Karla May won a dramatic upset over incumbent 4th District state Senator Jacob W. Hummel in the August 7 Democratic primary, winning 20,204 votes (57 percent) to 15,137 votes (42 percent).
The only candidate in the Republican primary, Robert J. Crump, garnered only 4,731 votes, so it’s a virtual certainty that May will win the general election and advance to the state Senate. With state Senator Jamilah Nasheed representing the 5th District, the City of St. Louis will have two black women state senators.
Hummel was appointed to the seat by the city’s Central Democratic Committee when Joe Keaveny stepped down to take a position as an administrative law judge in a meeting that Keaveny chaired.
“We have to stop allowing things like that to happen,” May said of the insider process that put Hummel in the seat. “We have a district that is over 85 percent Democrat, so we should allow the people to choose who that person should be, not a select few playing politics, chaired by the person stepping down. The people did not have a chance to speak. This election allowed voters to speak for the first time. The people should never be silent.”
She plans to extend her respect for the voices of the public as a state senator.
“I want to give a voice to my constituents,” she said. “I want to form a citizen’s advisory council, a senior’s advisory council. I want to have regular meetings in the district to educate constituents and have them weigh in at every level while bills are going through the process.”
In addition to the leverage of incumbency, Hummel’s campaign had a huge cash advantage and was expected to benefit from mainstream labor’s hard push to defeat Proposition A, the Right to Work referendum. Prop A was beat 2:1, yet Hummel lost to May by 15 points.
“People understood my work and were able to distinguish the two campaigns,” May said. “Defeating Prop A was very important, but to try to line your campaign up with an issue, like Jake did, when people know who the true fighter on that issue is, backfired. I always fight against anti-worker laws.”
May is a trustee of the St. Louis Chapter of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists and had strong black labor support in her campaign.
May, who was term-limited in the state House, brings extensive knowledge of the state Legislature and looks forward to moving to the more powerful chamber.
“As a senator, you are one of 34 and have more influence and better opportunities to get things done,” she said. “In the House, you are one of 163. So I will have greater leverage to get things passed. I already have a working relationship with a lot of Republicans, so I will be able to get things done. My relationships will be significant walking into the Senate.”
One Republican she has differed with recently is Gov. Mike Parson, who slashed from the budget funds she had secured as a state representative for adolescent behavioral health and for Harris-Stowe State University.
“I had a conversation with the governor about different avenues of funding for adolescent behavioral health, possibly through the Missouri Foundation of Health,” May said. “It’s funding we desperately need to gauge the impact of behavioral health. We don’t have those numbers. How many young people are being impacted by acute behavioral issues and are not being treated?”
As for Harris-Stowe, she said, “I will continue that fight. I will figure out that fight.”
