This week is all about bricks and mortar and dollars and cents as the Appropriations Committee tackles an agenda packed with the regular session’s most important money bills.
The committee gaveled in at 9 a.m. this morning to give attention to capital outlay, the MFP, supplemental spending and the operating budget, to name a few of the 11 agenda items.
Looking for policy action? Tune into the meeting. Tucked into HB 1, for example, are proposed raises for most department secretaries.
But don’t get in a rush. The main money bills are typically approved during the session’s closing moments, though CC24 supporters no doubt hope to see faster movement this year to clear space for a possible convention.
Before it reached the Appropriations Committee, the multiyear construction bill by Ways and Means Chair Julie Emerson took on 80 amendments Monday and advanced without objection. “This is a short, simple bill,” Emerson joked about the 131-page instrument.
The $10.3 billion bill reflects $543 in bonding capacity for the current year. Emerson said the bill exceeds capacity for the year by a “slight amount.”
It’s not unusual to be over capacity, she said, adding, “It eventually works itself out.”
INDIANAPOLIS — In past generations, it was the accumulation of American body bags that forged domestic anti-war efforts.
Last week, Indiana U.S. Reps. Jim Banks and Erin Houchin joined 68 fellow Republicans in voting to end U.S. military aid to Ukraine during debate on the FY23 National Defense Authorization Act. “Notwithstanding any provision of this or any other Act, no federal funds may be made available to provide security assistance to Ukraine,” read the one-sentence amendment, one of the dozens offered by hard-right Republicans last Thursday evening. It was defeated by a 358-70 margin, with all Democrats and a majority of Republicans (including U.S. Reps. Jim Baird, Larry Bucshon, Greg Pence, Victoria Spartz and Rudy Yakym) opposing the measure.
“My amendment is going to lose overwhelmingly when it is put up for a vote,” said U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican who authored the amendment. “But the American people will see who wants to represent them, and who wants to represent Crimea.”
It sets up a divide within the ranks of the Indiana Republican Party, where major figures are still advocating support for Ukraine to repel the Russian invasion that began in February 2022.
Jim Banks greets former President Trump after he lands in Indiana April 14 for the NRA Annual Meeting (Credit: Jim Banks/Twitter)
Banks and Houchin say that they are motivated by fiscal concerns.
Banks, the probable Republican U.S. Senate nominee in 2024 from Columbia City, said in a statement to Howey Politics Indiana, “President Biden, the weakest commander-in-chief ever, embarrassed our country in Afghanistan and has since reduced our critical munition stockpiles to dangerously low levels. We cannot lead abroad while we are so weak at home.”
Houchin, a freshman from Salem, told HPI, “We cannot continue down this path of tens of billions of dollars being spent in Ukraine with no accounting of where the money is going and no plan for a resolution. I heard resoundingly from my district prior to the vote, and I share my constituents’ concerns. My votes on these amendments to the NDAA reflect the views of the majority of 9th District Hoosiers.
“The bigger issue here is that President Biden and his administration have failed again and again on the world stage — from the disastrous and deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan, the unchecked expansion of Chinese influence around the globe, the unmitigated disaster at our Southern Border and the mishandling of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Biden Administration has failed in foreign and domestic policy,” Houchin said.
In 2023, Houchin voted for a moratorium on aid to Ukraine. Houchin voted for a ban on a Center of Excellence in Ukraine that enhances NATO activities. Houchin was among 98 Republicans to vote for a ban on cluster munitions to Ukraine.
Banks cites fiscal concerns
Congresswoman Erin Houchin speaks on the importance of national security at the Crane Congressional Breakfast June 21, 2023. (Credit: Erin Houchin/Twitter)
Banks voted against a $40 billion Ukraine aid package in May 2022. He told WOWO’s Pat Miller after that vote, “We’ve already passed several bills to support Ukraine. We just passed a $13 billion bill in March. The reason I voted against the bill is simple. Crisis after crisis is going on in our own country and then to send $40 billion to another country when people are suffering from high gas prices, inflation and the humanitarian crisis at the border. I’ve heard from our listeners from Northeast Indiana loud and clear. They’re saying, ’Enough is enough. We can’t give a blank check to Ukraine without solving problems at home first.’ I’ve always said America can’t lead around the world when we’re so weak at home.
