Who is Rep. Daniel Grossberg? The liberal voice in KY legislature is under investigation
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Investigation into Louisville Rep. Daniel Grossberg
A Herald-Leader investigation into allegations of sexual harassment involving Rep. Daniel Grossberg, D-Louisville, revealed he intimidated and harassed multiple women in and around Kentucky politics. He also was allegedly aggressive and threatening toward dancers in a Louisville strip club.
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State Rep. Daniel Benjamin Grossberg, the Louisville Democrat who is being investigated for alleged inappropriate conduct toward women, has been a prominent liberal voice in the Kentucky General Assembly during his brief time in office.
He also owns several real estate investment companies that are in bad standing with the secretary of state’s office, pending dissolution, according to the office’s website.
The Legislative Research Commission, the administrative arm of the legislature, is investigating texts that Grossberg sent to several women who work with lawmakers, commenting on their physical appearance, the Herald-Leader reported last week. The women said the texts were “creepy” or “weird” and made them feel uneasy.
In response, the Kentucky House Democratic Caucus has temporarily suspended Grossberg from its membership and called for a separate investigation by the Legislative Ethics Commission.
Grossberg, 45, is married to a school teacher. He has denied any impropriety.
“I never, in my work, approached or crossed a line in my professional communications. Any claim that private texts on my personal cell phone are work related have no merit. I steadfastly deny any impropriety,” Grossberg said in a statement released by his attorney.
For many in Kentucky, Grossberg’s political profile has been quite muted.
Elected in 2022, when he ousted 90-year-old Democratic Rep. Tom Burch from a four-decade tenure, Grossberg hasn’t achieved much of substance. He really can’t. He’s surrounded by Republican super-majorities in the House and Senate who control the legislative agenda at the state Capitol.
As a result, his bills seldom move anywhere. Like others in the Democratic minority, most of them from Louisville and Lexington, his fiery speeches for liberal causes only slow the inevitable passage of whatever rural and suburban GOP lawmakers want to do on a given day.
“Good people will die because of what we’ve done here today,” Grossberg said during the March 2023 floor debate as the House easily overrode Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto of Senate Bill 150, banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. “To the LGBTQ children listening: You are not broken, your government is.”
Grossberg has been outspoken in favor of civil rights, gun control and legal access to reproductive rights for women, including abortion, and he frequently denounces antisemitism.
During the 2024 General Assembly, Grossberg helped organize a private screening for his colleagues, hosted by the Israeli government, to show gruesome footage of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel.
Grossberg, who is Jewish, is co-chairman of the legislature’s bipartisan Kentucky-Israel Caucus.
In that capacity, he also signed an open letter to the state’s university presidents urging them to condemn Hamas and support Israel in the ongoing war that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, sparking U.S. campus protests and acts of antisemitism across the country.
“The basis of all universities is a pursuit of truth, and it is times like these that require moral clarity. Like the fight against ISIS, the fight against Hamas is a fight against evil,” Grossberg wrote to the college presidents.
Grossberg talked about antisemitism earlier in his political career, too.
In 2015, he lost the Democratic primary for state treasurer and ended up fighting about a campaign debt with a Democratic political consultant, who told him, “You are why people don’t like Jews.” The comments were taped, leaked to a news outlet and ended up fueling a defamation lawsuit between the two.
In 2022, when Grossberg ran for the House against Burch in the Democratic primary, he loaned his own campaign $105,000. Burch sent out a campaign mailer warning voters: “Don’t let them buy our district,” which Grossberg said was one of “the most famous of the antisemitic tropes.”
The more than two dozen bills that Grossberg filed during his one term so far often reflect popular progressive themes, such as raising the state’s minimum wage; adding campaign-finance restrictions; banning assault rifles; requiring a waiting period for gun purchases; extending hate crime protection to gender identity; and guaranteeing legal protection for in-vitro fertilization.
Other Grossberg bills relate to his experience as a Louisville home investor.
He has proposed new restrictions on roofers’ business practices; faster turn-around for the sale of tax-delinquent properties at master commissioner sales; allowing landlords to remove tenants if code enforcement requires repairs that exceed 12 months’ rent; and creating a state fund to purchase and rehabilitate abandoned homes.
In 2011, Grossberg joined Semonin Realtors in Louisville as a sales associate. But his license expired on March 31, 2024, with no public record of discipline, according to the Kentucky Real Estate Commission.
He owns several real estate investment companies that are in bad standing with the secretary of state’s office, pending dissolution, according to the office’s website. Among them are Leviticus Homes LLC, LPV Investments LLC and TRF LLC, the last of which owns a couple of small rental homes in Louisville’s West End.
Being a home investor has caused some headaches for Grossberg, according to lawsuits.
Earlier this year, he sued a plumbing company, alleging it did shoddy work on one of his West End rental homes that got him in trouble with city property inspectors.
In 2021, he sued his partner on a home purchase, rehabilitation and resale in Louisville, alleging the man still owed him nearly $10,000 in repair costs from the project.
Apart from his current difficulties, Grossberg appears to be cruising to a second House term.
In the Democratic primary for House District 30 in May, Grossberg defeated challenger Mitra Subedi by a mere 50 votes out of 3,208 cast. There is no Republican candidate, so he faces no opposition in the general election this fall.
This story was originally published August 6, 2024 at 7:04 AM.
