Kentucky Republicans celebrate ‘house that Mitch built’ with help from some big donors

FRANKFORT — What speakers hailed as “the house that Mitch built” will be doubling in size — thanks to more than $3 million from special interest donors and a change of state law in 2017 that legalized such donations.

A slew of prominent Kentucky Republicans joined U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to break ground Thursday on an expansion of the party’s headquarters which is named for McConnell.

The Republican Party of Kentucky has been headquartered for 50 years in an old house about four blocks down the hill from the Kentucky Capitol.

McConnell and other speakers said the building’s expansion symbolizes the growth of their party over those five decades as Republicans gained political dominance in Kentucky, a change that many credit in no small part 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. “Thanks for all the praise for me, but it’s a team sport, and many of you have contributed a lot of years and a lot of dollars over the years to bring us where we are today.”

Plans for the project 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 Stengel-Hill Architecture, of Louisville, to conform with the surrounding residential neighborhood. It will include a 160-seat auditorium.

Pfizer Inc. gave $1 million

Reports filed by the party with the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance reveal that the project is being paid for with donations by a small number of large contributions from special interests that lobby in Washington and/or Frankfort.

State law caps how much a person can give to a political party in Kentucky, and corporation contributions to candidates and most political committees are illegal. But a 2017 state law allowed Kentucky’s two political parties to establish building funds which could accept corporation donations of unlimited amounts.

The financing of the expansion of the Mitch McConnell Building has relied on those super-size corporate contributions. Party Chairman Robert Benvenuti thanked the 16 donors who together gave $3,212,500.

Kentucky Lantern first reported last year that pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc., of New York, made the largest contribution for the project — $1 million.

The second largest donor is NWO Resources, a small Ohio gas distribution utility, which gave $500,000. The president and director of NWO Resources is James Neal Blue, who is also chief executive and chairman of the General Atomics Corp., a defense contractor which the Forbes website says is best known as the manufacturer of the Predator drone.

Telecommunications companies AT&T and Verizon have each given $300,000 as has Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.

In his years in Washington, McConnell has worked to dismantle federal limits on political giving and spending and, thanks to Supreme Court rulings, has largely succeeded.

‘Future dominance of our values’

McConnell, 82, is both Kentucky’s longest serving senator and the Senate’s longest-serving party leader. Speaking on the lawn of the party headquarters, he recalled his humbler beginnings in Kentucky politics then dominated by Democrats. In 1984, he rode President Ronald Reagan’s reelection coattails and a campaign commercial featuring hound dogs to victory over a Democratic incumbent.

McConnell shared one of his favorite anecdotes, the time he was on stage with Reagan who referred to him as “Mitch O’Donnell.”

“I couldn’t be prouder at this stage of my career to look at the Kentucky Republican Party today,” McConnell said. “It’s a great experience to watch that grow and develop over the years. … A whole lot of people deserve the credit.”

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

U.S. Rep. Andy Barr, who represents Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District, said the senior senator laid the foundation for the modern state party and floated the idea of putting a statue of McConnell in the Kentucky Capitol rotunda. The Republican supermajority recently passed legislation giving the General Assembly authority over permanent displays in the rotunda.

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

Kentucky Senate Republican Floor Leader Damon Thayer, of Georgetown, said he was “proud that it was legislation that I authored that allows for corporate contributions to state party building funds.”

Afterward, Thayer said in an interview, “These buildings are expensive to operate and maintain and build. Modern day politics is expensive.” He said the contributions “are all reported, you’ve written about it —which I think is wholly appropriate. People know about it and can make their own judgment.”

‘Steadfast leadership’

State House Speaker David Osborne, of Prospect, likened the status of the party’s headquarters to McConnell’s rise in politics. Osborne said he could remember walking into the building when ice was hanging from the ceiling and space heaters were on because the furnace didn’t work.

“One thing that has not changed along the way is the steadfast leadership of Leader McConnell. … With the evolution of Kentucky politics, we would’ve gotten the majority eventually, but it certainly would not have been as quickly and as productive as it has been with Sen. McConnell’s leadership,” Osborne said.

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

Thayer and McConnell both contrasted the expanding GOP headquarters with the headquarters of the Kentucky Democratic Party along Interstate 64 on the outskirts of Frankfort — the Wendell Ford Building named for the late Kentucky governor and U.S. senator.

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

The Republican fundraising effort for its expansion has lasted nearly two years. McConnell’s longtime fundraising consultant Laura Haney has led that 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 design and construction costs. As of June 30 the fund reported it still had $3 million on hand.

RPK spokesman Andrew Westberry said he was not certain when the project will be completed.

Kentucky Lantern is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on Facebook and X.