“I don’t believe there was ever a parallel in American history where we’ve seen America decline as much as it has in two years with Joe Biden in the White House,” Banks added. “So we’ve got to push the Biden administration to focus on our domestic weaknesses and the crisis in our own country before we grant billions and billions, $40 billion in this case to send to Ukraine. I looked through this bill and it was easy for me to vote against it. This bill gives every single person in Ukraine a ticket to come to the United States of America. That would be OK if we could afford it. To invite 44 million people to come here with no limits, we can’t afford it. Unlike Afghanistan, Ukraine is a wealthier country. We have to take that into account.”
Banks and Houchin appear to be following the lead of former president Donald Trump, who has said he could end the war in one day. “I know [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy very well, I know Putin very well — even better — and I had a very good relationship with both of them,” Trump told Maria Bartiromo on Fox News last weekend. Trump said he would tell Zelenskyy, “No more, you gotta make a deal.”
U.S. Sen. Todd Young, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, broke with Trump last spring following a CNN town hall. Young told Capitol Hill reporters that Trump’s judgment was incorrect and that Putin and his country have engaged in war crimes. Young called Putin an “enemy” of the United States and a “war criminal,” something Trump wouldn’t do, as well as failing to say who he was backing. “That’s why I don’t intend to support him for the Republican nomination,” Young said.
Young has insisted from the beginning of the war that the United States must back Ukraine. “Vladimir Putin is attacking the democratic, rules-based order that has benefitted countless Americans and millions around the globe since World War II,” Young said on Feb. 24, 2022. “The United States must stand with the Ukrainian people by immediately providing additional assistance, including military equipment and lethal aid.
“American strength and leadership in this moment is critical,” Young continued. “The weak response from the United States following Russia’s previous invasions of Georgia and Crimea left Putin undeterred in his perverse ambition of rebuilding the Soviet Union. The stakes extend beyond Europe, as China is watching us and clearly has the same ambitions for Taiwan. It is essential that America sends an unequivocal message: invading sovereign, democratic nations will never be tolerated.”
Mike Pence defends Ukraine
Former vice president Mike Pence has also consistently advocated for supporting Ukraine. He told Fox59 last weekend, “The war in Ukraine is not a territorial dispute. It was a Russian invasion by Vladimir Putin. As the leader of the free world, it’s absolutely essential to provide the Ukrainian military what they need to repel the Russian invasion for this reason.
Pence laying flowers at a vigil on his visit to Ukraine to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. (Credit: Mike Pence/Twitter)
“I have no doubt that if Vladimir Putin overruns Ukraine it won’t be too long before the Russian military crosses the border and we have to send our armed forces in to fight under the NATO treaty,” said Pence, who visited President Zelenskyy in Kyiv and Irpin earlier this month. “I’m someone who believes in that old Reagan doctrine that if you’re willing to fight our enemies on your soil we’ll give you what you need to fight them there so men and women in uniform aren’t going to have to face them someday defending our interests and our allies. I think President Biden has done a terrible job explaining our national interests there. The administration has been slow providing armaments.’
After his visit to Kyiv, Pence told NBC News, “I believe America’s the leader of the free world. But coming here just as a private citizen — being able to really see firsthand the heroism of the Ukrainian soldiers holding the line in those woods, see the heroism of the people here in Irpin that held back the Russian army, to see families whose homes were literally shelled in the midst of an unconscionable and unprovoked Russian invasion — just steels my resolve to do my part, to continue to call for strong American support for our Ukrainian friends and allies.
“I’m here because it’s important that the American people understand the progress that we’ve made and how support for the Ukrainian military has been in our national interest,” Pence said.
