New pro-Beshear group ‘heckbent’ on enacting KY governor’s priorities
Allies of Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear have formed a nonprofit “dark money” group to support the Democratic governor’s agenda in response to a Republican-dominated state legislature that has rejected many of his proposals thus far.
The group, going by the name “Heckbent,” a phrase used by Beshear himself, plans to rally grassroots support for the 46-year-old governor’s policy agenda in Kentucky as he begins his second term in the state’s highest office.
In November, Beshear defeated Republican challenger and ex-attorney general Daniel Cameron, who had the backing of former president and current 2024 GOP presidential nomination front-runner Donald Trump.
Group leaders Wednesday filed paperwork with the Secretary of State’s office to become a nonprofit corporation under the name “Heckbent, Inc.”
Heckbent is a 501(c)(4) group, also known in politics as a “dark money” entity. Federal law means It is not required to publicly disclose its donors, unlike political action committees.
According to the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit group specializing in election and fundraising issues, such “dark money” groups are allowed to support election-related groups like political action committees but are barred from making that their “primary activity.”
Heckbent will be run by Outperform Strategies, a Louisville-based campaign management company. It’s led by Eric Hyers, Beshear’s campaign manager in 2019 and 2023, as well as Nicole Kayner, a political operative who is also Hyers’ wife, and Democratic campaign consultant Colin Lauderdale.
The group’s directors, according to its filing with the Secretary of State’s Office, are Tom Waldrop, Amy Miller and Allison Murray. The incorporator is Jonathan S. Berkon, a Washington-based attorney who has recently worked for Beshear’s gubernatorial campaign and the Kentucky Democratic Party.
Hyers told the Herald-Leader Beshear is “aware of and supportive of the efforts.” Beshear is allowed to raise money for Heckbent, Hyers said..
Heckbent is the second Beshear-aligned group to have opened this month. Last week, Beshear launched his own political action committee called In This Together PAC, which will assist like-minded politicians across the country.
Hyers said Heckbent will focus on “grassroots advocacy” for issues that matter to the working families of Kentucky – and that includes much of Beshear’s policy platform.
“There were a lot of things on which he (Beshear) ran that are really, really popular and also really, really good for working families. That’s going to be the focus of this effort. You could say that we’re ‘heckbent’ on fighting for working families,” Hyers said.
As for what issues the group will focus on, Hyers said the group will “see where where the session goes” and where they can be most helpful.
He didn’t specifically mention or rule out any of Beshear’s big policy platform items from his gubernatorial campaign, such as across-the-board raises for school employees, increasing economic development opportunities and amending the state’s near-complete ban on abortion.
What does “grassroots advocacy” for those issues look like from Heckbent?
“That could take a number of forms,” Hyers said.
“It could be building popular support for certain things encouraging Kentuckians to take action to contact their lawmakers, make phone calls, write letters – that kind of thing.”
