District 73 candidates outline priorities

Medicaid cuts, school fund­ing, afford­able hous­ing, and wages were among the issues two Democrats run­ning for state rep­re­sen­ta­tive dis­cussed dur­ing a can­di­dates forum April 7.

Chelsea Kirk and Rory Houlihan, who are vying for the nom­i­na­tion for the 73^rd House District, addressed a small audi­ence, but they expressed their appreciation.

“I thank you that you’re here, for show­ing an inter­est in our democ­ra­cy,” said Houlihan, who is run­ning for the office for the fifth time.

In her intro­duc­tion, Kirk, a first-time can­di­date, cit­ed the pos­i­tive influ­ence of her grand­fa­ther, who was may­or of the small town in Bullitt County where she grew up.

Houlihan, who has worked for Winchester’s Lowe’s for 27 years, talked about his work­ing-class roots.

“I’m not a career politi­cian,” he said.

Chuck Witt of WinCity Media mod­er­at­ed the event. His first ques­tion was about $2.7 bil­lion in cuts to Medicaid, the state-fed­er­al pro­gram that pro­vides health insur­ance for low-income people.

Kirk said the reduc­tions will not only affect indi­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies, but also hurt fund­ing for rur­al hos­pi­tals, some of which may have to close. She men­tioned that in 2024, 20 per­cent of births in Kentucky were cov­ered by Medicaid.

“Rural com­mu­ni­ties will bear the brunt of these cuts,” Kirk said.

Houlihan sug­gest­ed the assault on pub­lic hos­pi­tals may be delib­er­ate. When leg­is­la­tors defund pub­lic hos­pi­tals, he said, it becomes eas­i­er for com­pa­nies to buy them and con­vert them into pri­vate hospitals.

“Their short-term gain is your long-term pain,” he said.

Witt not­ed that the Republican-con­trolled state leg­is­la­ture increased mon­ey this year for the SEEK pro­gram — the basic allo­ca­tion the state pro­vides for local school dis­tricts — but did not include fund­ing for uni­ver­sal pre-kinder­garten, some­thing Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, had sought.

“What are your pri­or­i­ties?” Witt asked.

Again, Houlihan con­trast­ed pub­lic and pri­vate options for fam­i­lies with high­er incomes and those with­out. If a fam­i­ly earn­ing $300,000 or more can get a tax deduc­tion to pay for pri­vate edu­ca­tion while poor fam­i­lies can­not, “that’s just plain wrong,” he said.

Kirk, who men­tioned that she and her hus­band are prod­ucts of pub­lic schools, said that when she cam­paigns door-to-door, schools are what vot­ers want to talk about.

“I can tell you that pub­lic edu­ca­tion is the thing that’s brought up to me most in these con­ver­sa­tions,” she said.

Kirk said leg­is­la­tors point out that this year they spent more mon­ey than ever on pub­lic schools — “which is tech­ni­cal­ly true,” she added.

“The prob­lem is that the costs to deliv­er edu­ca­tion have been ris­ing, and the increase they have allot­ted for Kentucky does not keep up with infla­tion,” she said.

For Clark County, she not­ed, the infla­tion-adjust­ed amount actu­al­ly amounts to a one per­cent reduction.

Witt asked what the can­di­dates would do to bridge the gap between the “haves and have-nots” in the state.

Kirk said she wants to raise the min­i­mum wage, which is cur­rent­ly $7.25 per hour and hasn’t increased in many years. She not­ed that the wage for restau­rant servers is only $2.13. She also talked about the need for more afford­able hous­ing, which she said is about 22,000 units short of what is need­ed statewide.

Houlihan said he has a state con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment pro­pos­al ready to intro­duce that would require a “liv­ing wage” and pro­tect repro­duc­tive rights for preg­nant women. He said crit­ics claim such a mea­sure would raise prices along with wages, but he argued that “we have had high­er infla­tion under Republicans, not Democrats.”

Houlihan was also crit­i­cal of Republicans who “go after the unions” that defend col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing rights and bet­ter wages and benefits.

After the debate, Ronni Tallent, chair of the Clark County Democratic Party, invit­ed oth­er Democrats run­ning for pub­lic office in the com­mu­ni­ty to come for­ward and intro­duce them­selves. Two did: Jeannie Gwynne, who is run­ning for coun­ty mag­is­trate, and Tim Cornett, who is a can­di­date for city commission.