Who is Robby Mills? Cameron running mate has focused on energy, elections, cultural issues

State Sen. Robby Mills, who GOP gubernatorial nominee Attorney General Daniel Cameron tapped as his running mate Wednesday, is a longtime public official in Western Kentucky.

He spent 16 years on the Henderson City Commission starting in 1998 before serving a term in the Kentucky House, then winning election to Senate District 4 in a one-point 2018 win over an incumbent Democrat. In 2022, he won re-election to a second term by 33 percentage points.

At an event announcing Mills’ addition to the ticket, Cameron praised Mills as “rock-ribbed conservative with a history of beating legacy Democrats in a historically strong Democrat region.”

As the law for selecting a lieutenant governor running mate recently changed, Mills became the first running mate selected by a gubernatorial candidate after the May primary. In election cycles of the recent past, like in 2019 when Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear selected Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman, candidates selected their running mates before the primary.

The wait is over: Cameron announces his pick for lieutenant governor running mate

Mills brings rural appeal, small business background

As of yet, Mills is still lesser-known on a statewide basis. However, he provides a rural, Western Kentucky appeal that observers say could benefit Cameron. He also provides a small business background, which is often valued in politics.

Mills’ native Henderson County could prove to be a battleground in Cameron’s race against Beshear. In 2019, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear won the county by about 4 percentage points. Nearby population centers include Daviess County, where Beshear lost by a slim three-point margin in 2019 and Hopkins County which Republicans carried by close to 20 points last time.

The Senator’s candidacy would make him the only person vying for a constitutional office this year who lives West of Interstate 65.

A business graduate of Oral Roberts University, Mills took the reins at a dry cleaning small business in Henderson called Nu-Look Cleaners. He later started a restoration business under the same name.

The pairing of Cameron and Mills establishes a Cameron-Mills ticket. The name may ring familiar to many in Kentucky, as Cameron Mills was a well-loved Lexington native on the University of Kentucky basketball team in the 1990s.

Mills’ name was one of several floated to run alongside Cameron in the wake of the attorney general’s landslide win in the GOP gubernatorial primary this year. Other names circulating for the spot in Frankfort included Quarles and House Speaker Pro Tempore David Meade, R-Stanford, among others.

As a legislator who serves as the State and Local Government Committee chair, Mills has shepherded multiple high-profile bills to final passage.

What is Robby Mills’ legislative record?

In the legislature, Mills has been focused on energy policy, elections and cultural issues important to conservatives.

In 2022, Mills was the primary sponsor of Senate Bill 3, which redistricted the state’s U.S. Congressional map following the 2020 census – that map is still being challenged by the Kentucky Democratic Party, which says it’s gerrymandered. He also sponsored a bill that passed in 2020 requiring voters to show a government-issued photo ID before voting.

He’s also passed high-priority GOP legislation on abortion and transgender issues. In 2022, he brought former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines – who has become a key figure in the conservative push against transgender athletes participating in sports that correspond with their gender identity – to the Capitol to help promote his bill banning transgender girls and women from womens sports. That bill passed despite a veto from Gov. Andy Beshear.

Representing a chunk of Kentucky’s Western Coal Field region, which has a long history of mining, Mills has also sponsored key legislation that protects the fossil fuel industry. In 2022, he passed a bill – signed into law by Beshear despite a majority of Democrats opposing it – that required the state to divest from banks that boycott the fossil fuel industry, with certain exceptions.

Senate Bill 4 was Mills’ most recent push to bolster the state’s coal industry. Passed this year into law without Beshear’s signature, that bill created obstacles for utilities seeking to replace coal-fired power generation with new sources, such as natural gas, renewable energy or nuclear.

Mills was the main sponsor of Lofton’s Law, which criminalized hazing. The bill passed this session and was named after a University of Kentucky student from Henderson who died of alcohol toxicity following a fraternity hazing event.

Democrats take aim at ‘sewer bill’ involvement & past LGBTQ comments

The first responses from Beshear’s campaign as well as the Democratic Governors Association (DGA) highlighted Mills’ role in advocating for a pension reform bill pushed by former Republican Gov. Matt Bevin.

“By selecting the politician who helped lead Matt Bevin’s push to slash pensions for teachers, police and firefighters and strip funds away from public schools, Daniel Cameron threatens to take Kentucky back to the days where working families were left behind and public education was constantly under attack. That deeply harmful agenda is wrong for Kentucky and today’s decision from Daniel Cameron shows once again why he is unfit to be governor,” wrote DGA States Press Secretary Emma O’Brien.

Mills was not primary sponsor on the bill, known as the ‘sewer bill,’ but he did publicly advocate for the legislation.

He said the 2018 breakdown of an attempt to pass another version of that bill after the Kentucky Supreme Court voided the previous was one “the most frustrating thing” he’d experienced in public service. Mills was also a strong ally of Bevin’s, urging voters in his hometown newspaper to support the controversial governor’s re-election.

“While he has said some things during his term that a more polished politician might have said differently and he has ruffled a few feathers along the way, he is plain spoken, get the work done type of leader. That is what people like about both President Trump and Governor Bevin. They are straight shooters,” Mills wrote.

Observers online were also quick to elevate comments about the LGBTQ community that Mills had made more than 20 years ago as a Henderson City Commissioner. Those comments were published in newspaper reports when the commission was considering a Fairness Ordinance, extending anti-discrimination rules to LGBTQ individuals.

In an Associated Press report from 1999, Mills is quoted as saying that he’ll never be convinced “that homosexuals need special rights.” Henderson became one of the first cities in Kentucky to pass a Fairness Ordinance that year, but the city commission repealed it 18 months later. It eventually passed again in 2019.