On Feb. 24, 2022, Bucshon said, “Last night, Vladimir Putin ordered the military forces of the Russian Federation to begin an attack on the people of Ukraine without provocation and without honor. Russia’s actions are a savage violation of international law that have put countless innocent lives at risk. The United States and our allies must stand firm and protect the freedom and sovereignty of Ukraine, and Putin’s actions must be met with swift and severe consequences.”
In May, Bucshon introduced a bipartisan Real ID Eligibility for Ukraine Act. “Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began over one year ago, more than 271,000 Ukrainians have been granted asylum in the United States. With many of these individuals now calling Indiana home, it is critical that we pass the RIDE for Ukraine Act to ensure these individuals do not face arbitrary governmental barriers to obtaining jobs so that they can contribute to the Hoosier State,” said Bucshon.
On Oct. 28, 2022, Yakym told Ink Free News’s Dan Spaulding, “We cannot allow nations to bulldoze other nations. We cannot allow that to happen.” Yakym also took a subtle jab at the Biden Administration. “Weakness arouses evil,” Yakym said. “The weakness of the United States on the international stage has aroused the Russian empire and it’s emboldened them to come across the western front.”
Pence said in a Feb. 24, 2022 statement, “Ukraine is an ally of the United States and I believe it is our duty to stand with our allies. Vladimir Putin has proven himself to be a complete thug and has lied for months about his intentions to the rest of the World. President Biden must send a clear message to Russia that there will be real consequences for their actions. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a direct threat to our national security, world peace, and global stability.”
Pence, however, voted for military aid to Ukraine but against humanitarian aid in March 2022.
So did U.S. Sen. Mike Braun in May 2022. “Ukrainians are amazing. We were slow to help them out of the gate,” Braun told Business Insider. “But I’m going to always ask a question: How are we paying for it? And when I found out we’re borrowing every penny of it, and we’re not offsetting anything, that turned it into a no-vote for me.”
Spartz fades away
Rep. Victoria Spartz (Credit: U.S. Congress)
And then there is Spartz, who began the period after the Russian invasion to rally Republicans to the cause of her native land. But by July 2022, Politico reported: Spartz, who has traveled to Ukraine a half-dozen times since the war began and spoken passionately about the conflict, shocked lawmakers in both parties recently with her intense criticisms of Zelenskyy, and his confidants.
Inside the House GOP Conference, there’s a widespread fear that her posture is damaging U.S.-Ukraine relations at the worst possible time — and that she’s being played by forces that aim to weaken the Western alliance. GOP national-security hawks also worry that the MAGA wing of their party, where there’s already resistance to supporting Ukraine, will point to Spartz’s comments as justification.
“Her naiveness is hurting our own people,” said a GOP lawmaker who serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, granted anonymity by Politico to speak candidly about a colleague. “It is not helpful to what we’re trying to do and I’m not sure her facts are accurate … We have vetted these guys.” The Republican warned that Spartz’s comments could “hurt” the war effort.
Since then, Spartz flirted with a U.S. Senate candidacy, then announced she would not seek reelection, citing family concerns. She has issued relatively few statements on Ukraine since then, as more and more Republicans peel away their support for the war effort.
On July 14, Spartz sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray requesting a briefing on the FBI’s collaboration in 2022 with a foreign government, compromised Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), to censor Americans. “Many actions of the FBI in recent years are alarming and undermining the credibility of the agency — warrantless surveillance, censorship, intimidation and politicization,” Spartz said. “Congress has a duty to the American people to protect their rights and cannot allow these blatant violations to continue with no real consequences.”
On June 23, Spartz said she was backing Sweden’s entry into NATO, which came about as a direct result of the Russian invasion. “I urge all our allies to support Sweden’s accession to NATO. Transatlantic cooperation is critical in these challenging times for European and global security,” Spartz said. “Sweden is committed and on a fast track to reach all NATO goals, which will also strengthen the alliance’s capabilities.”
