Rick Adams on running for KY House, why he wants to serve, and improving education

Rick Adams, the Deputy General Council to the Kentucky Democrat Party, is running to be the Kentucky House Representative for District 41. Adams talked about his law career, why he wants to run for public office, the future of the Democrat Party in the Commonwealth, working acorss party lines, and improving education in Louisville...

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Terry Miners. Here we have theDeputy General Counsel to the Kentucky Democrat Party.
He's one of them anyway, andthat is Rick Adams, who's running
for office in the Kentucky House ofRepresentatives District forty one, which I'm thinking
isn't too far from my house.Hi. Rick, it's good to see
you. Thanks for having me.Good to have you in. I know
your friend Allison, she texted meabout you and she said, oh,

(00:22):
you got to meet Rick Adams.Let's say we'll bring him over. Well.
I appreciate Allison, you know,she's great on the campaign, knows
everybody, she knows everybody in theparty. She's been everywhere in the Commonwealth
Kentucky. So you're in good hands. I'll tell you that much. Tell
me where District forty one is located. Yeah, so it's a bit of
an odd shaped district. It startsin the north of Cliftons gives me.
Then it kind of sweeps down throughIrish Hill, goes through Tyler Park,

(00:43):
Deer Park, through the Highlands,and then out all the way to Hikes
Point. I've lived in some ofthose neighborhoods over the years. I'm close
to you now not actually technically inyour district. So clearly you're an attorney
school at the University of Louisville.I hear, that's right. What was
your calling to get you to Uof L. Yeah, So when I
was thinking about go to law school, I talked to a lot of lawyers
that I knew, and everyone said, you know, you should go to

(01:03):
law school where you want to practice, And I knew I want to end
up in Louisville, being Louisville.I love the city, and so it
was an easy decision when I gotaccepted, came here and loved my three
years in law school, and I'veloved living in louis ever since. Well,
I saw some fancy Latin words onthe website too, Magna cum laude.
That's kind of a that means you'renot a dummy. I guess I
think that's the literal translation. Yeah, he's not dumb. Is that what

(01:27):
that means? Because I never was. I mean, I used to go
to Latin mass occasionally, but Ididn't know what they were talking about.
And you had a clerkship for afederal judge, that's right, So I
clerked for a judge. Rent andstool here in the Western District of Kentucky
for two years after law school,which is a great way to start a
legal career. You're working for theirfederal judge. You get to see every
kind of case from criminal cases toyou know, civil disputes, and it

(01:51):
really helped me figure out what Iwant to do. And you know,
uh, yeah, would would highlyrecommend it. Is it like in the
movies where the judge gets all thecredit and all those people are back there
they're reading books at two o'clock inthe morning trying to find something. Judge,
I found something, don't text meat two in the morning, save
it for eight a m. There'sdefinitely a lot of research, probably not
at two in the morning, butno, it was definitely wouldn't want to

(02:13):
take any of that credit. JudeBrennich Stoole was a great boss, worst
boss, and you know he doesyou know, always is inclusive of his
clerks, but it's all him.We have great' that's a that's a great
team building effort as well. Ofcourse. So what's called you now to
say, you know what, Iwant to run for the Kentucky House.
Yeah, So, as you mentioned, I'm the Deputy Genial Counselor of the
party. So I've been around politicsfor the last several years. You know,

(02:37):
I was surprised as anybody when ourcurrent representative, Josie Raymond announced that
she was going to step down andrun for a Metro Council seat, opening
this seat up. Josie is agood friend. Actually worked on her first
campaign when I was a law student, so we go way back, and
I would have been very happy forJosie to serve in that seat for a
long time. But when she decidedto step down, you know, me
and Emma, my wife, wetalked about it, and you know,
we really love Kentucky, We lovethe Louisville. We don't want to see

(02:59):
the stake controlled by the extreme Republicansupermajority that we have now. We think
it's really important for young people tobe involved and kind of put their money
where their mouth is and and getout there and run and help build the
party. And you know, it'sa long term rebuilding project that we're that
we have to have in the DemocraticParty. Right now, Governor Brasher Lieutenant
Governor Coleman are doing a great jobin the Governor's mansion, but there's not
enough Democrats in the General Assembly,so that's gonna be a big and the

(03:23):
governors. He's had a pretty goodresponse to a super majority. On the
other side, he's still gotten somethings accomplished, exactly right, And that's
a challenge, it is. Yeah, And I think you know a lot
of people. You know, we'veknocked over five thousand doors in this campaign
and have a lot of constituents thathave asked me, why do you want
to go when Republicans control everything?And that's exactly why I do want to

(03:43):
go, because we have to sendDemocrats a that are going to be thinking
about the future of growing the party, getting more Democrats there so we can
win on our issues, but inthe short term that are willing and able
to work across the aisle and buildcoalitions to get stuff done. I think
I'm the best candidate in the racethat's going to be able to do Yeah.
And I would guess that you havea lot of like minded people in
the district that you just described itsboundaries. So it's not like that the

(04:03):
whole Commonwealth of Kentucky is of onethought process exactly right, right, And
so this is a safe Democratic seatalmost certainly, whoever wins on the primary
on May twenty first, we'll goto Frankfort to represent this district. And
I think that's important. Democrats can'twaste quote unquote safe Democratic seats. We
had to send the best candidates therefrom these seats that are, like I

(04:25):
said, working on issues now,on these big debates that we're having now,
but also focused every single day onrebuilding the Democratic Party. And we
have a lot of evidence that sayswhen young voters turn out and are interested,
good things happen for Democrats and goodthings happen for the state of Kentucky.
So you know, I'm a youngDemocrat. I'm thirty two, and
you know, un fortunate have towin this selection. I'm going to leave
the doorm behind me and hopefully abunch of young Democrats can come in behind.

