Who will be the next governor of Kentucky? The commonwealth will decide between incumbent Gov. Andy Beshear and Attorney General Daniel Cameron on Tuesday, Nov. 7.
Both Beshear and Cameron are participating in a debate hosted by NKU and sponsored by WCPO 9. Watch the full debate here:
WCPO 9 News anchor Tanya O'Rourke asked both candidates questions on topics including education, abortion and the possibility of appointing a replacement for Sen. Mitch McConnell. Here are their unaltered answers.
What is your stance on abortion?
Beshear: I believe that we need reasonable laws. I've never believed in, and opposed, late-term abortion, but I believe that medical access needs to be there for individuals.
But let me just say on that, we are in a post Roe v. Wade world. There is no pro-this or pro-that anymore. What we have is a trigger law that is the most extreme in the country right now in Kentucky. It's 'are you in favor of exceptions for rape and incest?' Or 'are you going to force those victims through that process?'
Do you believe that rapists should have more rights than their victims? I don't. I support those victims.
Cameron: In my view, we need to make sure that we establish a culture of life in Kentucky. And I know this is a delicate subject, and there are people that have a range of opinions on it, but at the end of the day, I think we have the responsibility to establish a culture of life and I'm gonna be a governor that stands for that.
Now when I talk about a culture of life, I'm also talking about, look, McKinsey and I have a 19-month-old at home and so we see and understand the challenges that come with raising a child. And I want to be a governor that is responsive to that meaning. How can we alleviate some of the pressures that come along with child care and being able to pay for child care or looking at ways in which, you know, teachers sometimes they only get six weeks off, they have to go back after six weeks of unpaid leave ... I want to look be able to look at that as well with our legislature to see if there's anything that we can do to expand our ability in government to promote families and promote that culture of life.
Studies show Kentucky is the sixth-least educated state in the entire nation. (What is) your reaction to that and how do you specifically plan to address it?
Beshear: Well public education is one of the most important investments that we can make. I'm a Kentucky public school graduate. My kids go to public schools here in the commonwealth. And for years, we have not invested in public education the way we need to.
Right now, we are 44th in teacher pay, and starting teacher pay, and about 40th in average. What we believe, so much that I chose a public school educator as my running mate in Jacqueline Coleman, is that now is the time to invest.
Our last budget started in that direction, but our 'Education First' plan would provide an 11% across-the-board raise for every single public school employee. What that would mean is that we would have enough bus drivers, enough counselors, enough cafeteria workers, custodians, but maybe most importantly, we would have enough educators to truly provide the world-class public education that our kids deserve.
Cameron: Part of why I'm running is to make sure we can rebuild and repair our foundation as it relates to quality education in our commonwealth. And just last week, I unveiled the 'Cameron Catch-Up Plan'. It's about addressing specifically the learning loss that our children have experienced.
I think it's important to make sure that at the same time we're addressing that learning loss, we're also making sure that our teachers are adequately paid. In fact, teachers that are involved in the learning loss program, that's going to roughly be a 16-week program — some of it during the summer, the other part after school, we want our teachers to be engaged in that. But we also want to make sure that we are paying them for the services or the additional time they are spending with our students.
I also think it's important to remove bureaucracy from our classroom so that our teachers are able to build strong and durable relationships with our students so that they can be better educated for the future.
Kentucky has a teacher shortage. What will you do to recruit and retain teachers in the commonwealth and importantly provide for their retirement?
Beshear: Well our teacher shortage really started to get worse when the last governor tried to illegally cut the pensions of every educator and also police officer, social worker, every state, city and county worker. I was proud as attorney general to fight that bill in court to win and to protect those retirements, but then the legislature cut that most important benefit to our educators without increasing their compensation.
Listen, people want to be educators. It is a calling. But we shouldn't impoverish them to do what they love. Under my administration, we've had the three biggest budget surpluses in our history The last one was $1.5 billion more in revenue than expenses. We can more than afford a full 11% raise for all of our public school employees. That'd take us from the starting salary of 44th in the country to the mid-20s. It would make a difference right away.
Cameron: One of the first things that I'm going to do is make sure that we have an education commissioner, a board of trustees that reflects the values of our hardworking teachers, but also the values of the men, women and children of our 120 counties.
In addition to that, I think it's really important when it comes to the salaries of our teachers I believe we've got to raise them. That's why, as part of the 'Cameron Catch-Up Plan', I propose that we raise the starting pay of new teachers into our system, knowing that that will have an upward effect on all the other teachers that have been teaching longer than any new teachers.
Again, this is a proposal that I've not only provided for communities across Kentucky to hear about and learn about, but I've also consulted with the members of our General Assembly. So I'm in a position on Day 1 to effectively move forward on this 'Cameron Catch-Up Plan', because I already have the buy-in of the legislature.