EVANSVILLE, Ind. — More than a dozen years ago during the 2010 election cycle, Eric Holcomb was a key cog on Gov. Mitch Daniels’ Aiming Higher PAC built to create a durable House Republican majority after ending up with the minority two years earlier. The money raised crested $1 million. The names of what would be the “Class of ’10” are familiar to this day: Wendy McNamara, Sharon Negele, Timothy Wesco, Susan Ellspermann, Al Morrison, Mike Karickhoff, Bob Heaton and Jim Baird. There were two of these Republicans who lost that November, one being Kyle Hupfer (the other Jim Lucas in HD66).
The Class of ’10 was a precursor to a historic achievement. The newly forged majority that year redrew the legislative and congressional maps in 2011, a task performed so well that it was followed by six consecutive GOP General Assembly supermajorities, the last four guided by Gov. Eric Holcomb and Indiana Republican Chairman Hupfer. This has been an unprecedented concentration of power. And it has pushed Gov. Holcomb into what those outside looking in see as a “radicalized” governor.
Last summer he signed some of the most far-reaching abortion restrictions in the nation. This past spring, Holcomb signed bills greatly expanding school vouchers, HEA 1447 that subjects school librarians to felony charges if they share “harmless material” while HEA 1608 and SEA 480 delved into the realm of transgender youth and parental rights.
In 2022, Holcomb vetoed a bill – HEA 1041, which banned transgender students from competing in IHSAA girls’ sports – only to be easily overridden that May. The next month, Indiana Republican Convention delegates meted out political retribution, defeating Holcomb’s appointed Secretary of State Holli Sullivan, when Diego Morales prevailed.
Traveling with Holcomb last Friday, Howey Politics Indiana spent more than an hour conducting this interview at the Gerst Bavarian Haus on this city’s west side, munching on breaded tenderloins and German potato salad. Has the supermajority “radicalized” the previously moderate (but historically pro-life) governor by putting forth such legislation that some people view as extreme, and knowing it would be overridden if he issued a veto?
Gov. Eric Holcomb during the HPI Interview at Gerst Bavarian Haus in Evansville. (Credit: HPI Photo by Brian A. Howey)
Holcomb was unfazed by the question. “I take your point about whether they were jamming the governor,” he said. “You have to take the issues one by one, no matter how hot the button is or what the issue is.”
And his guiding light? The Indiana Constitution. “The governor will always have to make a decision over to sign, not sign or veto. There’s a cost to each,” he explained. “I typically look at constitutionality as kind of my threshold.”
A few minutes later, he extrapolated further: “If you say or subscribe to our founding documents, or the Declaration (of Independence) that we’re all entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then, to me, it comes down to a constitutional” question and others. “How we define what life is, what liberty is and the pursuit of happiness is,” he explained. “Life being first, so what is or isn’t life? I think that gets decided ultimately in the current form, state by state.
“But, I would also say, what’s occurred in Indiana after it?” Holcomb asked, addressing those who warned that doctors would pack up their practices and leave, or students wouldn’t come to state colleges and universities, or that Fortune 500 companies would no longer invest here.
“After, say, the last two, four, six years a lot of the naysayers who tried to profit politically off it have become more relegated to a deeper superminority,” he said of Hoosier Democrats. “We went from $8.7 billion in capital investment to $22 billion and our pipeline is full right now. Purdue has record enrollment. Lilly is making the biggest single site investment to date. So when people say, ‘People aren’t going to move here; people aren’t going to want to go to school here,’ tell that to Illinois. We’re seeing the opposite.
“If you’re pro-life, pro-gun and you say these things are going to hurt our state, have at it,” Holcomb continued. “Republicans have over 90% of local offices, supermajorities and every statewide elected office. The question would be are you worried you’re not going to continue to pick up seats when we continue to pick up seats? And we’re playing offense in areas we don’t have right now.”
Beyond the abortion and transgender laws he has signed, Holcomb had an audacious final budget session. He signed sprawling health sector reorganization and a record investment in mental health funding. He forged a $500 million Regional Economic Acceleration and Development Initiative (READI), received $1 billion in economic development funding, and big pay raises for Indiana State Police troopers.
