The Kentucky We Deserve: A Conversation with Rep. Ann Gay Donworth

Kentucky could move faster on pre-K, schools, housing, and reproductive freedom - if the legislature reflected the people demanding change. State Representative  Ann Gay Donworth explains why the fights over education and health care are really fights over the future of Kentucky families, and why the next election could shift more than just a few seats.

Donworth, the 76th House District representative for Fayette County, brings a rare mix of nonprofit leadership, library advocacy, and real-world business experience to Frankfurt. She shares how her work in public libraries - and even running a horse farm - shaped her belief that Kentucky can be both business-friendly and people-centered.

Guests:
Ann Gay Donworth is the Kentucky State Representative for the 76th House District in Fayette County, known for championing public education, reproductive freedom, and affordable housing. Before elected office, she built her career in nonprofit leadership, libraries, philanthropy, and community development.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Blue Dot, Northern Kentucky's premier political podcast. Brought to you by the Kent County Democratic Executive Committee. I think we talk very frequently about the partisan divide in Frankfurt. What we don't talk about quite as much, there are not very many women. It's like 40 out of 136 legislators. And of those, there are a whole lot of women who don't have children. So there are very, very few mothers being represented. Um again, I remember how hard that was when you're trying to figure out how do you pay for daycare and diapers and get to work and all of these things. It's really difficult.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Welcome back to the Blue Dot Podcast. Today we're joined by Kentucky State Representative Ann Gay Donmouth, who represents the 76th House District in Fayette County. Representative Donworth was elected to the Kentucky House in 2024. Before entering public office, she built a career as a nonprofit executive and community leader in Lexington. She's been active in civic engagement and affordable housing initiatives. Thanks so much for joining. I'm Natalie McDonald.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

And I'm Brian Cale. Representative Donworth has quickly become known as an energetic voice for public education, reproductive freedom, housing access, and policies aimed at helping Kentucky families thrive. She has highlighted efforts such as universal pre-K access and legislation protecting reproductive rights while serving on the House Agriculture, Transportation, State Government, and licensing committees. Representative Donworth, or may I call you Anne? Welcome to the Blue Dot Podcast. Thank you so much for being here.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

I'm so glad to be here. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Yeah, so let's start with your journey. You spent years working in the not-for-profit and community development world, but you're also a pro-business democrat. So I imagine that experience really led you to want to run for office.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Yeah, it's it's I've had kind of a hodgepodge of different experiences. As you said, started off in nonprofit, thought I was going to do non-traditional arts education, and then made a switch to fundraising for our hospice, have a little bit of healthcare background, stayed home with my kids for a couple of years, and then my now ex-husband found my dream job at the library. It started off just doing fundraising. By the time I left, I was also running the marketing and government affairs initiatives there, I guess. Didn't really have full departments for any of them. But really that government affairs role is what started me thinking about running for office. You know, starting to go when I was going to Frankfurt to advocate for public libraries, which people don't realize quite how many different facets of your life public libraries influence. You know, we pay very close attention to everything from planning and zoning to early childhood education to senior isolation, everything in between. But once I started going to Frankfurt, there were a whole lot of other things I wanted to be able to advocate for. And so put my hat in the ring and crazy enough to want to do it again. So I've loved it. In the meantime, the reason I say pro-business democrat, uh my now ex-husband and I also started our own horse farm, which is a thoroughbred breeding and boarding operation back in uh 2014. Um, so I did kind of the business side of things for that for a long time. So I understand what it takes to start businesses here. Um I understand what it means to meet payroll and to figure out, hey, why's the feed bill twice as high as it was last month?

