close
close
numb-two

Kentucky Republicans Celebrate ‘The House That Mitch Built’ With a Little Help from a Few Big Donors • Kentucky Lantern

Heory
Kentucky Republicans Celebrate ‘The House That Mitch Built’ With a Little Help from a Few Big Donors • Kentucky Lantern

FRANKFORT — The home that speakers called “the house that Mitch built” will double in size — thanks to more than $3 million from special-interest donors and a 2017 change in state law that legalized such donations.

A group of prominent Kentucky Republicans joined U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to break ground Thursday on an expansion of the party’s headquarters named in McConnell’s honor.

U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell speaks at the groundbreaking ceremony for the expansion of the RPK headquarters named after him, September 5, 2024, in Frankfurt. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Tom Loftus)

The Kentucky Republican Party has had its headquarters for 50 years in an old house about four blocks from the Kentucky Capitol.

McConnell and other speakers said the building expansion symbolized their party’s growth over five decades as Republicans gained political dominance in Kentucky, a change many attribute largely to McConnell’s leadership and fundraising.

“We’ve come a long way, and the people here today had a lot to do with it,” McConnell said. “I appreciate all the praise for me, but this is a team sport, and many of you have given many years and many dollars over the years to get us to where we are today.”

Project plans released earlier this summer show it will add about 6,800 square feet of meeting and office space. The new addition is being designed by Louisville-based Stengel-Hill Architecture to blend in with the surrounding residential neighborhood. It will include a 160-seat auditorium.

Pfizer Inc. donated $1 million

Reports filed by the party with the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance reveal that the project is funded by donations from a small number of high-impact individuals who lobby in Washington and/or Frankfort.

State law limits the amount a person can give to a political party in Kentucky, and corporate contributions to candidates and most political committees are illegal. But a 2017 state law allowed two Kentucky political parties to create building funds that could accept unlimited corporate donations.

A sign in front of the Republican Party headquarters. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Tom Loftus)

The Mitch McConnell building expansion was funded by these massive corporate contributions. Party Chairman Robert Benvenuti thanked 16 donors who gave a combined $3,212,500.

The Kentucky Lantern first reported last year that the largest contributor to the project — $1 million — came from New York-based pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc.

The second-largest donor is NWO Resources, a small gas distribution company in Ohio, which gave $500,000. The president and director of NWO Resources is James Neal Blue, who is also CEO and chairman of General Atomics Corp., a defense contractor that, according to the Forbes website, is “best known as the manufacturer of the Predator drone.

Telecommunications companies AT&T and Verizon, as well as Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, each contributed $300,000.

During his years in Washington, McConnell sought to overturn federal limits on political donations and spending, and thanks to Supreme Court rulings, he largely succeeded.

“The future dominance of our values”

McConnell, 82, is both Kentucky’s longest-serving senator and the party’s longest-serving Senate leader. Speaking on the party’s lawn, he recalled his humbler beginnings in Kentucky politics, then dominated by Democrats, when he rode President Ronald Reagan’s coattail and a campaign ad featuring bloodhounds in 1984 to defeat the Democratic incumbent.

McConnell told one of his favorite anecdotes about appearing onstage with Reagan, who addressed him as “Mitch O’Donnell.”

“I couldn’t be more proud at this point in my career, looking at the Kentucky Republican Party today,” McConnell said. “It’s been a great experience to watch it grow and develop over the years… There are so many people who deserve recognition.”

The Republican Party currently holds supermajorities in the Kentucky House of Representatives and Senate, and in every state office except governor and lieutenant governor, both U.S. Senate seats, and five of Kentucky’s six seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. In February, McConnell announced that he plans to to step down as Senate Republican Leader at the end of this year.

Republicans have had their party headquarters in this Frankfort home for 50 years. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Tom Loftus)

U.S. Rep. Andy Barr, who represents Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District, said the senior senator laid the groundwork for the state’s modern party and floated the idea of ​​placing a statue of McConnell in the Kentucky Capitol Rotunda. The Republican supermajority recently passed legislation giving the General Assembly the power on permanent exhibitions in the rotunda.

“This is a watershed in the future dominance of our values ​​and our policies in the Commonwealth of Kentucky,” Barr said.

Kentucky Senate Republican Leader Damon Thayer of Georgetown said he was “proud to have it was legislation which I am the author of, and which allows corporate contributions to state party-building funds.”

Thayer later told an interviewer, “These buildings are expensive to operate, maintain and build. Modern politics is expensive.” He said all contributions “are reported, you wrote about it — which I think is completely appropriate. People know about it and can judge for themselves.”

“Unwavering Leadership”

House Speaker David Osborne of Prospect also compared the status of the party headquarters to McConnell’s rise in politics. Osborne said he remembers times when he would walk into the building and there would be ice hanging from the ceiling and the heaters would be on because the furnace wouldn’t work.

A rendering of the planned addition to the Kentucky Republican Party headquarters in Frankfort. Architects said they aimed for consistency with the “unique and eclectic mix of buildings” in the historic residential area near the state Capitol. (City of Frankfort)

“One thing that hasn’t changed along the way is the steadfast leadership of Leader McConnell. … As Kentucky politics have evolved, we would have eventually won the majority, but it certainly wouldn’t have happened as quickly or as productively as it did under Senator McConnell’s leadership,” Osborne said.

Thanking donors, Benvenuti, the party chairman, said: “Your generosity has provided more than just bricks and mortar. It has laid the foundation for the future success and growth of our community.”

Both Thayer and McConnell contrasted the expanding Republican Party headquarters with the old headquarters of the Kentucky Democratic Party outside Frankfort — the Wendell Ford Building, named for the late Kentucky governor and U.S. senator.

Jonathan Levin, communications director for the Kentucky Democratic Party, said the party is in the process of selling its headquarters and plans to move to a more modern office more centrally located in Frankfort.

The Republican fundraising effort for the expansion has spanned nearly two years. McConnell’s longtime fundraising consultant, Laura Haney, has led the effort. Reports filed by the RPK Building Fund show it has paid Haney Consulting $100,000 in consulting fees since the beginning of 2023.

This summer, the fund began paying for the design and construction. As of June 30, the fund said it had $3 million in cash remaining.

RPK spokesman Andrew Westberry said he was unsure when the project would be completed.

U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell leaves the groundbreaking ceremony for the expansion of the Kentucky Republican Party headquarters in Frankfort. (Kentucky Lantern photo by McKenna Horsley)

GET MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX