What You May Not Know About Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s Republican Ties

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron may not be known to many outside of the Breonna Taylor case, but a look into Cameron’s past shows significant GOP ties.

Cameron, a Black Republican, previously served as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s legal counsel from 2015 to 2017. During that time, Cameron was in charge of the confirmation process for conservative federal judges, including Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Last year, Cameron defeated State Senator Wil Schroder in the Republican primary. Cameron was then endorsed for the Attorney General post by President Donald Trump and the Kentucky Fraternal Order of Police. Cameron defeated former Attorney General Greg Stumbo in the November 2019 general election, becoming the first Black Attorney General in the state.

On March 27, two weeks to the day after Breonna Taylor was killed, Cameron called on Kentucky’s top health official to put a stop to abortions in the state due to the coronavirus pandemic. This happened days after Planned Parenthood sued the state of Texas for implementing a similar policy.

“Kentucky’s current ban on elective medical procedures exists to further the mandated policy of social distancing and to help conserve medical resources for use in fighting COVID-19,” Cameron said in a statement at the time. “Acting Secretary [of CHFS Eric] Friedlander is on the front lines of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, and I am confident that he understands, better than anyone, the necessity of ending abortion procedures during this health crisis. His certification will immediately trigger action by our office to stop elective procedures during the pandemic.”

In April, the Kentucky legislature gave Cameron the power to regulate abortion clinics, but the legislation was vetoed by Gov. Andy Beshear.

The Daily Mail reported that the investigation into Taylor’s death was still ongoing when Cameron invited his mentor, McConnell, to his wedding last month.

Cameron was also a guest speaker at the GOP convention last month, where he declared himself a “proud Republican and supporter of President Donald Trump.”

President Trump also placed the Attorney General on the shortlist for a seat on the Supreme Court, which a professor at the University of Louisville, Cameron’s alma mater, called ridiculous.

“Meaning no disrespect to the attorney general, I think putting him on a list of potential Supreme Court nominees over the next four years is preposterous,” Samuel Marcosson, a professor at U of L’s Brandeis School of law, told the Courier-Journal,

“A nominee for the Supreme Court should have a wealth of legal experience,” Marcosson wrote in an email. “The attorney general lacks any meaningful experience practicing federal law, which is the entirety of the Supreme Court’s docket.”