Northern Kentucky's 67th House district has a new representative this year.

Matt Layman of Newport filled the seat previously held by Minority House Whip Rachel Roberts, who decided not to run for reelection.

Lehman is one of only 20 Democrats in Kentucky's House of Representatives.

Kentucky Edition sat down with him and we continue our coverage of the 2025 Kentucky General Assembly's freshman class.

I think it's always a good question to ask anyone when they're getting involved in politics.

What why?

I went to Saint Joe's Elementary School in Crescent Springs and they said there was a bumper sticker somebody put in in the foyer of that church that said, you know, if you want peace, work for justice.

I mean, for whatever reason, as a young kid that resonated with me and it stuck with me.

Northern Kentucky native was actually born in Fort Thomas, but really raised in Canton County when the Covington Catholic High School graduated there and then went to University of Louisville studying political science and history as part of the McConnell Scholars program there.

So it was really a great experience and still a big Cards fan today because I went to graduate school in New York.

I graduated from Columbia and Urban Planning.

And so I've always had an interest in urban planning and policy and how do we improve where we live.

And somewhat serendipitously, while I lived in New York, I ended up at I took a job doing some work in clinical research, actually, with a physician who was developing psychiatric drugs.

Me and my family, we moved around quite a bit.

So from New York we spent time in Europe, some time in California, had an opportunity to move back to Kentucky in 2015 and came to this wonderful neighborhood here in Newport, Kentucky, and couldn't be happier.

My first run in politics was like I ran for Congress in 2022 against our incumbent here in the fourth District, Thomas Massie.

Obviously, congressional districts a lot larger than a state representative district.

So it was a real eye opener for me in terms of what a lot of different Kentuckians are going through.

We're sitting here in northern Kentucky and it's it's been a great few years.

I mean, the economy is booming.

Things are being built.

It's just making finally being built and rebuilt.

You know, there's a lot going on at Northern, a lot of changes to talking about with the medical school and the law school as well.

We've got some very well off neighborhoods.

We have some you know, again, some of the more working class areas.

I was getting feedback a lot about the difficulties of getting from where you live to where the job growth is and public transit is.

It was frankly much more limited than it was even a few years ago in northern Kentucky.

I think that's something we have to think hard about as especially as all these new jobs are arriving in northern Kentucky.

There's three bills I filed going into this session.

One is to get free feminine hygiene products into schools, grade school in high schools.

And the other one is, you know, and there's also a Republican sponsor for a very similar bill.

So maybe there may be some way to work through this.

This is to to get glucagon into schools without a prescription.

So this is something that when when kids with diabetes have low blood sugar, you know, what they call hyper hypoglycemia, having glucagon can really save their life.

And then the other one is, look, I'm trying to do some pension reform or to get some of our law enforcement officers, firefighters who have been in hazardous duty to get back into a regular pension.

And Kentucky, it's a long bill.

It's a little complicated, but it's basically trying to rectify, I think, something that was really done wrong a few years ago.

And Democrats are definitely in the minority in Kentucky these days, which wasn't always the case.

But it's, I think, a little better representation would be helpful.

I think we get some better legislation and some better policy out of Frankfort, a little more balance.

So we're more in tune with where most of Kentucky is.

I've only been on the job a short period and you realize is there's a lot of needs out there.

There's a lot of people that want to talk with you, express their opinions, and to do this job properly, you have to have the time.

Laymon says he looks forward to seeking out Republican colleagues interested in bipartisan solutions.