This helicopter flight to Evansville revealed a governor six and a half years into his tenure deeply enjoying the job and buoyed by the impacts he has been making. He produced an iPad and began showing off 45 videos he narrates — what Holcomb calls his “quiver of arrows” — that he can send on a dime to those pondering investments in the state. If there’s a CEO or president in Paris or Budapest who loves golf, Holcomb fires off a video of Indiana’s 55 golf courses, including the Pete Dye classic at West Baden.
Appearing with Mayor Lloyd Winnecke at the Evansville Regional Economic Partnership at the expanding University of Southern Indiana campus, the two conducted what has become a Holcomb signature, an on-stage Q&A before more than 400 people. The two discussed the new READI funding. “It has surpassed my expectations and, quite frankly, has really brought out the best in us,” Holcomb said. “The priorities you put forward are going to make a difference [in] decades to come. Good money chases good money, right? $500 million in state money turns into $9 billion statewide, simultaneously. Some $4 billion is focused on housing. That is occurring all over the state. It is unprecedented the improvements that are being made. We’re not ever going to rest on our laurels.”
Winnecke was effusive in his praise for his fellow Republican. “I feel like I’m the top salesperson for Evansville and our region,” he said toward the end of the program. “You have to feel that way for our state.”
Gov. Holcomb awarded a USI jersey from Mayor Winnecke. (Credit: State of Indiana Photo)
“Or the cheerleader or problem solver for the state,” Holcomb said.
Winnecke picked up on a basketball theme for the banquet appearing in USIs Screaming Eagle Arena. “They haven’t put a shot clock on us.” This prompted the governor to needle the mayor: “You’re kind of, what, a 20-20 player, right?”
Winnecke laughs, saying, “I don’t know what you mean.” Holcomb: “I put you in when we’re 20 up or 20 down.”
After the laughter died down, Winnecke good-naturedly returned to the basketball banter. “My shot clock is 191 days,” Winnecke said of his term ending at year’s end. “And your shot clock says 557. I think you can sell anything you want in your next career because you’re so passionate about Indiana. We have grown because of your passion and teamwork.”
After HPI interviewed Holcomb at Gerst’s, we headed about 15 miles north to the aging Indiana State Police Post where Superintendent Doug Carter was presiding over a groundbreaking for a new laboratory. A photo album revealed Gov. Doc Bowen (in white shoes) at a similar groundbreaking ceremony almost a half-century earlier. On the flight to Evansville, Holcomb talked about how Carter had sold him on the expensive concept of aerial infrared searches that often occur for a missing elderly Hoosier, or, say, a missing toddler.
“I’m very grateful you took a chance on me,” Carter said before a small crowd of troopers, legislators, contractors and news media. “He has done more for Indiana public safety than any governor. Period. He empowered us early on to make hard decisions, to tackle big tough projects. And this was one of them. This one was a pipe dream. Our labs were almost 45 years old. We knew we had to do something. I remember sitting at the (Governor’s) residence one afternoon … and we were talking about various issues. And the message I got was ‘Are you going to admire this problem or are you going to fix it?’”
Carter described embarking on a journey to replace the entire laboratory system. “We started off at $10 million per building. Boy, did we miss the mark. Now fast forward, we’ve already completed the projects in Fort Wayne and will soon be moving into our Lowell laboratory, and in 12 to 14 months into the new Evansville lab. We were doing DNA in a broom closet in Fort Wayne with a leaky pipe in the ceiling. Not anymore.
“This governor allows us to have an opinion,” Carter continued. “He expects us to take the bull by the horns and solve the problem.”
Holcomb spoke next: “When you speak, it’s not just listened to, it’s hopefully acted upon each and every time. That requires us to step up … in fiscally tough times. The thing that separates Indiana from everybody else is we are making these investments … making sure you have the tools, the resources and the training.”
