Donworth, Palumbo rematch in Democratic primary for KY House District 76
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Donworth and Palumbo are rematching in the Democratic primary for KY House District 76.
- Donworth filed health, pre-K, ethics and redistricting bills that received no hearings.
- Palumbo and Donworth both prioritize public education and health care.
For the second time, state Rep. Anne Gay Donworth and Jamie Palumbo are competing for a job that — on the face of it — presents major challenges when it comes to passing legislation.
They’re running in the May 19 Democratic primary for the 76th Kentucky House District. It represents part of downtown Lexington and the Bell Court, Kenwick, Fairway, Idle Hour and Chevy Chase neighborhoods, plus a large crescent around the city’s eastside, stretching out to Hamburg.
The current makeup of Kentucky’s legislature, which features Republican supermajorities in the House and Senate, leaves an uphill battle for any Democrat seeking to pass legislation.
The GOP seldom acts on Democratic proposals. In the 60-day session that ended April 15, just one of Donworth’s 10 bills became law — a measure she co-sponsored with a Republican, setting age-verification rules for mailed nicotine products. Their bill actually didn’t move, but they attached the language to a Senate bill that did.
Democrats also face challenges as Republicans pass legislation specifically targeted at the last left-leaning strongholds — the cities of Louisville and Lexington — in the commonwealth.
This year, GOP lawmakers shorted Lexington in the state road fund and passed measures to unseat the Fayette County school board chairman and impeach a Fayette Circuit Court judge. They almost passed a bill that would have repealed Lexington’s neighborhood restrictions on short-term rental housing.
This won’t change anytime soon. The Kentucky Democratic Party didn’t run candidates this year in about half of the legislative districts held by Republicans.
So why would any Lexington Democrat want to go to the state Capitol?
“I’ve heard that question, even from a lot of former elected officials who are used to being in the majority,” said Palumbo, 47, in a recent interview.
Referring to his being openly LGBTQ, he added, “I’ve always been in groups that have been left out and been in the minority.”
Palumbo said he thinks he can build some productive relationships across the aisle.
“Ever since I was young, I have built relationships that are genuine and positive, including with people that are very different from me,” he said. “I have good relationships with Republicans, Republican leadership as well as Democrats. That’s not to say that I’m going to get tons of legislation passed. However, it does give me hope that I will be able to get more accomplished. But I know that it’s a toxic environment. It’s brutal.”
The 43-year-old Donworth, finishing her first term as a lawmaker, said there’s value in simply standing on the House floor on behalf of those who aren’t otherwise represented in the General Assembly.
“I want to be able to be a voice for our district,” Donowrth said. “A lot of what I want to be able to do is give people the hope that there are people who are speaking out for them in Frankfort.”
“Like I jokingly say out there,” she said, “I want to respond by keep stirring the pot. But ultimately, I don’t think that policy change happens until we flip more seats and defeat the supermajority. I also want to be able to flip seats ultimately so that we can make some policy changes.”
The district, the donations
Palumbo’s mother, Democrat Ruth Ann Palumbo, held the 76th House District seat for 34 years and rose to become the longtime chairwoman of the House Economic Development Committee.
When Ruth Ann Palumbo retired in 2024, Donworth defeated Jamie Palumbo in that year’s Democratic primary to succeed her. Another Democrat, Joshua Buckman, came in a distant third. Donworth did not face a Republican in the 2024 general election.
There is a Republican this year, Avram Hicks, although the district is considered safely Democratic based on voter registration and past election results.
Donworth, a nonprofit consultant who has family interests in Central Kentucky land holdings, raised $97,601 for her campaign as of April 21.
Some of her more notable donors included former Lexington councilman David Kloiber, now a Democratic candidate for Congress; Christina Lee Brown of the Brown–Forman liquor fortune in Louisville; and Linda Breathitt, a former state and federal energy regulator.
