After months of nibbling at the edges, and some strange financial reporting from her state House account, state Rep. Attica Scott, D-Louisville, announced today her intent to run for Congress.
Scott will enter the Democratic primary against U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Louisville, the powerful House Budget Chairman.
The Louisville Democratic activist will run the campaign around racial issues and economics, Scott signaled in her campaign release video.
“Louisville needs a leader who sees its true colors, and understands the experiences of all of our neighbors,” she said in the opening of a video posted to Twitter on Wednesday morning. “Some issues are black and white.”
“At its core, it’s a question of green,” she continued later in the video. “Some people have lots – others can’t even get a decent minimum wage.”
Scott has served three terms in the state legislature, defeating incumbent Rep. Tom Riner, a Democrat and Baptist Pastor with an independent streak and socially conservative values in 2016.
In announcing her run for Congress, Scott will now give up her safe seat in the state House of Representatives for a challenging run in the Democratic Congressional Primary in Kentucky’s 3rd District.
Rep. Scott was active in 2020 around social justice issues. She was arrested during protests, but those charges were later dropped. Scott also participated in protests in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 while she was a Louisville Metro Councilwoman.
As Kentucky Fried Politics was the first to report, Scott began spending heavily from her state House account at the beginning of this year as she began to publicly consider a run for Congress.
U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Louisville, has represented the congressional district that encompasses Jefferson County since 2007. The 3rd District could shift with redistricting due to take place before the next election in 2022.
