Trump-endorsed candidate worked for criminal justice group pushing left-wing bail reform
Gabe Kaminsky
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Republican Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who is running for governor in the Bluegrass State and was endorsed by former President Donald Trump, previously worked for a group that has supported ending cash bail to fight “racial inequity” in the criminal justice system, records show.
Cameron, who was elected to Kentucky’s top law enforcement post in 2019 and from 2015 to 2017 was a lawyer for then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), claims on his campaign website that he “will fight hard to support law enforcement.” Just before becoming attorney general, Cameron was a spokesman for Kentucky Smart on Crime, a coalition partnered with the left-leaning ACLU and NAACP that has promoted cashless bail, a Democratic-led proposal slammed by Republicans and criminal justice experts as contributing to crime.
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“We have right now a bail system that’s a money bail system. We want to move to a no-money bail system,” Cameron said in December 2017 footage reviewed by the Washington Examiner alongside then-ACLU policy strategist Amanda Hall. Cameron and Hall were appearing on TV to promote a new report the coalition helped publish, which was authorized by Kentucky’s government and called to “limit the use of monetary bail.”
“There’s some inequities in our system currently,” Cameron also said in the 2017 interview. “We’re also looking at increasing the felony threshold from $500 to $2,000. Right now, you’ve got an iPhone, if somebody was to take that from you, they could be eligible for a felony. There’s something problematic about that. So we want to change that as well.”
Cameron’s prior criminal justice system remarks could earn him backlash from Republican voters in Kentucky, which saw violent crimes spike in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic to its highest levels since 2008, according to multiple reports. Cameron is set to face off in a Monday debate against his GOP opponents, including former United Nations Ambassador Kelly Craft, who has polled second to the attorney general as the primary election draws near on May 16.
Cashless bail has become a lightning rod debate across the United States in recent years, especially following the murder of George Floyd in May 2020 and subsequent Black Lives Matter movement riots. The issue was catapulted to national prominence following Republican-led backlash to a 2019 law by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) that barred cash bail for all but the most extreme misdemeanors and felonies. The law, which was partially rolled back in 2020 and 2022, resulted in a surge of criminals reoffending, according to experts, including Charles Fain Lehman, a fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute think tank.
Cameron, who scored a Trump endorsement in June 2022 and in January 2023 also commented on his support for Trump in the 2024 Republican presidential election primary, was announced as a spokesman for Kentucky Smart on Crime in September 2017. He was also quoted as a spokesman for the group in October 2018, noting we need “to end the revolving door of incarceration,” according to a press release.
The now-attorney general’s coalition job partially overlapped with his attorney role from June 2017 to November 2019 at the law firm Frost Brown Todd, where he lobbied on behalf of the U.S. Hemp Roundtable, a coalition advocating the legalization of cannabis-related products, according to lobbying disclosures reviewed by the Washington Examiner and Cameron’s LinkedIn account.
While Cameron worked there, Kentucky Smart on Crime was partnered with the ACLU, which in recent years has called to defund and divest from law enforcement, according to an archived version of the coalition’s website and several reports. In addition to listing the ACLU as a partner, the coalition partners with the NAACP in Kentucky. Jerome Bowles, president of the NAACP’s Northern Kentucky branch, notably called to “reallocate resources” from law enforcement in June 2020.
“Getting rid of cash bail is a woke, far-left policy pushed by Joe Biden, AOC, and Daniel Cameron,” Weston Loyd, a spokesman for the Craft campaign, told the Washington Examiner. “Liberal cities that did what Cameron is proposing have seen deaths from crime and drugs skyrocket, and police morale plummet.”
Loyd further claimed that Craft would “support law enforcement and ensure criminals serve out their sentences instead of being immediately let back out onto the streets to commit more crimes” as Kentucky’s governor.
An Emerson College and Fox 56 survey released in mid-April found Cameron garnering 30% of “very likely” voter support, with Kelly trailing behind at 24%. That finding came after a late January poll tracked Cameron with 39% support and Craft with 13%.
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Other Republican candidates include Republican Commissioner of Agriculture Ryan Quarles, who garnered 15% support in the April poll, and Eric Deters, who earned 6% and plead guilty in March to three misdemeanors after being charged in October 2022 for sending harassing messages to his sister-in-law and chasing his nephew in a truck.
Cameron’s campaign and Kentucky Smart on Crime did not reply to requests for comment.