Palumbo, who is co-owner of Palumbo Properties, a rental housing company founded by his grandfather, raised $52,446 for his campaign as of April 21.
Some of his more notable donors included former Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo; former state senator and Fayette Circuit Judge Ernesto Scorsone; and former state Treasurer Jonathan Miller.
What Donworth says
Many of the issues Donworth promotes in her reelection campaign — including public education, women’s rights and health care — are also the subjects of bills she has tried to pass in the House.
Just last winter, she filed bills to require health insurance coverage for perinatal mood and anxiety screenings for new mothers; to let the governor tap the state’s “rainy day” budget reserve trust fund if the federal government again fails to cover food stamp benefits; to establish pre-K for 4 -year-olds; and to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in their local school board elections.
None of those bills got a committee hearing.
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Donworth also filed reform bills for the legislature, to impose stiffer ethics fines on lawmakers found guilty of misconduct and to create a nonpartisan redistricting commission that would eliminate gerrymandering.
Those bills didn’t go anywhere, either.
Nonpartisan redistricting isn’t a lofty academic theory, it’s essential for democratic government, Donworth said. Kentucky’s legislature draws its own district lines — and congressional district maps, too — and it openly does so to favor the political party currently in power, she said.
That means politicians are picking their voters, not vice versa, she said.
“Northern Kentucky in particular, those districts are very gerrymandered,” she said.
“But it’s also a big concern for everybody,” she said. “Most of those districts — you know, voter registration data shows that 41% of Kentucky is Democratic. And yet the House is an 80/20 split in favor of Republicans. So that’s not based on how the people are voting. It has to do with how the maps are drawn.”
One of the top issues the General Assembly failed to address in the session that just ended is a statewide lack of affordable housing, Donworth said. This was the second consecutive session that lawmakers had a housing task force and considered a bundle of different housing proposals but failed to get most across the finish line.
“That was a big miss,” she said. “They did put about $15 million into the state budget to address affordable housing. But if you look, the city of Lexington over two years is putting in $4.8 million a year for affordable housing initiatives. So from the state, that’s not really the level of investment we should be talking about here. That’s a huge miss.”
What Palumbo says
Palumbo promotes many of the same issues that Donworth does: more support for public schools, better access to health care, civil rights.
He has a personal stake in his call for gun safety. He said one of his brothers died by suicide with a gun when they were in their teens, devastating the family.
Among the legislative measures he supports are safe storage laws requiring gun owners to keep their firearms secured at home if children are present; a ban on the sale of guns used in crimes; a prohibition on assault-style weapons being owned by the public; and “red flag” laws that allow courts to temporarily order guns removed from people who have been deemed dangerous.
Any kind of gun control is next to impossible in the General Assembly, Palumbo acknowledges.
“We’re getting stuff done that hasn’t required legislation,” he said.
As a member of the gun control advocacy group Moms Demand Action, he said, he has helped promote an effort in rural Kentucky communities for people to voluntarily store their guns outside their homes when they’re suffering through a mental health crisis, or they’re concerned about their children getting hold of them.
“We’re shocked at the positive response that we’ve received, even in rural areas, educating people on securing your firearms,” he said. “Don’t do it because you have to, do it because you want to. Ask, when your children are going to someone’s home, is there a firearm? Is it properly locked?” he said.
“A lot of things that aren’t legislation — once we get the community to buy into this, it puts more pressure on the elected officials, saying to them ‘Hey, this is working. We need you to vote for this,’” he said.
On the lack of affordable housing, Palumbo said Kentucky needs to restrict the purchase of family housing by outside companies looking for investments.
“It’s taking up all this inventory that — we’re in a crisis, we don’t have enough housing, anyway,” he said.
“It’s also driving up the cost for everyone to not even be able to live in areas that they work. The prices keep rising. And we’ve got people that are on fixed incomes. They bought their house however long ago, but now the property tax rate keeps going up and up and up. So even people that have bought their houses are having to move out.”
