FANCY FARM, KY — Kentucky U.S. Senate candidate General Jack Conway (D) dismissed the growing Republican call to rewrite the 14th Amendment to the Constitution in an interview with TPMDC today.
Conway’s Republican opponent in the U.S. Senate race, Rand Paul, has long called for an end to the constitutional right to citizenship for anyone born in the United States. Paul and other Republicans — including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky’s senior senator — have suggested that so-called “birthright citizenship” is a draw for illegal aliens and say it’s time to end the practice.
I asked Conway, the state’s attorney general, for his response to the calls in a brief interview conducted in a campaign RV following his speech at the Fancy Farm Picnic, the raucous political jamboree in this western Kentucky hamlet. Conway was unequivocal in his rejection of the idea, and he suggested McConnell and Paul are only raising it to rally their conservative base.
“I don’t think we need to change the Constitution of the United States,” Conway said. “I think they’re just pandering on that issue.”
I’ll have more on my wild day at Fancy Farm in a future post.
