A day after a Kentucky GOP lawmaker filed legislation that would ban immigrant citizens from holding state and local elected offices, a naturalized citizen filed to run for a Louisville seat held by a Republican.
Suhas Kulkarni, father of state Democratic Rep. Nima Kulkarni — who would also be disqualified under the bill — said the legislation was the last straw that pushed him into running for the state House as a Democrat.
Kulkarni said he decided to run for the seat the previous evening when he read about the two bills filed by Rep. Shane Baker of Somerset that seek to ban both naturalized citizens and those with dual citizenship from holding state and local offices in Kentucky.
“That's the straw that broke the camel's back,” Kulkarni said after filing for office on the Friday deadline for candidates. “And I said, ‘Something's got to be done about this.’”
Nima Kulkarni immigrated to the U.S. from India with her family at 6 years old. Suhas Kulkarni said he started out sweeping the floor in a neighborhood grocery store, but eventually started his own grocery, IT and export businesses that employed hundreds of people.
“Our family has had the actual experience of the American dream,” Suhas Kulkarni said. “At the end of the day, if somebody says to me that after all of this, you're not eligible to have some of the rights that citizens have, I don't agree with it. So I said, this is not the time for me to sit on the sidelines.”
Kulkarni filed to run for House District 48 against GOP incumbent Rep. Ken Fleming.
Baker introduced two bills to accomplish his goal of barring immigrant citizens from holding office in the first week of the 2026 session of the General Assembly. House Bill 186 would require people elected to local offices — county commissioner, mayor, city council, board of education, etc. — to be natural-born citizens and may not hold dual citizenship with another nation.
House Bill 259, meanwhile, proposes to change the Kentucky Constitution to make the same new requirements for state offices, like governor, attorney general, Supreme Court justice or state lawmaker.
“You can see the direction they're trying to take New York, and the problems that are there are on the front burner there, and we don't want to face those things in Kentucky,” Baker said. “We want to make sure to head things off before they get here.”
Neither bill would bar immigrant citizens from holding federal Congressional seats — those changes would require an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a much harder task. But amending the Kentucky Constitution is no easy job either; HB 259 would need to pass both chambers with a three-fifths majority and be approved by Kentucky voters.
Kulkarni and her father are not the only current Kentucky politicians who would be affected by Baker’s legislation. Louisville Democratic Council Member Marcus Winkler immigrated with his family from Germany as a child, later becoming a naturalized citizen. He told Kentucky Public Radio the legislation would make immigrants “second-class citizens.”
“It is deeply insulting to those of us who have come to this country, who've lived here our entire lives, who contribute in meaningful ways, large and small, to be singled out,” Winkler said.
Winkler was elected to Metro Council in 2019 and served for two terms as Metro Council President. His district slightly overlaps with that of GOP state Rep. John Hodgson, who is a co-sponsor on the legislation.
Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government Vice Mayor Dan Wu, who was born in China before moving to the U.S. as a child, was elected in 2022 with the most votes as an at-large member of the Lexington City Council. Wu told KPR his first response to the legislation was “shock, but not surprise.”
“I had to take a moment to not take it personally,” Wu said. “It's frustrating and disappointing to see that some of our state lawmakers are focused on sort of these culture war issues when Kentucky is one of the poorest, least educated, least healthy states in the nation, and there are so many other things that we need to be doing for the people of Kentucky, and this is what we're focused on.”
Wu said naturalized citizens have, for most of American history, had the same rights as those who are natural born.
“That's the core of American democracy and American culture,” Wu said. “This kind of idea seeks to overturn very basic tenets of what it means to be an American.”
Baker’s proposal to ban naturalized citizens from holding office in Kentucky is also being attempted in Alabama, where the Republican secretary of state has advocated a similar change to their state constitution.
The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution grants equal protection for the rights of all citizens, including those naturalized.