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

So I mean, I understand those things and I want Kentucky to be as business friendly as it can possibly be while also balancing the needs of our people.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

I like how you gave a shout-out for the libraries. I also try to get people to understand how much of a resource it is. You know, for we have one here in Kenton County that has one of the stream setups where you can use their printers to print banners, you can use a cricket, you can use a 3D printer. All of this is made available to to our county, and I just think it's an amazing under underused resource.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

So they're pretty excellent, especially once you start going in, you you realize how much more there is. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

Yeah. That's a great background, and I love the the not for profit, you know, the public library, kind of the community service tied with the small business owner. So you've kind of seen both sides of that, the public side of things as well as the commerce side of things. A lot of what you've championed in the state legislature is also very popular with Kentuckians across the state, but especially in your district. However, the supermajority, let's just say, has made it kind of tough. So let's talk about, for lots of people and lots of things, let's talk about some of the bills you fought for that, you know, didn't get past the red wall in Frankfurt.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Well, I think pre-K for all is is the number probably the number one thing there. I heard from hundreds of constituents over the course of this current session. I think overall we heard from like 70,000 Kentuckians that they wanted Pre-K for All. Um, some of those are business leaders, some of them are parents, um, educators, business owners, county local officials, school board members. If you look at it from a policy perspective, it makes so much sense. And unfortunately, uh, my colleagues saw it as a partisan thing and didn't want to make that investment this year. So I'm hopeful that we'll be able to come back and continue these conversations. They're they're still going on always. And hopefully we can continue to build on that now that we have these pilots going on and have some real life data and and proof that this works in Kentucky, as well as school districts who can step up and say this is how we made it work.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Yeah, and everywhere that we go at our county fairs and different places that we set up, one of the number one things people are united around is this pre-K for all. It doesn't matter if we're talking to a Republican, a Democrat, an independent, people are unified about this. So it's just staggering that your colleagues on the other side of the aisle, you know, are saying, no, we're not gonna do this. Uh so what are they telling you? Or is it is it strictly partisan?

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Well, they won't say that it's partisan, but they will say that it is a want and the and not a need. Um it it again, when you look at the ROI to the state on it, if you can get more parents into the workforce, that means that the state has more revenue coming in. If you can address early childhood development, that birth to five area is such a crucial time for children's brain development. Uh so for the kids, it's better, means that they're going to be more productive economically, socially, and everything else later in life. But it also means that our kids are ready to learn when they get into our K through 12 schools. So we've heard from teachers around the state who kids are coming into kindergarten at age five, and they literally, it's not like they don't know their ABCs, they don't know how to use the toilet. And so when we have our kindergarten teachers and our first, second, third grade, all the way up, when they have kids that come in that aren't ready to start with that kindergarten curriculum, they're already at a disadvantage. And so making sure that kids come in and they know how to sit and listen to multiple step directions. They can, if not read, then they can identify what the letters are and their numbers and that type of thing. So there are a lot of things that tie in really well with my work at the library, had had done a lot of early childhood education things there. Um and something that I think just makes really good policy sense for everyone in Kentucky. Not to mention it's incredibly hard to find childcare. So for a lot of areas, you know, even just having four-year-olds right now with access to pre-K for all, that that frees up more spots in existing childcare facilities to be able to serve birth to birth through three and makes that a little bit more accessible for all families.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

It's a sprue board's a success to a lot of things. First of all, it's a foundation for education moving forward, like you said. Um, but then everything else along with it. And I'm sorry, Brian, I didn't mean to cut you off there. But yeah, it it just feeds into so many different things.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

No, I was just, you know, it just drives me crazy when I read all these things about student test scores when they get into high school and the curriculum, and we're focused too much on test scores, and we need to change the curriculum to do this or do that. And it's totally seems like they're missing the the boat on these, you know, critical developmental years, one to five years old, where that could be such a big difference in those test scores, and maybe could override some of these curriculum or how exactly are we testing to where, you know, they're they're ready to learn from day one once they get into first grade. They just seem to miss that part.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

Aaron Powell Exactly. And you know, it's a whole lot easier to to have early intervention and to fix a potential problem before it happens than it is to be chasing um, you know, trying to get kids caught up later. Let's get a on track ready and to go from the very beginning.

