Bill to change Kentucky election years gains momentum in Senate

Three out of every four years in Kentucky are election years, but a bill advancing in the Senate seeks to change that.

Senate Bill 10, filed by Sen. Chris McDaniel, R-Ryland Heights, on the first day of the 2024 General Assembly, would move the election of state constitutional officers to align with presidential election years beginning in 2032 — if voters approved the change.

The bill passed the Senate State and Local Government Committee Wednesday in a 7-1 party-line vote.

McDaniel said streamlining election years would save about $2 million at the state level, and another $15 million for local governments. It also, he said, would improve voter participation.

According to the State Board of Elections, voter turnout in 2023 was about 38%, compared to about 60% in 2020.

McDaniel, who has sponsored the same constitutional amendment proposal eight previous times going back to 2013, said he feels confident the ninth time could be the charm.

His last attempt, in 2020, passed the Senate with bipartisan support but died in the House without receiving a committee vote.

“We’ve got folks over there (in the House) who probably share more of my concern about voter participation and financial issues,” McDaniel said Wednesday. “So, I’m optimistic that it’ll get taken up. It’ll probably a couple of weeks, but I’m optimistic that they’ll at least entertain it.”

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The offices that would be impacted by the change are governor and lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, commissioner of agriculture, auditor and treasurer. Officials elected in 2027 would serve a five-year term rather than four years.

In November, Kentuckians reelected Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear over Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron by five percentage points. Beshear and his running mate, Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman, were the only Democrats to win a statewide race, with Republicans sweeping the five other offices.

Kentucky was one of just three states to elect its governor in 2023, along with Louisiana and Mississippi.

McDaniel’s bill is up to eight co-sponsors — all Republicans — including Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer of Georgetown and Majority Whip Mike Wilson of Bowling Green.

In casting his vote of support, Thayer said “people are getting less and less interested in our statewide races.”

“I think that people are voting with their feet by staying home,” Thayer said. “They’re just not interested. And I think one way to get them interested is put these races on the ballot when probably 20% more of them are already coming to vote.

Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong, the lone ‘no’ vote, said Kentucky first held its non-presidential election in 1851. The framers of the constitution “spoke particularly about the need for us to have an election focused on Kentucky, issues in Kentucky, and about the need to get rid of some of the confusion about allowing national issues to infiltrate our Kentucky elections.”

“I think that the need for that has only increased over time in the 176 years since we’ve been doing that this way, as opposed to decrease,” Chambers Armstrong said. “Nowadays with national division, with presidential elections lasting for years and eating up the airwaves, I think it’s really important that the people of Kentucky have space to focus on Kentucky issues.”

McDaniel said he’d rather see more Kentuckians turn out to weigh in on a larger number of issues, as opposed to lower turnout for fewer issues.

“It’s a difference in philosophy,” he said.