Jack Conway: A Fighter for Kentucky's Working Families

The choice is clear in the Kenucky U.S. Senate. A fighter for Kentucky's working families like Jack Conway or Rand Paul who wants to ship our jobs overseas, privatize Social Security and legalize drugs.

Jack Conway has a record of getting results for the people of Kentucky. Elected in 2007 as Attorney General, Jack previously served as Deputy Cabinet Secretary and Deputy General Counsel in Governor Paul Patton’s administration from 1996 to 2001. While there he worked to craft economic development programs that put the Commonwealth on a path to prosperity and the landmark 1997 higher education reform bill, which won national acclaim for propelling Kentucky’s institutions of higher learning into the 21st century.

Jack Conway has always considered the highest duty of a public servant to be protecting those who are unable to protect themselves. Since the voters of Kentucky elected Jack as Attorney General, his office has increased Medicaid fraud
prosecutions by 600%, saving over $100 million for Kentucky taxpayers. He has advocated for consumers and saved Kentucky families over $100 million from proposed utility rate increases. Jack has sued the big oil companies for gas price gouging, and in his first year as Attorney General, increased elder abuse and neglect investigations by 300%. He followed through on his commitment to prosecute child predators and crack down on Internet crimes when he created a Cybercrimes Unit, which has initiated numerous child pornography investigations, eliminated over 68,000 illegal images and videos from the Internet, and continues to conduct trainings for police and prosecutors across Kentucky.

Simultaneously, Jack reduced costs in the Attorney General’s office by 26%, setting a strong example by taking a pay cut and giving his official vehicle back to the state. Jack has a proven record of combating waste, fraud, and abuse in government.

As a United States Senator, Jack has a plan to create jobs, cut the deficit, and restore accountability to Wall Street and Washington. Jack has a plan, which is estimated to create 731,000 jobs nationwide and 10,975 jobs in Kentucky through a
combination of tax credits and small business lending. He has already identified $430 billion in savings that can be recouped for taxpayers by: shutting down offshore tax shelters and closing loopholes in the corporate tax code that encourage companies to invest and ship jobs overseas; making big pharmaceutical companies negotiate with Medicare for lower prices on prescription drugs; and eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare. Additionally, Jack will fight for Wall Street reform that puts taxpayers first, protects consumers, and cracks down on the big banks by preventing any institution from ever again becoming “too big to fail.”

Jack is a proud Kentuckian. His father, Tom, was born on a family farm in Western Kentucky’s Union County. He put himself through law school at night at the University of Louisville, while teaching history and coaching at Fairdale High
School. Jack’s mother, Barbara grew in up in Louisville’s South End, the daughter of a union blacksmith.

Jack Conway holds an undergraduate degree in public policy from Duke University and a law degree from The George Washington University. Conway is married with one daughter.

In contrast to Jack Conway's advocacy for working families, Rand Paul is a proven enemy of Kentucky workers.

From the AFL-CIO NOW Blog:

Kentucky State AFL-CIO President Bill Londrigan doesn’t pull punches when he talks about the Bluegrass State’s Tea Party-backed Republican U.S. Senate candidate. Speaking to a sun-baked crowd at Paducah’s 35th annual Labor Day picnic Monday, he warned:

A vote for Rand Paul is a vote for the continuation of the economic nightmare now facing workers across Kentucky. Vote like your job depends on it—because it does.

The state AFL-CIO unanimously endorsed Democrat Jack Conway over Paul, whose anti-union views earned him a $2,500 donation from the National Right to Work Committee.

Conway is the state’s attorney general. An ophthalmologist, Paul is the son of Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas). Dr. Paul is bad medicine for Kentucky’s working families, according to Londrigan.

He supports privatizing Social Security and increasing the retirement age for Social Security eligibility. He supports so-called free trade agreements like NAFTA, which are responsible for shipping millions of good-paying American jobs overseas.

When it comes to jobs safety, a vital issue for state’s coal miners and other workers, Londrigan said Paul’s response to catastrophic mine accidents and oil rig explosions is:

“‘accidents happen.” In Rand Paul’s world, corporations should be completely unregulated so they can cook the books and undermine our economy.

Londrigan went on to highlight the differences between Rand Paul’s world and the world in which most Kentucky workers live.

In Rand Paul’s world, Social Security is a burden and not a reward for a lifetime of hard work and sacrifice and something to be handed over to Wall Street.

In Rand Paul’s world, the budget deficit is a monstrous problem, but tax cuts for the rich are still a priority.

In Rand Paul’s world, teachers and the Department of Education are a hindrance to learning. In Rand Paul’s world, farm subsidies are a handout. In Rand Paul’s world, lowering workers’ wages is the way out of a recession.

And in Rand Paul’s world, property rights trump civil rights. If you’re an ordinary American, a hard-working Kentuckian, you can’t afford to live in Rand Paul’s world.

Jeff Wiggins, a United Steelworkers (USW) members and president of the Paducah-based Western Kentucky Area Council, said Kentucky union families are a vital element in the fight to send Conway to the Senate and Paul back to his practice.

But Wiggins, the Labor 2010 coordinator for western Kentucky, also says working families must be mobilized. He doubts Paul will win many union votes, but says the Republican is hoping for the next best thing: a slew of union card-carrying Kentuckians will forget that the GOP’s gospel of greed caused the recession, will blame hangover hard times on the Democrats and will show their disdain by not voting.

Wiggins has a message for potential non-voting union members:

If you stay home on Nov. 2, you’ll be helping the same sort of people who tried to push labor off the cliff under Bush. Democrats like Jack Conway want to throw us a rope and pull us away from the edge. But Republicans like McConnell and Paul still want to push us off.

http://blog.aflcio.org/2010/09/10/workers-dont-fit-into-rand-pauls-world/