SPEAKER_02 9:01

Aaron Powell It ties into you know some of the other initiatives, uh education, affordable housing. I was uh checking out your opponent's uh website and and stance, and once I got past the firing squad, I saw that the money follows the students, so it sounds like it's the voucher system and all that, which is already how many times do we have to to in Kentucky say we don't want that, but it just continues to be on the programs. This the whole universal pre-K thing kind of ties into, you know, what's our what are our goals for education? You know, what's our strategy for that?

SPEAKER_00 9:34

Well, I I have so my kids are now 16 and 13. And I think as we're looking at children's futures in general, you know, there are always ways that we can prepare for a specific industry. Um, and I think that's where we've seen a lot of K through 12 schools go in the last decade or so. I'm a big believer that everybody needs to have those creative thinking skills, whatever they look like, that digital literacy, making sure that they understand what information is accurate and how to protect themselves from mis or disinformation, how to engage with their community. I think civics education is a huge piece that has been lacking for years. But ultimately, I'm not as worried about getting people to the point where they know exactly how to do the job before they graduate from school. I think a lot of it is duplicative, can be duplicative with other things that our unions are offering for trainings or for our technical colleges. It's great to have kids test the waters and kind of see what they want to do. Um, but I do worry that we're getting a a little bit away from general education in K-12 and over specializing too early. So that's one thing I I hope obviously also want to see have all of our schools fully funded and making sure that SEAK is kept up with inflation. You know, it was a big fight in the state budget this year about the initial proposal what kept K-12 funding flat. Well, in a time of four or five, whatever percent inflation, that's actually a decrease. And so we frequently hear the Republicans saying we've invested more than we ever have before, greatest um investment in public education. That's not actually true when you adjust it for inflation. And so I think that is something that we've got to continue to keep our eyes on and making sure that that we are fully funding our our schools and so that it doesn't fall on our teachers. You know, obviously it's back to school season. We've seen so many teachers who are paying out of their pockets to to get their classrooms ready. Um, families who are struggling with school supplies, those should all be included as part of our public schools. Those are necessary steps and things that we need to be providing to make sure that our kids really have the full opportunity to reach their potential.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

It just seems like something that everybody would be get behind, right? Uh without the partisan college.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

And another issue that we've been hearing that a lot of people are for as well that you champion is related to reproductive freedom, women's health care. Um, again, one of those things that's universally across the state support it, but yet we still are seeing these roadblocks when it comes to the legislature. So how do you feel you can move the needle there? Or what have you done, or what are you hearing in Frankfurt on um on different uh bills and proposals that that are fvbing through?

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Pretty much anything that has to do with reproduction for children and marriages uh has been pretty staunchly opposed. There was a bill this year that would have made a slight tweak to the family court, family law code, and uh essentially related to divorce. There's a it's kind of an obscure thing, so I won't go into it. But the family foundation came in and said that we were destroying families. And I'm sitting here like, no, that's not actually what this is about. Um, and so there are all of these really nasty talking points whenever you try to do something. And I think we talk very frequently about the partisan divide in Frankfurt. What we don't talk about quite as much, there are not very many women. And I don't have the statistics in front of me. I want to say it's like 40 out of 138, 136, excuse me, legislators, 40-something, are women. And of those, there are a whole lot of women who don't have children. So there are very, very few mothers being represented. Again, my kids are a little bit older, but they're still young enough that I remember how hard that was when you're trying to figure out how do you pay for daycare and diapers and get to work and all of these things. It's really difficult. And it is also something I'm I'm now 43. So I have friends weirdly who are like almost grandmother age. And then I have friends who are just now having babies and you know, having to go out of state to get IVF, which for those who don't know IVF and vitro fertilization, it is insanely expensive. And these are people who desperately, more than anything, want to become parents, and we're making it harder for them. Um, and changing laws that have directly impacted their ability to become parents. Um, my kids are also two girls, and I think obviously I hope and pray that nothing ever happens to them. But in the current environment that we are in in Kentucky, what if something did happen? Would that completely derail their future? If they were raped, obviously it would have huge emotional repercussions. But what would happen if they end up having a baby at 16, 17, 18 years old? And it's just terrifying to think about the fact that we now live in a state where women don't get to have any say in what happens to their bodies. So I'll I will say one anecdote that I had with a Republican constituent recently, um, someone I've known for a long time, but not well. And he came up to me and said, you know, I thought about running for office at one point, but then I researched our district and said, Oh, well, you know, it's it's too, I'd never have a shot of winning here. I pretty much agree with most of your policy positions. The only one I'm a little f fuzzy on is abortion because I'm Catholic. I said, okay, well, that's that's I I understand. And then he immediately backed up and said, but you know, if somebody, if you know, the mother's at risk or there's rape or incest or something terrible going on, then obviously there need to be exceptions. I thought, well, this is that's not what is happening in our legislature. You know, we the the Commonwealth, the voters overwhelmingly said that they wanted access to it. And yet anytime there's any bill proposed for it is we are told that we are too liberal and there's just not the appetite for it. And I would say, again, part of that is because there's so few women who have been in the sh in the shoes of having to worry about that and and the real life repercussions that it has for us on whether we would be responsible for raising a child for the next 18 years, not to mention what it does to our own physical bodies. Wouldn't trade being a mother for anything in the world, but I also know what a challenge it is, and it's not for everyone.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

