Mysterious group targets Lexington GOP legislator with anti-trans ad
A mysterious group began airing an ad on Friday bashing Rep. Killian Timoney’s, R-Lexington, stance on transgender girls’ participation in girls sports.
It confused many. The transgender sports issue isn’t even being debated this session, and Timoney isn’t up for reelection until Summer 2024.
The Lexington representative was one of a few Republicans in the statehouse who voted against a bill banning transgender girls participating in girls sports, a move highlighted by a group called Common Sense Values LLC in a 30-second television ad encouraging Kentuckians to rail against Timoney.
The ad begins with a photograph of a muscular bearded man.
“You wouldn’t let a guy like this use a high school girls bathroom or change his clothes in a women’s locker room, and we obviously shouldn’t let this guy compete in women’s sports. That’s exactly what Killian Timoney wants to do,” a narrator says in the ad.
Supporters of LGBTQ rights in Frankfort, like Rebecca Blankenship, saw the ad as a cheap shot.
“It’s a blatant scare tactic,” Blankenship, who recently became the first openly transgender elected official in Kentucky, said. “They use extremely misleading imagery. The imagery in that ad does not characterize the people that the law targeted.”
The only publicly known transgender Kentuckian affected by the ban is a 13-year-old girl who wanted to play middle school field hockey.
The ad from Common Sense Values LLC was placed on television by Smart Media Group, a national GOP-aligned ad firm, for $31,613. It started airing on Fox News in the Lexington television market on Saturday, and will have played 50 or 25 spots across five different Central Kentucky cable systems by the time it stops airing on Friday.
The timing of the ad led some to wonder whether it was linked to Timoney’s role in one of Frankfort’s most contentious and expensive policy fights.
The Lexington Republican is the primary sponsor of legislation that would ban so-called gray machines, or skill games, from Kentucky. The machines, which bring in a lot of money for companies that produce them and brick-and-mortar businesses that host them, flooded Kentucky during the pandemic and are currently unregulated. Those who stand to benefit from the machines want them to be regulated and taxed and have backed legislation to do so.
Some believe Timoney’s crusade against gray machines is what led to the ad bashing him on an altogether different issue – veteran GOP operative Tres Watson called the move “mystifying.”
“I’ve been doing public affairs campaigns centered around General Assembly issues since 2008, and this is the first time I’ve seen someone, apparently, attempt to respond to a legislative issue with a purely political attack that has nothing to do with the issue they have a dispute over,” Watson said.
Timoney did not offer any comment on the ad.
His proposed gray machine ban, House Bill 539, could be heard in the House Licensing & Occupations Committee as soon as this Wednesday, according to House Speaker David Osborne, R-Prospect.
‘Washington DC-style politics’
Transgender issues have taken center stage in Kentucky Republican politics. U.S. Sen. Rand Paul built opposition against transgender athletes into his reelection campaign platform, the GOP-dominated legislature passed a transgender sports ban last year, and multiple bills on the subject are moving through the legislative process this year.
The gray machine industry’s biggest backer – Kentucky Merchants and Amusement Coalition (KY MAC) – said that neither it nor industry giant Pace-O-Matic was behind the Timoney ad.
Former Northern Kentucky Republican representative Adam Koenig, an opponent of gray machines during his tenure as House Licensing & Occupations Chair, said that the ad was “obviously” a result of the gray machines issue.
“It’s obviously people who are trying to weaken Killian because of his gray machine bill, unless they oppose some other bill of his. It’s Washington DC-style politics that have come to Frankfort, which has not been healthy for our nation and it’s not healthy for Kentucky – they’re attacking him on a completely different issue in the middle of session,” Koenig said.
Timoney has staked himself out as one of the less socially conservative members of the House Republican caucus; a former public school teacher, he’s also uniquely pro-public schools. Blankenship said that the maneuver is an attempt to scare Republicans away from adopting positions like Timoney.
“I think they’re trying to lay down a marker that if a Republican exercises some courage in terms of protecting LGBT people that they can face consequences for that,” Blankenship said.
Michael Frazier, a Republican lobbyist in Frankfort who’s helped lead efforts to ban gay conversion therapy in the state, said he thought Timoney’s voters, and Republicans in general, won’t take kindly to the ad.
“I think that Killian has been listening to the people of his district, and has been voting accordingly. And while people may have differences of ideas, I think that when it comes to Kentucky, we definitely don’t like outside people leveraging Republican against Republican,” Frazier said.
Timoney’s district includes much of suburban and rural Southeastern Fayette County, as well as a swath of Jessamine County. Keeneland, one of the state’s most prominent horse racing tracks, is a constitutent.
The subject of gray machines is a rare issue clouded in uncertainty within the Republican caucus. Unlike most GOP-backed legislation in recent years, which usually receives near-unanimous support among Republican legislators, there’s not a conservative consensus on what to do with gray machines. The margins could be thin enough to make the Democrats’ position, slim as the minorities are in both chambers, matter.
An expensive battle has been brewing on the subject. Lobbying efforts have topped all outside spenders in Frankfort, with horse industry-backed Kentuckians Against Illegal Gambling (KAIG) spending $174,000 in January alone on ads against gray machines. Meanwhile KY MAC dropped about $146,000 that month on an ad campaign of their own, according to the Kentucky Legislative Ethics Commission.
The horse industry has a longstnading relationship to the Kentucky legislature, with proponents of gray machines arguing that they’re railing against the machines in order to protect what some call a monopoly. Horse tracks can operate their own slot-like historical horse racing machines, a recent development authorized by the General Assembly that already brings in a significant amount of cash.
Common Sense Values
The origins of the ad are as mysterious as its aims.
According to records with the Kentucky Secretary of State’s Office, Common Sense Values LLC was created two days before the ad aired. Its business page lists an address in Wilmore, the same as a local boutique. The registered agent is William Chase Martin.
When the Herald-Leader contacted a number for the boutique at the Wilmore address and asked for Martin, a respondent said that Martin was present but indisposed. When contacted again shortly thereafter, the same respondent said to not call back.
The group has not filed any expenses with the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance (KREF) or the Federal Elections Commission (FEC).
This story was originally published February 27, 2023 at 9:58 AM.
