Ky. House District 88 has two good candidates. Here’s who we choose.

Not long ago, The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (founded in 1780 by John Adams and other founders) released a lengthy report on how to preserve the democratic scaffolding of our nation. One of the recommendations of “Our Common Purpose,” was the adoption of independent citizen redistricting commissions in every state paid for with federal funding that would put an end to the bipartisan scourge of political gerrymandering.

This proposal came to mind when considering the recently redistricted 88th House District, which put Rep. Cherlynn Stevenson, D-Lexington, in a new district that replaced numerous Lexington precincts with others in the more conservative Scott County. Apparently, a supermajority is not enough for the state GOP; they want to make it more difficult to have any seats for Democrats at all.

Incidentally, gerrymandering is a scourge equally used by both political parties, and when the Democrats were in the majority in Frankfort, they did exactly the same thing. This does not make it right.

Artificially engineered supermajorities are not good for democracy because they silence and disenfranchise voters, while stifling debate on laws and policies. It’s especially difficult when a lawmaker does as good a job as Stevenson has in the past four years.

Stevenson has fought for education, healthcare, women’s reproductive rights and tried to strengthen animal cruelty penalties in Kentucky. She works across party lines in attempts to lower prices on life-saving treatments like Epipens, and attempts to make employer-mandated healthcare cover begin on Day 1 of employment.

Stevenson has a terrific opponent in Republican Jim Coleman, a businessman from Lexington who has worked on economic development in New York and Maryland. After listening to his passionate speech on organic gardening (among other topics), we hope he will consider running for Commissioner of Agriculture. Coleman is what we would call a sane Republican, who supports exceptions in abortion restrictions and believes in the our electoral process. He should go far in electoral politics.

But not this time around. The GOP majority in the General Assembly doesn’t need more yes votes. It needs more opposition, more people fighting for “the least among us,” more people who know that Kentuckians need better healthcare and more education. As an Eastern Kentucky native, Stevenson understands the plight of the underdog, even better as her work in the General Assembly is constantly ignored by GOP leadership.

When the editorial board asked her why she wanted to go back to being in the super-minority in Frankfort, she said this:

“We can’t stop fighting for the things we believe in, we can’t stop showing up for families and our neighbors and our friends. Kentucky and our people are worth fighting for and we have to keep doing it every day.”

“People here in Lexington deserve a voice in Frankfort that matches theirs,” she said.

For fighting the good fight, no matter how hard, she gets our endorsement, and we hope, your vote as well.

This story was originally published October 31, 2022 at 2:01 PM.