Well, you know, if uh men were the ones getting pregnant, we wouldn't even be talking about this topic. You know, it wouldn't even be a controversy, you know, that you know that was that was one of my father's jokes.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

I mean That was one of my father's jokes. And I'm the youngest of four, but he used to always say if men had if men had babies, the human race would die because nobody would have more than one.

SPEAKER_02 16:23

Well, I mean, you know, as a privileged white male, I just get so disgusted with my cohort who just, you know, they just can't think beyond themselves. There's just no way to put themselves in somebody else's shoes. It's, you know, I'm pro-life, but as soon as you have that baby, then, you know, you're gone. There's no programs, there's no assistance, there's no support.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

And I think individually, if you talk to them, there are certainly some who it is their religious belief and they are truly, truly anti-abortion and believe it is a sin. I don't think that's the majority of them, but I think there's enough of a hold on the supermajority's caucus, specifically from the preachers, the preacher caucus, uh, that they are not willing to take that risk. And it is really to the detriment of a whole lot of women and families around the Commonwealth for every reason.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

And I think, like you said, it's not black and white, right? There are instances of where the mother's health is at risk, where there's a rape situation. There are so many reasons why potentially a a woman would have to end a pregnancy and women who desperately want to keep those to keep their child. So, and I don't know where how we get to the point where we get people to understand that this is not like if you're working on legislation to allow people access to this health care, that it's not about using it as birth control or or whatever misnomer they want to they want to throw out there. And it's just unfortunate that we can't get to that conversation because some people, as soon as you say abortion, they're like, oh no, it's a sin, I can't do it, or it's against my religion. Um, which again, I respect people's religion, but we also have to have the conversation that we're not talking about certain things that they think that we're talking about when we talk about reproductive health.

SPEAKER_02 18:01

Um, well, we we love having sitting legislators come and and sit on the podcast because we you know some of this behind-the-scenes perspective. As a freshman legislator, what you know, what surprised you the most about serving in the in the General Assembly?

SPEAKER_00 18:15

So two things that it kind of feed into each other. So Lexington, for those who don't know listening, we have nonpartisan local races. So I've never really thought about partisan politics except for at the national level before I ran for office. And then when I was doing government affairs for the library, uh obviously libraries work really, really hard to be nonpartisan. So I would go and I would call on all of the Central Kentucky delegation for years. And so I very naively thought when I came into Frankfurt as a freshman, I already had relationships with these people. And so they would be willing to talk with me. And as soon as I walked in with a D beside my name, it was a very different conversation. And that's not to say that they won't talk to me. Some of them won't. Some of them will only meet with me with their wives present. But that was a huge surprise that there's not even the the ability to have conversations across the aisle is is far less than what I thought would be would be there. Uh, and that's that's really challenging because we're all here. You know, we're all supposed to be on the team to move Kentucky forward. And I'm intentionally not saying team Kentucky because I know the Republicans think that is Bashir's line, but we are all supposed to be working to move Kentucky forward, regardless of our party. And we all have some good ideas. We all probably have some bad ideas, but how can we focus on finding those good ideas and moving those forward?

