Yates: Experience matters in state House race

At the begin­ning of the year, one ques­tion many Clark Countians had about the 2026 elec­tion was whether Les Yates would run for a sec­ond term as coun­ty judge-exec­u­tive or try to return to the state leg­is­la­ture, where he had served before enter­ing coun­ty government.

On the last day to file, Jan. 9, he final­ly made his inten­tion known — he want­ed to go back to Frankfort and pick up where he left off.

If he returned to the state House as the 73^rd District rep­re­sen­ta­tive, he rea­soned, he would be well received by the Republican lead­ers he knew.

“I got to think­ing that, if I go back, I can hit the ground run­ning,” he said.

“I’ve learned a lot in this job,” Yates not­ed, refer­ring to his four years as the county’s chief exec­u­tive. “I know where the cities and coun­ties are real­ly strug­gling, but I also know the leg­isla­tive side of it, so what I’m hop­ing is that we can fix some of that.”

For exam­ple, he said, he wants the state to raise the amount it charges for com­mer­cial mobile radio ser­vice (CMRS) to help fund 911 dis­patch ser­vices. It’s cur­rent­ly 70 cents per month per cell phone, but it isn’t enough.

It used to be that 911 ser­vices were fund­ed by a $1 per month charge on phone land­lines, but as most peo­ple got rid of their home phones, local gov­ern­ments added a fee to water meter bills. Still, that was­n’t enough, so coun­ty and city gov­ern­ments have to make up the dif­fer­ence, with the coun­ty, in Clark’s case, cov­er­ing 25 per­cent of the short­fall and the city of Winchester pay­ing 75 per­cent of the bill. If the CMRS tax were raised, it would reduce the local gov­ern­ments’ share of the cost.

“Things like that, I have an under­stand­ing, and I believe I could help,” he said.

Similarly, Yates said he sup­ports HB 577, which is cur­rent­ly before the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee in this year’s leg­isla­tive session.

“It is basi­cal­ly to make the state pay their fair share of the jail expens­es,” he said.

Yates said the Clark County Detention Center and its home incar­cer­a­tion pro­gram are being run effi­cient­ly, yet the Fiscal Court still has to con­tribute about $2 mil­lion to the operation.

If the coun­ty didn’t have to bear so great a part of that bur­den, it would have more mon­ey to resur­face roads and meet oth­er needs, he said.

Clark County’s gov­ern­ment is in finan­cial dif­fi­cul­ty, and that has cre­at­ed some ten­sion between Yates and some of the magistrates.

“What’s been dis­heart­en­ing here to me, I real­ly want­ed to help the coun­ty, but even if you had every­body work­ing togeth­er, it would be a tough job,” he said. “The Fiscal Court has not raised tax­es for a lot of years. They prob­a­bly spent more than they should. At the same time, the cost of every­thing went sky high. That’s what got us into the finan­cial sit­u­a­tion we’re in, and it’s going take a long time to get back out of it.”

He said the new Fiscal Court will have to raise tax­es, and even that may not be enough.

He not­ed that the coun­ty is los­ing some of its state and fed­er­al fund­ing. There are plans for a new judi­cial cen­ter for cir­cuit and dis­trict court­rooms and offices, so the state Administrative Office of the Courts won’t be rent­ing space from the Fiscal Court in the cour­t­house and annex in the years to come. And the U.S. Department of Defense is clos­ing out its Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program for the Blue Grass Army Depot, which helped near­by coun­ties fund their emer­gency man­age­ment operations.

“These are real prob­lems,” Yates said. “We have to plan ahead.”

Yates, 73, was some­thing of a late­com­er to pol­i­tics and gov­ern­ment. He was born in Eastern Kentucky, joined the Air Force after high school, and served four years in Germany and Arizona, where he was an air­craft elec­tri­cian for F‑4 fight­er planes. After his mil­i­tary ser­vice, he earned a degree in elec­tri­cal engi­neer­ing from Arizona State University and worked in Phoenix for 18 years.

