The Races: Clark v. Hawkins, Senate 37
Jefferson County
Democrat Senator Perry Clark is defending his Senate seat against Republican city councilman Doug Hawkins.
While Senator Clark is defending his seat, it is his first regular election. He was elected to the Senate in a special election after Republican Dana Seum Stephenson won the seat in 2004 but was ruled ineligible.
Senator Clark has libertarian tendencies on some issues, but has ranked near the bottom of the Senate in both the 2007 (#25) and 2008 (#24) scorecards. In 2008 he was penalized for
- voting against better legislative accountability by moving the filing deadline to April (HB 18 SFA3),
- voting for a legislative budget that included a 10% appropriations increase (HB 407),
- creating a new 2% occupational tax (HB 611), and
- voting against repealing the Office of the Treasurer (SB 14).
He is running against Councilman Doug Hawkins. Hawkins is known as a strong conservative in Louisville and takes pride in having voted against most if not all of Mayor Jerry Abramson’s budgets. He says he is first and foremost a defender of the taxpayer by pointing to his vigorous resistance to city land giveaways and overly generous labor deals such as the Louisville arena and the Cordish Deal.
