As candidate in House District 85, I want to work for all the people

My name is Bryon Vaught and I am the Democratic candidate for State Representative for the 85th district of Kentucky. The 85th district is my home. I was born here, and this is where I choose to raise my five children with my incredible wife. I want to ensure that my family, my children, and my students are able to live in a community that values their education, the skills they will bring to the workforce, and them as a whole person.

I am a husband, a father, and a public school teacher. To be honest, the last thing I thought I would be doing at this point in my life is running for public office. For most of my life, I have been content, like most privileged Americans and Kentuckians, to simply accept the political changes in our nation as a part of our democracy. During the past few years, I have slowly watched as my profession became under attack and as more and more liberties have been gradually stripped from us. When the Kentucky legislature decided to carve teachers out of the 8% raise for state employees, I felt the need to act.

I decided to run for this office because I believe in the people of Kentucky, and more specifically the 85th district. I believe there is an innate goodness in the people who live here, a goodness that isn’t defined by party politics, talk-radio bullet points, or driven by fear and anger.

I decided to run for office because now is not the time to sit in silence while our public schools remain under siege. Special interest groups are using their influence with our state legislators to use your tax money to fund private charter schools. Charter schools that are not held to the same guidelines and standards as our public schools. Charter schools will dismantle and deprive our public schools of funding, students, and educators.

I decided to run for office because I believe the workers in our district should be represented over corporations and their profits. We need to be creating new job opportunities in our area that provide true career opportunities, not just minimum-wage jobs. This is why my goal is to abolish Kentucky’s ‘right to work’ status. That means an end to the current fire-at-will, mandatory overtime prevalent in so many workplaces today. Workers in Kentucky deserve to have a voice at the bargaining table.

Finally, I decided to run for office because I want to represent the everyday citizens of our district, who believe in treating our neighbors with fairness and equality and who want to witness our area grow into something special.

From the moment I decided to run, our state government has proposed two amendments that would change our Kentucky constitution, both of which will be on the ballot this November and that I vehemently oppose. One amendment allows our part-time legislative body to increase their special session days with a cost of around $68,000 PER DAY, for a job where the current average pay for our legislators is around $60,000. The 2020 median household income for my home of Pulaski county is $40,658; for Laurel county, it is slightly higher at $43,745.

And yet, my opponent voted to deny Kentucky public school teachers a pay raise while simultaneously already giving himself and all other state employees one. To put this into further perspective, our teachers’ salaries already trend at being 29% lower than the national average. He voted to make it harder for struggling families to access SNAP benefits and for those in dire need to get medical assistance through Medicaid. And yet, this amendment could potentially turn his part-time legislative job into a full-time career.

The second amendment demolishes the Republican party’s claim of wanting a smaller government. If Amendment 2 passes this November on top of Roe v Wade having been overturned, the party will firmly establish itself into our personal lives. By interfering with patient care and life-saving procedures, the Republican party will strip bodily autonomy away from over half of our population and all birthing people.

Personally, I feel that if you are truly pro-life, you would support a single-payer healthcare plan, so families would not go bankrupt due to exorbitant medical bills associated with giving birth in a hospital. You would support both parents having adequate (and paid) parental leave because studies show that is what is best for our families. You would support common-sense, responsible gun ownership to protect our children. You would support affordable pre-k and full-day kindergarten so that when families are ready to return to work they aren’t making mortgage-sized monthly payments and spinning into a cycle of being overworked and underpaid. You probably wouldn’t make it more difficult for families in need to have access to affordable food and healthcare, as my opponent has.

I am running for State Representative in the 85th district because I believe in a better Kentucky. I believe that our public school students and teachers deserve better. I believe our workers and every marginalized citizen deserve better. I believe that my hometown and our wonderful people in the 85th district deserve better.

Bryon J. Vaught is a teacher who is running as the Democratic candidate in House District 85.