(04:46):
Morgan McGarvey visits here regularly, andyou know, we've had these talks
about kind of pushing the snowball upthe mountain because of the numbers differential in
there. But again he too showingthat there are ways to work with all
all of the folks who are officeholders. So you're open to that,
surely that it can't all just beyour vision all the time. Sometimes you

(05:08):
gotta get married to an idea that'snot fully what you had in the beginning.
Of course. Yeah, and I'vespoken to Congressman McGarvey. He's given
me a lot of great advice,you know, to have of the campaign
and if I'm fortunate enough to servein the General Assembly, and really Democrats
have no choice if there's twenty inthe House right now. If we want
to get anything done, just mathtells us we have to get Republican votes
and work across the aisle to doit. So, you know, sometimes

(05:30):
in the supernority, I know itcan be frustrating. The best you can
do is make a bad bill lessbad or a good bill better. But
we have we've seen some evidence thiscycle or sorry, this last session where
Republicans and Democrats have worked together onissues without Democrats sacrificing their principles. So
I look at the mom to Usbill that Kim Moser, Republican introduced,
but work with Democrats to get acrossthe aisle and defeat some poison pill amendments
that we're going to be really badfor the bill and lose Democratic support.

(05:54):
But Republicans Democrats came together defeated thoseamendments, and that's the kind of legislating
that I want to do. I'mfortunate enough to win the season. We're
speaking of Rick Adams. He's runningfor Kentucky House District forty one. His
website is Rick Adams for khy dotcom. And you know, if you
want to learn more about him,mayoric can. There's an issues tab on
there. We can just go downand go through all the different things reproductive

(06:15):
rights or public education, and let'stalk about some of the public education issues.
The whole situation here in Jefferson Countyis different from a lot of other
parts of the Commonwealth. Where arewe missing the boat? Why is there
so much chaos over, for instance, transportation. What should leadership be doing
well? I think it starts inFrankfort, and we have to do our

(06:38):
job of fully funding our public schools. I mean, there has been bills
presented and government Proshar's budget where theGeneral Assembly will fully fund transportation. I
think right now it's funded about eightymaybe ninety percent. We need to increase
that to one hundred percent. SoJefferson County public schools aren't put in the
position of cutting transportation and magnet programsand opportunities for our students. So we
need to increase funding in Frankfort firstof all. And you know, it's

(07:00):
discouraging to me as a Louvillion tosee a lot of Louisville elected Republicans that
live at the edge of the countyrepresent a very small portion of the population
of our city, but are goingto frank and working with their colleagues and
PADUCO and we're all across the stateto pick on JCPS and pick on Louisville.
I think we need to have collaborativeconversations and work together about fixing the

(07:21):
problem and not using JCPS as apolitical punching bag. Well, people point
to test scores and then they'll saythat it's not we're not getting the job
done here. So obviously there's atalk about school choice and all the other
issues that come into place. Soyou've got to be open and listening to
what other people have to say figureout how to get your your ideas across

(07:42):
the finish line too. I thinkthat's absolutely right. We need to have
a spirit of compromise. Like Isaid, there's no Democrats don't have a
choice at the moment, And thegood news is we have a really good
opportunity to start doing that May twentysecond, right after the primary is over.
Because you mentioned school choice, therewas as on the constitution. There's
gonna be a constitutional amendment on theballot member it passed through their General Assembly.
But certainly I oppose that. Idon't think we need to be sending

(08:05):
our public tax dollars to private schools. The people I talk to in District
forty one overwhelmingly oppose that, Butalso a lot of Republicans oppose that.
A lot of Republican legislators voted againstit in Frankfurt, and there's a lot
of Republicans across the state that livein more rural areas that don't have private
schools in the area, that knowthat a school choice program is not going
to benefit them at all, andtheir public schools, which are extremely important
to their districts, are going tolose taxpayer dollars. So we can start

(08:28):
building those coalitions and working across theaisle right now to defeat that bad constitutional
amendment that's going to be on thatYou do reference to Rainy Day fund in
as a place a source of fundingto help close out what you were talking
about, a shortage for schools.Of course. Yeah, so that's an
interesting thing. Kentucky can't say wedon't have the money right now. We
do have the money. We havea very large, record breaking Randy Day

(08:48):
Fund, largely on the back ofthe record breaking economic development numbers during Governor
of Shearing Lieutenant Governor Coleman's term,and we need to put that money to
use help in Kentucky. And it'snot just sitting in a Rady Day fund.
So Republican legislators can hit their budgettargets to lower taxes that are mostly
going to benefit they're richer and morewealthier Kentuckians. I think we should and

(09:09):
that's clearly what they're doing. They'rebudgeting and targeting those funds so they can
hit the tax break levels that theyput in place a few sessions ago.
And I think there's a lot betteruses of that money. Number One being
publican in petition. Yeah, alot of people have different feelings about what
Rainy Day Fund means, and sothat's a matter of just fleshing out that
your definition and clarifying what that isand how deeply you can tap into it.

(09:31):
Just like the oil reserves. Theyknow how much, how deep you
want to go, of course,yeah, and we need to be responsible
with that money. But I thinkit's irresponsible to cut transportations to schools,
for example. When we have thatmoney sitting there, we can certainly fund
it and pay for it, andI would prioritize that. But I agree
there's certainly to be given take Weneed to keep our fiscal house in order.
But there are a lot of thingsthat Kentuckians need right now that we

(09:52):
could tap into. The radyday.Yeah, we got a lot of work
to do before school starts again.That's fall here. It is just the
end of the school here. Rick, it's great speaking with you. Appreciate
your time and best of luck,and I'll send people to your website to
learn more. Rick Adams four kydot com, thank you so much for
having me. Absolutely all right,coming right back on news radio eight forty WHA s