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Yeah, I think that's why it's so important politics at a local level, like at your district level. You know, we have the partisanship on the national level, but it's just about having a conversation with your neighbors and being able to talk to people in in your neighborhood and see if you can't find some consensus there. And but kind of piggybacking on all of that and kind of get the sneak peek behind the curtain talking to you. You have the general the elections coming up in November. How how do you feel? I know you have a Republican challenger, but what's what's kind of the feeling on the ground down there in your district?

SPEAKER_00 20:10

So my district is probably one of the most engaged districts in the state, too. I will have constituents email and call me with the why didn't you speak out on that bill? I'm like, because I talked about the on the five previous bills right beforehand. I can't I can't speak on everything or they won't listen to me. Um so uh my my constituency is very engaged. Um I think we're right about fifth registered Democrats, but if you look at the election results, it tends to be about 75% Democrat. Um we have about 15% registered independent who tend to lean left, pretty edu, pretty well educated. I don't represent UK, but I'm pretty close to it. So I have a lot of professors within the within the district as well. So I mean, yes, I have a general and I'm not totally discounting it. Um but my opponent is is not just a Republican running in Lexington. He's he's very much a liberty, liberty caucus of you know, no guns, uh or sorry, all the guns. All the guns. You mentioned you mentioned wanting school vouchers, very anti-abortion, really everything that Lexington is not. So I'm I'm cautiously optimistic, but I'm not worried about it. My my focus is really trying to help flip seats around the around the Commonwealth because ultimately nothing changes until we do. That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Yeah, and I think we're gonna see some seats flip. So thanks for all your work that you're doing out there to get that done for sure. We need to get rid of the the supermajority, and then hopefully some of these things that you're championing will will get through. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

Well, and I think one thing that's important enough. I hope it's okay to jump in. I think one thing that's one thing that's important to realize when we're talking about the supermajority, it's 80 Republicans, 20 Democrats. Even if we pick up five seats, that means that Democrats get another seat on each committee. And committees are often, you know, a lot of the bills that we see that come through will will ultimately die after a committee meeting. And if we have one more vote on there, one more voice, it really does lead to more representation in a structural way, not just for the individuals who are being represented, but more of a structural representation of really where our our purple state that is not represented that way. That's good info. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:27

Very important.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Yeah, that's a great that's I didn't even I didn't know that. So that's that's huge. It's just again shipping way, shipping way, shipping way. So that's that's great. So um we talked about a lot of things about where you stand, what you've been doing. And we also like to end on a fun note by giving our guests five fun lightning round questions to get to know you a little better if you'd be up for that. Of course. All right. We haven't had anybody say no yet.

SPEAKER_02 22:51

So that's because we'll ask them anyway.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

Right, exactly. Okay, so this one uh is uh a hard one to start out with. But but who inspires you?

SPEAKER_00 23:02

That's a pretty easy one. Uh my my daughters. My my older daughter is very much me reincarnate, although she makes me look conservative, but she is fierce. She's she's very heavily involved with a group called the Kentucky Student Voice Team, which is advocating for uh public schools and public education policy. Uh, she just she she you can't tell her no. She is very fierce, very determined, and she inspires me and pushes me, and I push her. My younger daughter inspires me in a totally different way. Her brain works very differently than mine. Um and you know, she's she is creative and she reads all the time, does not care about politics, does not want to go to political events, but I just I love the way her brain works, and it's a great recognition, even within my own house, to see how different all of us are. And we all have our own strengths and weaknesses, and we just it's really cool to watch them grow.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

That's awesome. I sometimes am a little jealous of my friends who aren't interested in politics, who don't want to talk about it. Like, I don't watch the news, and I'm like, oh, I kind of wish that I could yeah. It's like I love that for you. My brain doesn't work that way.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

You have a life. Okay. I yeah, I get that.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

How is it for you? As a side note is the Kentucky Student Voice Team, is that a statewide organization?

