Out of 12 Northern Kentucky women ever elected to represent the region in the state legislature, seven won for the first time in the last 10 years. Five of those women will be on the ballot again this November.
Two of the five will be opposed by NKY women who are running for the Kentucky General Assembly for the first time — with six newcomers on the ballot total on Nov. 5.
That puts a record 11 NKY women on the ballot for the state House and Senate in a presidential year when a woman is running for U.S. president and reproductive rights are a top issue. Public funding for private education, the economy, and jobs are other ballot draws, with Democrats and Republicans often taking different ideological stands on each.
The rapidly growing roster of incumbents and challengers that shows NKY women are eager to lead in places where they were largely nonexistent until three decades ago.
Two NKY women, different backgrounds
Heather Crabbe is a familiar face in Northern Kentucky where she’s a local attorney, former Chase College of Law assistant dean, and a parent. Now she’d like to be a familiar face in Frankfort as the first NKY Black woman elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives.
The Democrat, now an assistant dean at UC Law, is running this fall against incumbent Rep. Kimberly Poore Moser (R-Taylor Mill) for the 64th House District – an area with around 45,000 people that stretches from central Kenton County into parts of Covington.
It’s a district that has been held by House Republicans for at least 20 years.
Moser, the longtime chair of the House Health Services committee, is a retired flight and NICU nurse and former director of the NKY Office of Drug Control Policy. In 2016, she was the first woman elected to the 64th district after the retirement of former Democrat-turned-Republican Rep. Thomas Kerr.
Back in March, Moser told LINK that understanding the needs of the district is important to her. “To that end, I will continue to meet with my neighbors and constituents to understand their concerns. Issues around public safety, health care and barriers to care, educational opportunities, jobs, and the economy and transportation continue to rise to the top of the concerns I hear.”
Taking the seat from Moser this year would no doubt be challenging for a Democrat, even with Gov. Andy Beshear winning Kenton County in 2023 and 2019. Voters in the 64th district are majority Republican, not Democrat.
Crabbe, however, says she is intent on making history, not only as a Democratic woman but as a Black woman.
“I am running for State Representative to ensure that Kentucky, where my family has flourished for generations and broken barriers as African Americans, is a place where my children and future generations can achieve success without feeling the need to move elsewhere in search of it,” Crabbe told LINK.
Katie Kratz Stine breaks ground
If Crabbe wins, it would be the first time in exactly 30 years that NKY delivered a major demographic shift for women in the Kentucky General Assembly.
The last time was 1994, when an NKY woman was first elected to a full term of office in the Kentucky General Assembly. That woman was Katie Kratz Stine, a Southgate Republican who listed her occupation as “attorney/homemaker” in her official legislative directory biography after she was elected to the 68th House seat held for years by Democrat Rep. Bill Donnermeyer.
Four years later, Stine became the first NKY woman elected to a full Senate term when she won the 24th District Senate seat, now held by Sen. Shelley Funke Frommeyer (R-Alexandria). In 2005, she ascended to the second highest leadership post in the Senate when her mostly male peers elected her Senate President Pro Tempore – a position she held until her retirement from the Senate in 2014.
The only NKY woman to serve in the state legislature before Stine was Patti Weaver, a Boone County Democrat who ran unopposed in a 1989 special election to fill the unexpired term of her late husband, former Sen. John Weaver. She did not run for reelection.
Stine was elected to two terms in the House and four in the Senate until she decided to retire.
She has largely been out of the limelight since, save for a stint as executive director of the state Medical Examiner’s Office during the Bevin administration. Before leaving the legislature in 2014, Stine told KET’s Renee Shaw in a televised interview that her political career — during which she pushed for anti-abortion laws, including in-person counseling for women seeking an abortion — had been a blessing.
“It’s been a blessing. It’s been interesting. Sometimes it’s been challenging, in fact most of the time it’s been challenging, but you know I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she told Shaw. “And you know, it’s been a tremendous honor to get to serve the people of Kentucky.”
NKY women make more gains
After Stine, NKY women vying for the state legislature from both parties began to make inroads.
Former Rep. Addia Wuchner (R-Florence) served seven terms after she was first elected to the 66th District in 2004. Then came the election of former Rep. Alecia Webb-Edgington (R-Fort Wright) for two terms in 2007 to the 63rd District, followed by the election of former Rep. Diane St. Onge (R-Fort Wright) to the 63rd District for three terms, Moser’s election to her first term in the 64th District in 2016 and the election of Rep. Savannah Maddox (R-Dry Ridge) in 2018 to the 61st District that includes part of southern Boone and Kenton counties and all of Grant and Gallatin counties.
Newport Democrat Rep. Rachel Roberts — the first NKY woman to serve in House leadership, and who is retiring from the legislature when her term ends this year — became the first NKY Democratic woman elected to the House when she first took office in 2020. That followed the 2019 special election of current 63rd District Rep. Kim Banta (R-Fort Mitchell).
Next came Reps. Stephanie Dietz (R-Edgewood) of the 65th House District and Marianne Proctor (R-Union) of the 60th House District, both elected in 2022 and currently serving in the House. Banta and Maddox (running unopposed), Dietz, and Proctor are running along with Moser to keep their seats this year.
Other NKY women running in 2024 are:
- Proctor is challenged by Deb Ison Flowers, a Union Democrat and nurse who would be the first Democrat elected to the Boone County district in 30 years.
- Peggy Houston-Nienaber, a Union Democrat who is a school teacher and former accountant, is running for the 66th House District (covering much of the northern half of Boone County) against Republican attorney TJ Roberts of Burlington.
- Wilanne Stangel, an Erlanger Democrat with years of experience working in public and private schools, is running against 69th House District incumbent Rep. Steven Doan (R-Erlanger) for the district traversing parts of north central Boone and Kenton counties.
- Jennifer Sierra is a Covington artist, author and small business owner who would become the first NKY woman ever elected to 23rd Senate District should she win her race for the Kenton County district against incumbent Sen. Chris McDaniel (R-Ryland Heights).
- Kiana Fields is a Georgetown Democrat making a historic run for the 17th District Senate seat now held by retiring Republican Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer of Georgetown. If she wins, she would be the first Black woman elected to the Senate since civil rights leader Georgia Powers (D-Louisville) in 1967.
Fields, research and education coordinator at the University of Louisville and a Centre College graduate, is running against business owner and Republican Matt Nunn of Sadieville for the open seat that encompasses southcentral Kenton County, part of northern Fayette, and all of Grant and Scott counties — a region where Fields said her roots run deep, at least back to the 1840s.
“When I saw the (17th Senate District) seat would be open, I saw an opportunity to be a voice,” Fields told LINK. “I believe in the hope and promise of Kentucky and I always will.”
The future was on Stine’s mind when she was interviewed by Shaw back in 2014. Stine said she wasn’t sure what her next steps would be after breaking ground in Frankfort. Meanwhile, she told Shaw, she was “praying about it to see how I can be of greatest service to my fellow man.”
“We have to remember – we’re just here for a time,” she said.
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Written by Rebecca Hanchett. Cross-posted from Link NKY.
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