“I always want­ed to come back home” to Kentucky, he said, and when he returned, he got involved in hous­ing con­struc­tion and remod­el­ing, then estab­lished Boonesboro Supply, which he and his wife, Katrina, have oper­at­ed for more than 20 years.

It wasn’t until 2016, when he chal­lenged Republican state Rep. Donna Mayfield of Winchester for re-elec­tion, that he got involved in pol­i­tics. Mayfield won that race, but when he chal­lenged her again in 2018, she with­drew, and he was elected.

Yates served one term and was defeat­ed by Ryan Dotson in the 2020 Republican pri­ma­ry. That was dur­ing the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, and the Clark County elec­tions board reject­ed 393 absen­tee bal­lots for var­i­ous rea­sons, includ­ing miss­ing sig­na­tures. He lost Clark County by only two votes, but Madison County by a sig­nif­i­cant margin.

“For some rea­son, it didn’t both­er me, and I don’t know why,” he said.

Then, in 2022, he ran for coun­ty judge-exec­u­tive against Clark County Magistrate Greg Elkins in the Republican pri­ma­ry and against Democrat Justin Charles in the gen­er­al elec­tion, and won both. Elkins is now a state senator.

“Greg and I get along fine,” Yates said.

He thinks he’ll be able to work well with Elkins and the Republican lead­er­ship if he wins.

The last time he served, he also got along well with Democrats in the legislature.

“I think one thing you’ll notice about me is I don’t care so much about peo­ple being Democrat or Republican, because I think that you have to reach across the aisle” to help get things done, he said.

One of the three bills he spon­sored unsuc­cess­ful­ly when he served before would have made Kentucky an open-pri­ma­ry state. (During a recent cam­paign vis­it, for­mer state Rep. Cherlynn Stevenson incor­rect­ly described it as a bill to do away with straight-tick­et voting.)

When asked to respond to crit­i­cism that he didn’t spon­sor more bills, Yates answered: “That doesn’t hap­pen when you’re a freshman.”

“It takes time to learn the process,” he said. 

As some­one who served one term, Yates thinks he could accom­plish more than his pri­ma­ry oppo­nent, Magistrate Daniel Konstantopoulos.

Asked why he thinks he’s the bet­ter can­di­date, Yates respond­ed: “One, I think, is expe­ri­ence. Number two, I care. I’m not say­ing he doesn’t,” but it’s impor­tant to care and “do what’s best for the peo­ple, period.”

“As you’ve prob­a­bly seen around here, I don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly fol­low the clique,” he said.

“Knowing what to expect there, and what needs to be done here, I think I can do a bet­ter job,” he said.

Konstantopoulos has said that what’s most need­ed to move Kentucky for­ward is to elim­i­nate the state income tax. Yates said he wouldn’t name that his first pri­or­i­ty, but he thinks it prob­a­bly does need to be phased out. He thinks Kentucky los­es eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties because com­pa­nies locate in Tennessee and oth­er states that don’t tax income.

“I per­son­al­ly think the most fair way is sales tax, because every­body pays some­thing,” he remarked.

On anoth­er issue fac­ing the leg­is­la­ture, Yates said he thinks there’s abuse in the Medicaid pro­gram, and that waste should be elim­i­nat­ed, but there are peo­ple who need the insurance.

“I wouldn’t cut it across the board,” he said. “Some peo­ple couldn’t make it.”

What he thinks Kentucky needs most is more well-pay­ing jobs.

Improving pub­lic edu­ca­tion is anoth­er big need, he said, adding that edu­ca­tion is the best way for chil­dren to escape poverty.

One of the biggest chal­lenges the state faces, Yates said, is par­ti­san divisiveness.

“Let’s start with what we agree on first,” he said. “I’m not going to hate some­body because of their pol­i­tics. All we’re doing is hurt­ing each other.”