Wife of lawmaker who killed himself loses election bid

SHEPHERDSVILLE, Ky. (AP) — The wife of a former Kentucky Republican lawmaker who killed himself last year after facing sexual assault allegations has lost her attempt to fill the remainder of her husband's term in a special election that ended up being a referendum of sorts on the #metoo movement.

Rebecca Johnson denied the allegations against Dan Johnson, claiming he was a victim of "an assault from the left." But the allegations were backed up by an on-the-record interview from the victim, plus pages of police documents that were published by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting after months of reporting.

Votes on Tuesday in this rural Kentucky House district just south of Louisville voted overwhelmingly to replace Johnson with Linda Belcher, a retired teacher and former Democratic state lawmaker who lost to Dan Johnson by less than 200 votes in 2016.

Carol Schneider, 65, called Rebecca Johnson "a die hard, stand by your man kind of woman." But she voted for Belcher, she said, because Johnson was "hanging on to a bunch of lies and now that he's dead he's like this martyr."

James Carmony, 47, said he wasn't sure he believed the sexual assault allegations and said he ultimately voted for Johnson because she is a Republican and he believed she would support the state's GOP governor. "A lot of things like that come out, sometimes they are true and sometimes they are not," Carmony.

Source: Yahoo News