Gov. Holcomb signs a ceremonial shovel for ISP Supt. Doug Carter. (HPI Photo by Brian A. Howey)
Holcomb recounted that early conversation at the Governor’s Residence about Indiana’s antiquated state police lab system, and the need to deploy high-tech aircraft and drones to find missing Hoosiers. “That’s another conversation we had very early on,” Holcomb said. “We are here to save lives. We have to be able to find people who don’t know where they are; infants and the elderly. I said, ‘I don’t care how much it costs.’”
Here is our HPI Interview with Holcomb:
Q.HPI: You’ve been governor for six and a half years now. What has surprised you most about the job
A. Holcomb: I don’t cut myself very much slack because I worked around a predecessor (Gov. Mitch Daniels) on a day-in, day-out basis in one capacity or another for almost a decade. I knew a lot about the demands on his time, his priorities, his interests, but it’s much different on the other side of the desk. So, while I had preparation, nothing prepares you for the drastic change in being prepared for the unexpected. Just the number of occasions where you think you’ve got it all planned out, scheduled and nailed down and then something happens and it changes your whole day. You’ve got to reschedule and get back to everybody else. That can be naturally driven, weather; it can be human-created. The schedule is constantly evolving. And along the way, you’re spontaneously learning and that’s one of the things I enjoy the most, constantly seeing new ways to do business, new ways to live, new ways to play, new ways to solve and have the potential impact on a scale that few other jobs would offer.
Mayor Winnecke mentioned the word “passion” earlier and one of my challenges, and don’t cry for me because I have options, one of the big challenges will be what will replace the passion that I have right now. And how can I contribute in a constructive way in whatever comes next? That time will come when I have to get serious about that but it’s not here yet because there’s so much to do. I love to see growth and I love to develop new relationships that will long outlive me. I always said this job is to serve, not the salary; that I’m able to do that because I get a whole lot more out of it, more than I’m giving on a day-to-day basis. We’re bringing on in this time of transition and to have people around the world who are making decisions say to me directly, “Thank you for being a place of stability and continuity.” If you get caught in the echo chamber you think we’re being divided but, meanwhile, so many people are coming together and doing really big things. Bigger than we’ve ever done before, bigger investments in our infrastructure.
I spoke at Kris Box’s retirement party yesterday and you talk about someone who is a winner. She could have retired before she took the job from hell. Then she could have retired after she created the Healthy Baby Program that is now in all 92 counties. Then she could have retired after COVID. But even when people said at the outset, “You will get nothing on public health” or “You might get a little.” But as I watched over time it moved from “well you might have to do it differently” to “well, I agree with the data that is so compelling.” And then we got everything and more.
Q. You’re talking about the health reforms of this past session?
A. Yes. Other states are calling us about our commission, saying, “Come out here and show us what you just did.” And, “How did you do that?” We have a lot of work to do. It’s not like we’re celebrating. We are tracking all of these counties, watching commissioners and councils passing ordinances to make sure they’re a part of it. The fact is, we’ve never been in this position despite talking about mental health for years. All of a sudden, money is not the issue. It’s not the issue because of collaboration and our economy has grown. It’s actually pretty cool and now what’s happening is you’ve got all these communities competing against each other because they don’t want to be left behind. It’s kind of the carrot rather than the stick approach. All of these programs are being driven by leaders like (Health Commissioner) Kris Box or Doug Carter. The list goes on and on. I’m going to really, really on an emotional basis miss the people that I’ve gotten to know, 12 deep, not just Kris Box, but 12 below her.
Gov. Eric Holcomb with out-going Health Commissioner Kris Box. (Credit: State of Indiana Photo)
Q. I asked you a couple of years ago what kind of pandemic plan was on the shelf when COVID hit in March 2020 and you said there was only one for the flu. Is Indiana positioned better for the next pandemic?
