AN OPEN LETTER TO VOTERS
Take Back Kentucky Members Meeting with Trey Grayson in March 2009
On March 3rd of 2009, Norman Davis, Richard Lewis, and myself had the pleasure of meeting with Kentucky’s Secretary of State, Trey Grayson. Our meeting was to be limited to less than ten minutes, but during that short time we managed to educate Secretary Grayson about Senate Bill 62, and also to learn a little bit about the Secretary himself.
Mr. Lewis started the conversation by asking the Secretary if he had ever read the Bill of Rights or the Kentucky Constitution. Though he had sworn an oath to the Kentucky Constitution in order to take his position as the Secretary of State, Grayson responded that he had never read that particular document, stating in plain terms, “we never had to read that in law school.” Although Harvard Law School may not require its students to read each and every Bill of Rights of every state Constitution, it should be required reading for anyone who takes office in their respective state.
Rather than dwell on the oversight of the Secretary and those who elected him, Mr. Lewis continued to explain why we had paid a visit to Frankfort and the Secretary. We told Secretary Grayson that Senate Bill 62 was being hurried through the legislature, and he seemed to think that the bill would be a good thing for Kentucky, having participated in the drafting of the bill with the Advisory Task Force for Development of the Registry’s Legislative package. Mr. Lewis asked him specifically if he remembered the previous versions of this bill. Secretary Grayson responded that he did in fact remember the bill and also that he remembered Mr. Lewis’ previous testimonies against the bill. However, this did not stop him from supporting the bill in previous years, nor did it stop him from supporting this bill in 2009.
Mr. Lewis continued to explain the ramifications of Senate Bill 62, and told the Secretary that this bill would nullify what was written in Section 8 of the Bill of Rights. Section 8 states that printing presses shall be free to all people, but Senate Bill 62 removes the right of average citizens to have free printing presses and therefore freedom of speech. At this point, Mr. Davis explained that this would create two classes of citizens regarding the right to freedom of speech. Mr. Lewis then explained that Senate Bill 62 would exempt the media from election laws while restricting the press rights of individuals or living beings. The bill would give rights to legal persons, but restrict the rights of living beings.
Secretary Grayson seemed to understand what Mr. Lewis was telling him. In fact, he had a copy of the book “The Fallacy of Campaign Finance Reform” sitting on his desk, which should have enabled him to understand what we were explaining. We asked him to please do whatever he could to stop this bill in committee, and he assured us that he would take our opinions into consideration. Rather than stand by his word, however, he chose to side with the author of the bill, Senator Damon Thayer. He and Thayer stated during their testimony that this bill would not change any Kentucky law, but that it would change the position of the language to “more appropriate places” in Kentucky law to make the law easier to understand.
This is what occurred on March 3, 2009 at 12:35 PM until about 12:53 PM. You may contact the following people for verification of this statement.
Katie Moyer 270-305-4057
Norman Davis 270-242-6497
Richard Lewis 502-377-6330
Source: [1]
In this clip, Fox News points out that Trey Grayson is an establishment politician, and this will not help him with voters who want to shake up Washington. Additionally, Trey is seen insulting Sarah Palin, who endorsed his opponent.
Trey Grayson is currently Kentucky’s secretary of state. Under the law, this makes him the chairman of Kentucky’s board of elections. Considering that Grayson is running for Senate, it makes sense that he should not be involved in overseeing the vote counts for this particular race. However, when asked by one of his opponents if he was willing to refrain from supervising his own election results, the Trey Grayson campaign had the following reply:
“Secretary Grayson is a national leader in elections reform who has received broad, bipartisan support for his commonsense ideas that make our elections more secure, more accessible, and more honest. This political request is absurd and blatantly self-serving.”
Instead of recognizing the conflict of interest and giving an evenhanded response, the Grayson campaign came off looking caustic and arrogant. This was a reasonable request, and Trey should have done the honorable thing and recused himself from overseeing his election results.
Source: [1]
Trey Grayson has a history of receiving an alarming percentage of PAC donations. Here is the most recent data for the 2010 election cycle:
As you can see, 15% of Trey Grayson’s donations come from PACs. Contrast this with his Republican primary opponent, Rand Paul, whose PAC donations are less than 1%:
Even the democratic candidates, Jack Conway and Daniel Mongiardo, received only 3% and 2% of their donations from PACS, respectively.
Where exactly are Trey Grayson’s $255,000 in PAC contributions coming from? Here are some of the highlights:
AT&T
Bankers Associations
Health Care Lobbies
Exxon Mobile
Insurance PACs
Pfizer
Senate Majority Fund
You can find the full list here.
The high percentage of PAC donations to Trey Grayson’s senate campaign are not the only troubling aspect of his fundraising, however. The following graph breaks down the contributions Trey received in his 2007 campaign for Secretary of State:
The category “Lawyers and Lobbyists” has consistently been Trey’s top contribution category.
On September 23rd 2009, a large group of Senators and political insiders held a $500 per plate fundraiser in Washington DC for Trey Grayson. This event featured seventeen Senators who voted in favor of the TARP Banker Bailout. Read more
List of 23 Senators and their bank bailout votes.
10/01/08 Vote on Financial Bailout Bill
(S. Amdt. 5685 to H.R. 1424)
Alexander (TN) – Yea
Bennett (UT) – Yea
Bond (MO) – Yea
Burr (NC) – Yea
Chambliss (GA) – Yea
Coburn (OK) – Yea
Cochran (MS) – Nay
Collins (ME) – Yea
Cornyn (TX) – Yea
Crapo (ID) – Nay
Enzi (WY) – Nay
Grassley (IA)- Yea
Hatch (UT) – Yea
Johanns (NE) – didn’t vote, freshman in 11/08
Isakson (GA) – Yea
Kyl (AZ) – Yea
McConnell (KY) – Yea
Mccain (AZ) – Yea
Murkowski (AK) – Yea
Sessions (AL) – Nay
Thune (SD) – Yea
Vitter (LA) – Nay
Voinovich (OH) – Yea
Despite this “Bailout Ball” fundraiser, Trey Grayson continued to slip in the polls, and a WHAS-TV/Survey USA poll showed him behind his Republican opponent. However, the establishment insiders proved they were not willing to give up on their handpicked candidate. In November, more political heavyweights along with Pfizer PAC came to bat for Trey for two consecutive fundraisers:
It is very suspicious that these members of the political establishment feel they need to go out of their way to get involved in a highly contested GOP primary in order to fund Trey Grayson’s campaign. It leads one to believe that Trey will represent the ruling class rather than the voters if he is elected.
Reader Feedback
Since the launch of this site, we have been bombarded with emails thanking us for the information. Here are some of the highlights (posted with permission):
“Thanks for the website. I always look for the truth about candidates before supporting them.” – Bert
“I respect Trey Grayson on a personal level, but his connections to left wing groups makes me very worried about his ideology.” – Samantha
“The information on your site made me realize one thing! Trey Grayson is not a conservative!” – Richard
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