Reps Nemes and Miller Throw Louisville Metro Under the Bus – Again!
House Bill 309 is a bill that the Republican party in Frankfort took and bastardized for their own purposes in order to delay and derail Jefferson County’s efforts to seek justice in our own community. The original bill that had the desired language that would grant subpoena power to Louisville’s new Civilian Review Board was SB245, which was sponsored by Morgan McGarvey and crafted with local leaders from Metro Council who were instrumental in the drafting and passing of the policy.
The first link is to yesterday’s testimony. The video should be set up to start around the 27-minute mark where you can hear it go right into Representative Jerry Miller passing judgement on the people who are selected to serve on CRAB. The entire committee hearing is worth going back and watching from the beginning, as well.
Next is today’s committee testimony where the bill sponsors removed the section in question and gave even more false witness as to the reasons for being so disrespectful. Nemes argues that the CRAB should not have subpoena power because of anti-police statements made by 3 of them.
In the video, you can also hear Nemes and Miller throwing Mayor Fischer under the bus. Neither group wanted to grand subpoena power to the CRAB, but they are pointing fingers and trying to blame each other. Classic.
Sadly, this means we are back to square one. SB245 was the bill that should have passed, that was specifically intended to give subpoena power to the civilian review board. The maneuvering we are seeing by Nemes and Miller appears to curry favor with the FOP, by whom Nemes is endorsed. Nemes is also endorsed by JCTA. He can’t serve two masters and care about protecting Black and Brown students and educators AND back the blue. Something’s gotta give. In today’s testimony, he showed where his true loyalties lie. And JCTA continues to give him a pass. Here’s another article I wrote about him.