SPEAKER_00 24:22

It is, it is um a student-led organization. I think they have about 150, mainly high school, but a few middle school students. Um, they have some, it was founded by a guy uh from Lexington named Andrew Brennan um when he was in high school. He just graduated from Columbia Law. That tells you he's very sharp.

SPEAKER_02 24:42

Pretty sharp. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

Yeah. It's but it's a statewide organization. Um, they do a lot of policy research, they do some polling, communications, and then probably most notably it's it's the group that is suing the state for failure to live up to the Rose decision, the Supreme Court decision back in the I think late 80s or early 90s that ultimately led to Cara.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

Well, if anybody from that organization would like to come talk to a podcast, I'm quite sure that I'm quite sure that can be It would probably be a really cool, yeah, always butt young voices, and that they sound amazing. They they really are. All right, sounds good. We'll move to the next question. Then would you rather have to give up caffeine or dessert for one year?

SPEAKER_00 25:25

I would probably say caffeine. People around me would probably prefer that I give up dessert. Totally get it.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

That's fair. Okay, next one. Are you a fiction or nonfiction reader? Very much a fiction.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Too much nonfiction as a history major in college. Can't do it.

SPEAKER_01 25:40

Right, and you're living you're living that too, right? You're like literally writing history with what you do every single day. Well try. Yes. And then lastly, what gives you hope about Kentucky's future?

SPEAKER_00 25:51

I'm gonna go back to the kids. So it is really neat to see these middle and high school students. Every time we go in, you know, Lexington, if you're the No Kings rallies, I know y'all have them all around the state, but I know y'all have some pretty big ones in northern Kentucky too. There are so many teenagers and young adults there. And I think really it's because they've been taught in school what government is supposed to look like, and they're not seeing that in what's actually happening. And so seeing them, knowing that most of them can't even vote yet, but seeing them take action and stand up for their beliefs, I I just find it incredibly inspiring. And I'm very excited to see what they can do with our country.

SPEAKER_02 26:34

Couldn't agree more. We've we've said that a you know so many times that in the young Democrats in northern Kentucky, and I have sons who are in their 30s, and the young people, I mean, we were just talking about, you know, for instance, reproductive rights. I don't think that's gonna be the issue it is today once this new generation comes into power and be, you know, the that's just to them, it's just like something that they don't can't even conceive of. So hopefully we're in good hands. I think we are. I have a lot of hope for the future as well. Well, Ann, uh, thank you so much for joining us. And uh, so how can everyone uh help you out on your campaign, learn about you, and uh give you some support?

SPEAKER_00 27:12

Sure. Uh you can visit my website, it's an A N N E Gay A Y Donworth D-O-N-W-O-R-T-H dot com. Sometimes people will put the E after Gay instead of after Anne, and that's not gonna get you there.

SPEAKER_02 27:28

Like Marvin Gay.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

Yes, exactly. No, I cannot sing like Marvin either. So I am on social media, I am on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. You're welcome to follow me there on any of those. I'm probably more I'm of a certain age, so I post more to Facebook more than others because I am that age. But those are the best ways to get in touch with me. That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us today. Really, really appreciate it. Enjoyed it. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

Let's grow this blue dot.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

Heck yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:03

That's what we're trying to do.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

Uh well, take care. Thanks again.

unknown 28:08

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

That's it for today. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel so you don't miss any of our upcoming podcasts or exclusive material. And don't forget, you can always join the conversation at our Facebook and Instagram pages or at blue dot podcast.com. Until next time, stay curious, keep the facts in focus, and never stop fighting for what matters. Peace out, everybody.