Kentucky’s 5th District Congressman clings to power as rural democracy descends | Opinion

Kentucky Congressman Hal Rogers won his reelection bid months before Tuesday’s election. In May, the Associated Press reported his primary win as a de facto reelection victory, with the headline “Hal Rogers Secures 23rd Term in Congress.” Rogers won decisively last Tuesday, capturing 100 percent of the vote share. But his electoral success is unrelated to his popularity — Rogers ran unopposed in the General Election, erasing any doubt about who would represent eastern Kentucky going forward.

Rogers, Eastern Kentucky’s Republican representative, has more seniority than any member in the United States House of Representatives. Often running unopposed, Rogers has won 100 percent of the vote in Kentucky’s 5th Congressional District seven times now.

But that is no achievement for the district I have lived in for my whole life. It is the second most Republican — and second poorest — congressional district in the United States. Without contests and political turnover, Kentucky’s 5th Congressional District no longer shares even a slight semblance to democracy. Voters represented by elected officials that have no incentive to deliver on campaign promises to constituents are in political peril. We are realizing the effects of that in the worst ways, and it is even worse in a place with as little opportunity as Eastern Kentucky.

Rogers, 86, should either not seek reelection in 2026 (which marks 46 years of Rogers’ clenching the reins), or Kentucky’s Democratic party should take seriously its civic responsibility to hold a competitive primary and nominate a viable nominee who has the vitality and stamina Rogers clearly does not. For the sake of my family, friends and neighbors, I hope that both happen. There must be a new generation of leadership representing both parties in eastern Kentucky—for the sake of economic opportunity and for the preservation and continuity of its democracy. After all, if voters travel an hour west of the district that Rogers has represented during five distinct decades, the median household income in Kentucky’s neighboring 6th Congressional District is 50 percent higher. Rogers’ stranglehold on power has had clear consequences.

To be clear, Rogers does not get all the blame for Eastern Kentucky’s economic situation. It is the most rural congressional district in the United States, and its coal industry is not coming back any time soon. But he has obstructed four generations of leaders from holding office, or offering new ideas for the new problems we face.

Kentucky’s 5th Congressional District has never been represented by a Baby Boomer, Gen Xer, Millennial, nor a Gen Zer. That is no accident. Rogers’ response to calls for term limits is the characteristic cop-out that all men his age tout, decrying them as undemocratic and undermining the sovereignty of voters.

But Rogers doesn’t care about what’s undemocratic. He is sitting atop a system which is—without a doubt—making Eastern Kentucky a less democratic place. He has made no indication he plans on ceding power any time soon. In 2020, Rep. Alan Nunnelee, fellow House Republican, became the first Mississippi congressman to die while in office in over 30 years. Rogers heralded him as “a true gentleman at his very core.” Rogers, himself, has privately disclosed to confidants his intention to approach retirement like his former colleague. Rogers apparently plans on dying in his desk chair at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington.

Rogers’ attitude is an affront to our democratic values and norms. Political scientists consider whether a polity is a democracy by observing it procedurally—whether the electoral processes are free and fair. And substantively — do the electoral processes cause political turnover and a legitimate contest between political candidates?

In Eastern Kentucky, we have free and fair elections, but there has been no political turnover during my lifetime, or even the lifetimes of adults in their 30s and 40s. Without Hal Rogers, my congressional district would indisputably become a democracy of greater substance. It would lead to Republican and Democratic candidates entering legitimate primaries and a general election, where voters, at the very least, would have a choice between two candidates.

Voters in our district have only had the choice between two candidates about two-thirds of the time Rogers has been in office. Following a contest between legitimate candidates, the winner would have to compete against challengers for reelection—something Rogers has not seriously or substantively done since my mom graduated from high school in 1992.

Do you want your democracy back? Voting may not be enough—after all, Rogers has won every free and fair election he has competed in. The politically apathetic have advantaged Rogers since his very first term. But make no mistake, Congressman Rogers should sit out the next election. And every election after that one. In 2026, after 46 years, what unfinished business will Rogers have left to resolve? If Rogers could not accomplish what he intended during his near half-century congressional career, he does not need more time in office. Voters in our commonwealth and congressional district are facing new issues, and we need a new leader in Washington D.C.

Zachary Clifton is a Corbin native who is studying political science at Yale.

This story was originally published November 14, 2024 at 11:43 AM.