LEXINGTON, Ky. — A Kentucky Republican legislator wants to limit eligibility for local offices to only natural-born U.S. citizens.

State Rep. Shane Baker, R-Somerset, filed a bill Wednesday that would block anyone not born in the U.S. or who has citizenship in another country from holding the offices of mayor, city council, county fiscal court, local school board and soil & water conservation district supervisor.

House Bill 186 adds requirements that Kentuckians eligible for those offices are “natural-born citizens” and are “national(s) of only the United States and no other county.”

It also would add a one-year residency requirement for city council and mayoral candidates.

Baker did not respond to a request for comment on the matter as of early Thursday morning.

Lexington has at least one high-ranking official who would be affected by the change. Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government Vice Mayor Dan Wu, the top vote-getter in the 2022 at-large council race, was born in China and moved to the U.S. as a child.

Wu called the bill a “distraction” in a statement to the Herald-Leader.

“I hope that our state representatives will focus on the real work of helping Kentuckians with real issues like housing and food insecurity rather than culture war distractions,” Wu wrote.

On the national scene, some critics from the right have pointed out the immigration status of newly elected New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a young Democratic Socialist who is a naturalized citizen. Mamdani was born in Uganda and moved to the U.S. as a child; he became a U.S. citizen in 2018.

House Bill 186 did not touch eligibility requirements for state representatives or senators.

Eligibility for officeholders at the state level in Frankfort would be much harder to change than local elected office, as those requirements are in Section 32 of the Kentucky Constitution. State Representatives must be 24 years old and have resided in Kentucky two years prior, and Senators must be 30 and have resided in Kentucky six years prior.

Those standards would require a constitutional amendment to change, with three-fifths of both chambers in the legislature voting for it and a majority of Kentucky voters approving.

One member of the state legislature, Louisville Democratic Rep. Nima Kulkarni, is a naturalized citizen. Kulkarni moved to the U.S. when she was six years old.

Eligibility for U.S. Senate and U.S. House is determined by the U.S. Constitution. The standard proposed by Baker would make requirements for local office more stringent than those, which allow immigrants to hold the offices. Per the Constitution, as long as a Senate candidate has been a citizen for nine years and a House candidate has been a citizen for seven years, they are eligible to hold those offices.

A spokesperson for the Kentucky Association of Counties, a group that advocates for county-level officials, told the Herald-Leader they were “reviewing the language.” A spokesperson for the Kentucky League of Cities has yet to respond to a request for comment.

Baker’s bill is co-sponsored by Rep. DJ Johnson, R-Owensboro, and Rep. John Hodgson, R-Fisherville.

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