State Senator Whitney Westerfield (R) officially announced his candidacy for Kentucky Attorney General January 9, 2015. “My family and I have prayerfully considered this race and know Kentuckians deserve a true public servant willing to uphold the Commonwealth’s Constitution,” said Westerfield, who just began his third General Assembly session as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Whitney Westerfield has frontline experience as a former prosecutor and has gained national recognition for his advocacy and reforms of juvenile justice.
“I’m a prosecutor, Andy Beshear is not. I have experience reforming Kentucky’s justice system. Andy Beshear does not. I’m the only person who has filed for this office who is actually qualified to hold it, and I will aggressively make that case during this campaign,” Westerfield said. “Simply having the last name of your parents doesn’t qualify you to be Kentucky’s top prosecutor.”
The voters of Christian, Todd, and Logan counties in Western Kentucky elected Westerfield to the Kentucky State Senate in 2012. Westerfield serves as the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Vice-Chairman of the Veterans/Military Affairs/Public Protection committee and as a member of the Capital Planning Advisory Board, Tobacco Fund Settlement Oversight, Agriculture, Transportation, Natural Resources & Energy, and the Program Review & Investigations Committees in the State Senate. During the 2014 Regular Session, Westerfield sponsored Senate Bill 200, reflecting the work of the Task Force and bringing about the largest reform to Kentucky's juvenile justice system in 30 years.
His term as state senator representing Logan County continues through 2016, so he can run for a constitutional office without resigning from the elected position he continues to hold.
Sen. Westerfield is a lifelong resident of Hopkinsville in Christian County, where he lives with his wife Amanda and their daughter Hadley. A graduate of the University of Kentucky and Southern Illinois University School of Law, Westerfield actively participates in his community, having volunteered for the Boys and Girls Club and the Kiwanis Club. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for Alpha Alternative, a crisis pregnancy care center in Hopkinsville. Westerfield works as an attorney with the Fletcher Law Firm in Hopkinsville and maintains a small row crop farm in North Christian County with his five brothers.
“I will use the full power of the office of Attorney General to stand up against Frankfort and Washington liberals that overreach into our private lives and small businesses,” Westerfield said. “The President has overstepped his authority on immigration, healthcare, education policy, has intruded upon our religious liberties, and has forced impossible changes on Kentucky's farming and coal industries through crippling EPA regulations. Kentuckians deserve an Attorney General that can say their oath is to the law, not to the highest bidder.”