State Rep. Cherlynn Stevenson (D-Lexington) was on a roll with one-liners at the Mike Miller Memorial Bean Dinner and at the Fancy Farm picnic.
She told the crowd at the Thursday night Democratic feed at Kentucky Dam Village State Park that she hoped the Republicans would be saddened when the votes are counted after the polls close on Nov. 5.
- I want them to be as sad as Jamie Comer when there are no Fox News cameras around.
- I want them to feel as welcome as Mitch McConnell at the Republican National Convention.
- I want them to feel panic like Sen. Paul’s hairdresser when he realizes he is short on perm supplies.
The zingers continued Saturday afternoon at the state’s premier political picnic, where Stevenson, the minority caucus chair, and Rep. Suzanne Miles (R-Owensboro), the majority caucus chair, squared off over the controversial Amendment 2.
On the ballot this fall, the proposed constitutional add-on, pushed by GOP lawmakers, would permit state funding for private schools, an idea Republicans are pushing nationwide. While the Democrats in the crowd booed Miles’s speech, she didn’t seem to win many hearts and minds on the Republican side of the pavilion either.
The Republican faithful stood and whooped it up for Sen. Mitch McConnell; Comer, the First District congressman; and the rest of the MAGA GOP lineup. But the true believers mostly stayed seated and seemed less than gung ho for the proposal the Kentucky Education Association says “would drastically impact our public schools by giving the legislature free rein to send as much public money as they want to unaccountable private schools.”
Stevenson said she’d never spoken at Fancy Farm and, hence, was “more excited than a Republican trying to take away your lunch break.”
She was glad for the opportunity to speak against Amendment 2 and was “more ready to go than Matt Bevin’s ex-wife.”
Stevenson thanked picnic organizers for letting her have her say against Amendment 2 “or as I like to call it, Public Enemy Number One for public schools.”
Amendment backers claim the measure would give parents “school choice.” “This is not what we mean when we say we want more pro-choice laws,” said Stevenson.
She proposed that GOP lawmakers “supporting this amendment are the same ones who somehow thought that Frankfort and Paducah belong in the same congressional district.”
Next, she glanced to her left at the seated Comer. In his speech, he’d trotted out his trademark demagoguery, most of it aimed at Gov. Andy Beshear, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, and not his Democratic opponent, Erin Marshall. Like Stevenson, she was a first-time Fancy Farm speechmaker.
Stevenson grinned and said she’d “like to thank Jamie Comer for being here today. And Congressman – Congressman, I know it’s hard watching Andy Beshear rise through the political ranks. But cheer up. You have something he doesn’t – a loss to Matt Bevin.”
She suggested to Comer, “I’m sure that you think about that 2015 loss a lot. I do, too, and I want to give a big old shout out to those 83 Republicans who ultimately gave us the most popular Democratic governor in the country.”
Segueing back to Amendment 2, Stevenson said, “It was Matt Bevin who gave us the sewer bill, and vouchers stink just as much.”
Stevenson said several teachers had asked her “how can we get more Republican support for public education. I thought about it but really the only things that I could think of are naming their schools after Donald Trump, building a big, beautiful wall between the swings and the slides and making Tennessee pay for it, or declaring that the 2020 election for class president was rigged."
Before she concluded her speech, she got serious. “I realize that we are all here today for the laughs. But this amendment is no joke. So I want to emphasize that our public schools need more legislative support, not less.”
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