The nursing shortage in Kentucky is worsening. How can you help incentivize people to enter the health care industry if you are elected governor?
Beshear: What we've been doing is a number of things. First, we passed a couple of laws that opened up our nursing programs to accept more students. Second, we created direct relationships between hospitals and the nursing programs. They're now supporting each other and there's even guaranteed employment at a number of the nursing programs when you start at a hospital that helps pay for your tuition.
We have a program through a CEO roundtable of hospitals that is continuing to fund different programs to get more people in, but I think the one that will make the biggest difference is the $240 million we invested in career and technical education in high schools all over Kentucky.
Every single one of them is starting a nursing program and what we see is students who get into it can then go on to a nursing program at a university or our community colleges and be in the hospital the first year out of high school. This is really a chance not just to have better health care in Kentucky but again to secure incredible jobs for our kids and our grandkids.
Cameron: We have, in my judgment, as responsible members in leadership in government, have a responsibility to make sure that we create the conditions in our commonwealth that allow for our hospitals, our healthcare providers to be able to attract more nurses.
And so one of the challenges that we've seen is some of the issues related to the traveling nurse sort of industry that has in many ways made it more appealing for folks to leave Kentucky and go to other states or has increased the price as it relates to nurses that are coming into the state. And so it makes it hard for the hospital to incur that cost of the higher traveling nurse.
So as a governor, I wanna look at it. I also want to make sure that we have enough university programs and enough community college programs available to attract more nurses so that we can get more nurses into the pipeline, get them educated and out into the workforce. And so I'm going to be working with our community colleges along with our four-year universities to make sure that we have specific programs that can be streamlined to get more health care and more nurses into our health care facilities.
As we understand it, Kentucky State Police is severely understaffed. What will you do to ensure that officers are not only recruited but they're retained and protected?
Beshear: What I've done is secure the largest raise in the history of the state police, and it's working. With this last class, we are almost up to 1,000 troopers. I think it's the largest group of troopers we've had since 2016, and we are growing.
But we've got to continue to invest in law enforcement all across Kentucky. It's why I've always pushed to raise the training stipend. That's part of the overall compensation for sheriff deputies and city police, and it also ensures that they have the best of the best training in the country each and every year. We've also got to better protect them. I've proposed a $20 million body armor fund.
Cameron: Well one of the big things that I think is important is that they know that they have a governor that supports them and is going to say so not only in word but also in need. And it's why I unveiled the Cameron public safety plan a little more than a month ago to address some of the things you just presented.
When it comes to our law enforcements and the shortages that we see within Kentucky State Police or local police departments or sheriff's offices, I think we've got to put our money where our mouth is. And so I have proposed that we provide $5,000 bonuses for retention and recruitment within our law enforcement ranks. Again, I think that will help with morale. I think that will help get people interested in the profession of law enforcement.
If you're elected and Senator McConnell decides for a various number of reasons that he cannot fulfill the rest of his term, who would you like to appoint?
Beshear: Senator McConnell is not stepping down. His office has told me that when I talked to them about the senator, and he has specifically said it on the floor. Senator McConnell is going to serve out his term, and I look forward to continuing to serve as governor with him to get things done.
We can't see the future. There may be a reason he cannot continue to serve.
I'm not going to dance on somebody's grave who's alive. I mean, speculating about somebody's health is something I just don't believe in.
I'm not saying he's going to die. Would you abide by the law in Kentucky that you have to appoint one of the three suggested by the GOP?
Well, I don't think we're going to face that situation. Senator McConnell is going to serve out his term, so I haven't even looked at that law in any significant detail.
I've known Senator McConnell most of my life. I went to the Governor's Scholars Program with his daughter, and I just don't think it's right to speculate on his health when he says he's doing fine. You know, he's just a couple of years older than my dad, and I would hope somebody in my situation, if they were asking about my dad, wouldn't play that guessing or speculation game.
Senator McConnell, you know, I believe him. He's always served out a full term, and I think he will here, too.
Cameron: Well, I'm grateful for the way in which Senator McConnell has served our commonwealth and know that he was instrumental in getting the efforts undertaken for the Brent Spence Bridge, so I appreciate and applaud him and grateful for his service and his leadership on that front and making sure that we have conservative justices on the United States Supreme Court.
And so I don't want anything to happen to him, certainly don't want anything to happen to Senator Rand Paul, who daily fights for conservative and constitutional values. God forbid if anything was to happen to either one of them, I'm going to appoint a Republican to be in the United States Senate.
That's different from Andy Beshear, who he along with the far left of his party are going to insist that he disobey state law and appoint a Democrat to fill a seat if, God forbid, anything happened to either one of those individuals.
