “blowing dog whistles” in the process.
Barr, the Republican legislator representing Kentucky’s 6th District, spent the past week fighting against Trump’s impeachment and blasting those limiting Trump’s ability to post to social media. He’s also reiterated election fraud claims some of his GOP colleagues acknowledge were lies or attempts to mislead.
Like other Kentucky representatives, Barr denounced the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. But those comments felt like “obligatory condemnations” to some who noted his riot criticisms didn’t have the same “ferocity” as his statement criticizing racial injustice protesters over the summer.
Comments from Barr over the summer referred to those demonstrations, which largely featured Black protesters, as “violence, rioting, looting or criminal activity.”
Most of those words were absent in Barr’s comments about the Capitol riot and insurrection, which largely featured white Trump supporters, some carrying Confederate flags and similar symbols.
“When Black people and other people take a public stand against racism, it is consistently combated with an aggressive law and order response,” Rev. L. Clark Williams said. “When people exercise terrorism in the name of white supremacy, it never is responded to with that same type of ferocity.”
Williams is the director of ministry at Shiloh Baptist Church. He’s also a representative of the Black Faith Leaders of Lexington and the chairman for the People’s Campaign.
Barr’s response to the Capitol riot makes his Black constituents in Central Kentucky worry that he’s prioritizing political games over their best interests. Barr couldn’t be reached for additional comment, but he has spoken publicly extensively on Trump, the vote and riot.
“He’s very intentional in what he’s doing and what he puts out there,” said Devine Carama, a Lexington rapper, activist and subcommittee member on Mayor Linda Gorton’s Commission for Racial Justice and Equality. “That is what hurts so much. Even though it bodes well for him politically, it has real impact on me as an African-American.”
Barr’s “intentional” comments disappointed but did not surprise LeTonia Jones, a Lexington resident and mitigation investigator.
“The representation that has made its way to D.C. has rarely represented the interests of the Black constituency throughout the state of Kentucky,” Jones said.
Rioters repeated election fraud claims. Barr promoted claims
After the riot, Barr wrote in a Jan. 6 letter to his constituents that he was “deeply concerned about the abuses and irregularities that occurred in the 2020 elections,” and he specifically pointed to Biden-won Georgia and Pennsylvania where voters used mail-in ballots allowed for safety during the pandemic.
Some Lexington residents thought Barr was trying to take advantage of racial divisions by focusing his accusations on battleground states that were significantly affected by minority voters.
“A lot of these comments are being directed toward cities and battleground states that have a high-minority population,” Carama said. Carama said that 2020 was a monumental year for Black voters because it allowed so many options to make their voices heard.
“That has created more opportunities for African-Americans to vote in a safe way,” he said. “Targeting absentee ballots, and all the new ways that we voted this year, I feel like they’re targeting African American voters.”
Barr said some states “abruptly altered state mail-in ballot election rules through unilateral executive or judicial action without legislative authorization.”
Kentucky was one of many U.S. states that “altered” election laws to change the voting process for 2020. President Donald Trump won Kentucky by more than 20 points. Barr won his 6th District re-election by about 16 points.
Barr said he wasn’t worried about Kentucky’s voting results because “the Kentucky General Assembly specifically authorized such changes, overriding our Democrat governor’s veto and requiring him to agree on a plan with our Republican Secretary of State to expand early and absentee voting.”
Black constituents want Trump held accountable
Some of Barr’s constituents wanted Trump held accountable through impeachment, but Barr did not act against Trump.. Williams said Trump contributed to the “cancer” of racism in America, and Barr wasn’t willing to remove that cancer.
“It could not be any clearer that he incited that attack on the Capitol,” Williams said. “Any elected official who doesn’t see the need to remove a president who incited an attack on their own nation’s Capitol is certainly a part of that cancer.”
Rep. John Yarmuth, Kentucky’s lone Democrat in Congress, was among Democrats who impeached Trump over the riot.
“Donald Trump incited this mob, and his loyalists in Congress helped enable it,” Yarmuth said in one tweet. “They should all be held accountable for this national tragedy.”
Barr disagreed. Barr said that he failed “to see how impeachment offers the country a constructive path forward.”
The Lexington NAACP said in a statement Thursday that impeachment may feel like a distraction from more pressing issues, but it’s still “important to send a stern and meaningful message that culpability for the endorsement of an insurrection is beyond treasonous when the commander-in-chief is sworn to protect and defend this country against enemies both foreign and domestic.”
“The decision to impeach is about right, accountability, and equal justice, not a false rallying cry for the GOP to use as a mantra for healing a divided country that has long been divided well before partisan alliances endorsed Mr. Trump’s un-Presidential behavior,” said Whit Whitaker, first vice president and acting president of the Lexington-Fayette NAACP.
After other Republicans’ criticisms of Trump, Barr ultimately placed some blame on the president for the riot, saying that Trump “failed to appreciate the gravity of the crisis as it unfolded and should have taken more decisive and forceful action to intervene and help diffuse the situation.”
Ten Republicans from other states joined Democrats to impeach Trump for a second time in his four-year term.
“If we are to truly have that unifying moment, it has to have a reckoning,” said Christian Motley, a Lexington resident and policy analyst. “And we cannot have a reckoning without accountability.”
Barr’s Kentucky colleague in the House, Rep. Thomas Massie from the 4th District, said Trump had misled his base and led them to the events that unfolded on Jan. 6.
“I think Trump is at fault here,” Massie said in an interview with the Dispatch. “I watched almost all of his speech. I felt like it was inevitable. I told my wife it was like a 50-pound feedsack, and I just heard the first few stitches pop. The next thing that happens is all the stitches pop and all the feed’s on the ground.”
Massie said Wednesday he would vote no on impeachment because it “will unnecessarily increase political division in our country and serves no real purpose.”
Critics: Represent Black voters’ views in words, actions
Barr’s constituents want changes in how the congressman handles ongoing fallout of the Capitol riot. Motley hoped Barr would stop trying to score political points in his responses to “a shameful moment in the nation’s history.”
“My hope is that my congressman will take steps to protect democracy and hold people accountable,” Motley said.
But Barr used Twitter Tuesday to blast the social media service’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, for suspending Trump’s Twitter account to prevent the president from inciting further violence via lies about fraud or other statements. Barr explained to LEX18 later that he thinks there is a social media double standard against conservatives. In addition to voting against impeachment, Barr voted against calling on Vice President Mike Pence to use the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office.
Barr hasn’t answered questions from the Herald-Leader regarding his Black constituents’ concerns.
Jones said that Barr’s words and actions show “as a Black constituent, I am not one of his chief concerns.”
“That in itself should cause pause, for not only Kentucky but our entire country,” Jones said. “That’s why we march in the streets and say black lives matter.”
This story was originally published January 14, 2021 at 8:26 AM.