The race to succeed retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell next year is understandably grabbing the headlines both statewide and nationally, but another burgeoning campaign in the Commonwealth’s southeastern corner may ultimately prove to be the most intriguing.
Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Somerset, is the dean of the U.S. House of Representatives, having served as the congressman from the Fifth Congressional District for an astounding 44 years. He has held elected federal office longer than any other lawmaker in state history, overtaking the late Rep. William Natcher, D-Bowling Green, who remained in office for 40 years and making it to D.C. four years before McConnell’s debut.
Since losing a campaign for lieutenant governor in 1979 and winning his first congressional campaign the following year, Rogers has yet to face a tough re-election challenge. No one of any depth dares run against him in the Republican primary and he has captured all of his general election races with 65 percent of the vote or better, save for 1992 when Democrat John Doug Hays, who had served as a state senator from Pikeville, held him to 55 percent.
And he was a legitimate legislative powerhouse at one time. Rogers served as chair of the House Appropriations Committee for six years starting in 2011, a position that allowed him to funnel a lot of cash to his desperately poor mountain district. He remains chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science.
Rogers has benefitted from serving in what was once perhaps the nation’s most Republican congressional district. That GOP base was diluted somewhat after the 1990 Census when Kentucky went from seven congressional districts to six, requiring a redistricting that saddled him with several traditionally Democratic counties. It didn’t stop him, obviously, and some of those long-time Blue counties over the years have turned solid Red.
As of July, 57 percent of the voters in the Fifth District are registered Republican. Over the past 60 years the district has been represented by only two men — Rogers and Tim Lee Carter of Tompkinsville, both Republican. Change, it appears, doesn’t come easy.
So, given all that, it may seem foolish to suggest Hal might face a hard time returning to his usual D.C. haunts after the November 2026 election. But evidence is mounting that he could face a tougher challenge than anticipated. One of those issues facing him, of course, is his age.
At the time of the next congressional election Hal Rogers will be 88 years old. (He was born December 31, 1937.) That will make him seven years older than former President Joe Biden when he was essentially forced to drop his re-election campaign for the White House in 2024 because of the ravages of old age, both perceived and real.
Make no mistake, Rogers isn’t and never has been some doddering fool. But the years have a way of slowing you on the draw, sometimes quickly and unexpectedly, and it’s silly to think that a man approaching 90 can physically campaign in the same manner he did back in 1980. Committee appearances establish he has slowed considerably but it should also be noted it hasn’t stopped him from fulfilling his duties.
But it might be enough to keep voters wary.
And he has made some votes that might be considered questionable at best, especially his decision to support what is stupidly referred to as the One Big Beautiful Bill, a tax cut measure pushed by President-cum-Dictator Donald J. Trump which tends to benefit few of Rogers’ constituents but is likely to have a substantial negative impact on those eligible for Medicaid, a goodly number of folks in the Fifth. And, if projections prove true, the measure might ultimately force the closing of several rural hospitals, a circumstance that would exacerbate the already poor health care delivery system in his neck of the woods.
There are other factors. Traditionally, for instance the party that holds the White House loses congressional seats in off-year elections like the one that will occur in 2026. Analysts believe the turnover won’t prove as severe as usual next year given the impact of gerrymandering, which results in the creation of nearly fool-proof ultra-partisan districts.
And then there is his potential Democratic opponent, a well-known and regionally respected attorney who has stepped up to fight in behalf of Social Security recipients whose desperately needed benefits have been severely impaired by a scam artist.
Ned Pillersdorf, of Floyd County, is already out campaigning and raising money for an election that is still more than 14 months away. He is not a newcomer to politics – his wife, Janet Stumbo, is a former member of the Kentucky Supreme Court – and has been involved in various public endeavors for years.
He also has something that is hard to find – good publicity.
It’s a long, complicated story about a 12-year con that came tumbling down in 2016, perpetrated by a Stanville attorney Eric Conn involving Social Security disability benefit claims.
Conn submitted thousands of medical documents authored by a crooked doctor to SSA in behalf of thousands of clients, most of whom never underwent a physical examination. David B. Daugherty, a Social Security Administrative Law Judge based in Huntington, WVa, accepted more than $600,000 in bribes from Conn to approve the phony documents. As a result, Conn made millions.
The Wall Street Journal eventually exposed the scheme. Conn pleaded guilty to theft of government money and payment of gratuities but high-tailed it to Honduras before he was captured and returned to the U.S. where he received a 27 year sentence. The judge and a doctor also went to prison.
As a result, about 4,000 Conn clients, many of them from his native Southeastern Kentucky, faced claim evaluations from the Social Security Administration, creating financial difficulties and distress for those involved, That number included clients who would otherwise have been approved for disability payments regardless of his peccadillos, many of whom were unknowingly caught up in the mess.
Enter Pillersdorf, working pro bono, who remains involved in recruiting dozens of lawyers to represent recipients taken in by the scam. He has helped save poor people’s benefits For those efforts, he was among a group that received the Pro Bono Publico Award in 2023 from the American Bar Association. The award honors “outstanding commitment to volunteer legal services for low-income and disadvantaged persons.’’
The Social Security Administration announced last year that some former Conn clients won’t have to pay back the disability benefits they received.
For all this, Pillersdorf has attracted some high regard in the Fifth. There was even a documentary about the whole rigamarole that aired on AppleTV +.
On his campaign website, Pillersdorf wrote:
“The truth is, early on, our current Congressman Hal Rogers supported some worthy programs. Thas all changed. The one or two steps he took forward is in full reverse. Rogers is enthusiastically supporting the unprecedented assault on our safety net – taking us ten steps back, over the cliff. His deciding vote for the Big Beautiful Bill is a shameful betrayal of the needs of our district.’’
The last Democrat to represent the Fifth Distrct was Brent Spence, of Ft. Thomas, who held the post from 1935 to 1963 but that’s misleading – the Fifth at the time was based in Northern Kentucky. A Democrat winning the Fifth Congressional District in its present southeastern corner locale would be unprecedented. But factors are opening up to the point where it isn’t impossible.