Illustration by Gabriel Sanchez
Jim Gray illustration
Against the backdrop of a tumultuous presidential race, Lexington Mayor Jim Gray’s underdog bid to unseat first-term Sen. Rand Paul will be decided Nov. 8, with long-term consequences for the Commonwealth and the nation.
Paul remains the prohibitive favorite. The 53-year-old Bowling Green-based ophthalmologist has maintained an edge in polling despite criticism over his failed bid for the GOP presidential nomination and worries the party’s divisive pick, Donald Trump, could hurt down-ticket Republicans nationwide.
A prominent leader of the party’s more libertarian wing, Paul has championed his work to rein in federal regulations and oversight, which he says hurts economic growth.
Gray, the 62-year-old Democrat, has centered his bid on executive experience – both running his family’s global building and design company, Gray Construction, and his successful stewardship of Lexington.
Business Lexington reached out to both campaigns on a variety of economic issues likely to impact Kentucky and the nation.
Minimum wage
“It is the right thing to do,” Gray declared last December when the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council voted to approve an ordinance raising the local minimum wage to $10.10 over three years. Gray’s embrace of the hike, however, was halting, which he attributed to a belief it should be properly addressed at the national level. Unsurprisingly, then, Gray supports federal legislation to fight what he calls “prevalent wage stagnation.”
Paul is flatly against raising the minimum wage. His campaign insists such a move “would do nothing for the middle class, and it may actually hurt workers by increasing the cost of basic services for everyone.”
Overtime rule
Beginning in December, federal rule changes will “extend protections to 4.2 million workers,” according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Many businesses have been critical of the change, and in September Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin joined several other states challenging the rule in court.
While critical of some provisions, Gray backs the move, which he says protects 55,000 Kentuckians. Paul’s campaign declined to comment on the rules change.
Health care
The Obama administration’s signature Affordable Care Act continues to be a political football. True to his Tea Party-backed launch, Paul remains insistent that it needs to be repealed in total. While claiming the health care law is “neither affordable, nor is it working,” Paul’s campaign offers few details on what might replace it.
Gray says he wants to fix any problems with the law without scrapping it entirely.
“We cannot go back to the days when insurance companies called the shots,” he said. Among Gray’s proposed tweaks would be to lower taxes on some plans as well as expanding credits for small businesses.
Illustration by Gabriel Sanchez
Rand Paul illustration
Coal industry
Gray has struggled to defend against the “war on coal” narrative, with Republicans relentlessly highlighting a statement by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton that referenced putting coal companies out of business. Gray has said the focus should be on helping hard-hit Appalachian communities, and has backed “clean coal” initiatives. He’s also criticized Paul for refusing to support the Miners Protection Act, which would protect health and pension benefits of thousands of Kentucky miners.
Paul has based his opposition to that law on the fact that it covers only certain union miners, not all miners. But on the whole, Paul has owned the issue as a consistent foe of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rules. He also is calling for what he calls “Economic Freedom Zones” where communities could use local resources under reduced regulatory regimes.
Financial regulation
Paul has sought to repeal the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which he describes as regulatory overreach. Gray backs the measure, signed into law in 2010 in response to the Great Recession, which he said protects against a recurrence of the housing market crash that precipitated the downturn. However, Gray says smaller banks should be free of some of the new regulations.
“Community banks should not be hamstrung by regulation,” he said. “As long as they’re not making high-risk investments, regulatory requirements should be slightly relaxed for community banks.”
Trans-Pacific Partnership
Both candidates are against the proposed U.S. trade agreement being sought by the Obama administration with Pacific Rim nations, though to varying degrees.
Paul says he supports trade but blasts the multinational pact as a power grab by the executive branch that usurps congressional authority to review and make changes to such deals. Gray says he also does not support the pact “in its current form” and centers his criticism on what he says is a lack of protections for U.S. workers and businesses.