A. There’s two ways to answer that question. One is yes, from a pragmatic perspective. Meaning we have an RFP out there right now to have a stockpile built up of PPE. We have relationships really built from a state to a local perspective; the pipelines of communication and delivery. We have our agencies that are in shape and can turn on a dime. Meaning, that one of Dr. Box’s good friends is (Indiana National Guard) Adj. Gen. Dale Lyles. Who would have thought? These relationships were forged in fire and became dependent on one another. It wasn’t just Health, or FSSA, or DWD, it was everyone. And so that, from a joint operations perspective, I would put us up against anyone in the country. We could start right now if the (crap) hit the fan. That’s from a pragmatic perspective. From a psychological perspective, we just went through that; we’re not going to go along that road again. Who knows? A lot of people said, “Oh, Eric, there were so many people who were so unfair to Kris Box or to me during COVID,” and I would always say, “If you were me and you were out as much as I am … and I went without a mask in Brown County and will never forget it … if you were with me every day for a month, you would hear more people say “thank you” than any teed-off individual who thinks I was out to get ‘em. It was like night and day. I’ve seen the polling, so I know what the answer is, I know my standing, but what really matters to me is I kept going out; I didn’t hide. I kept going to MCL. A number of times a trooper would go, “Tell the First Lady the governor is going to be about 30 minutes late because he’s having a ‘town hall’ meeting at MCL right now.” I was hearing directly from people. I’m not trying to sugarcoat it, but it was like, “You need to get back on TV. You were comforting. That got us through a really tough time.” It came from small towns, rural towns. You can never allow the noisy 10% to overtake the vast majority.
Q. Your vetoes can be overridden by a simple majority. You don’t have a line item budget veto. If you could rewrite the rules for a governor, would you want those things? And, yes, I understand the political realities that the General Assembly is not prone to giving up power.
A. That’s well framed. I would say, not with a sense of arrogance, that we’ve done pretty well with the rules of the road as they are. But it has required us to acknowledge our executive powers and authority, and not hope for something different. We’ve been pretty effective over the course of time without the line item. I don’t know of any governor who would say they wouldn’t like to have more authority.
Q. Do you know how many governors have line item authority?
A. I don’t. We haven’t needed it. It would change outcomes for sure, anytime you shift authority or power. We’ve had a polite disagreement over that, that resulted in a lawsuit, not over those specific examples that you gave but over executive power. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court came down on those rights. Those were being challenged from their perspective on how much authority they had, so it works both ways, I guess. I don’t spend any time thinking about it because I know what the rules are and I ran. I heard other people say in the past, not (Gov.) Mitch (Daniels) but before that, the governor of Indiana doesn’t have any power; it’s a weak governor. To one extent, maybe, but we’re doing some pretty powerful things for the state of Indiana with the authority we do have. So what is it? Is it to play more defense to stop something that you don’t agree with?
Q. Let’s talk about stopping things. I can’t imagine you proposing the thrust of HEA 1447, the so-called book ban law. During the Daniels administration, I heard stories of word coming from the Second Floor, “Make sure this bill never makes it to my desk.” Is that true?
A. He definitely made known, as have I, what his preferences were. And, by the way, it was a different time.
Q. There was not a supermajority during the Daniels era. He had tiny House majorities, and that was for just four years.
A. And they were coming off Republicans not having a majority, or the speaker of the House, so there was a much different makeup and coming off of a time, and I betcha if you need an analysis over how many new people who are there now who are more kind of free agents. It’s never easy to compare times to times, whether it’s the 1860s or the 1920s or today. They know where I am, too, the supermajorities leadership. And, by the way, that’s an expression of the people. I don’t fault them from being successful. I would say the superminority needs to figure out what they are doing wrong, if they want to be in the majority.
Gov. Eric Holcomb heading to Evansville on Friday via helicopter. (Credit: HPI Photo by Brian A. Howey)
Q. With the transgender legislation you signed, has the supermajority radicalized the governor by putting such legislation that some people view as extreme, and you knowing it’s going to be overridden if you veto? And if you did veto, there would be a political cost to you? Talk about that.
A. You have to take the issues one by one, no matter how hot the button is or what the issue is. The legislature knows where my focus is. I take your point about whether they were jamming the governor. But, I would also say, what’s occurred in Indiana after it? The governor will always have to make a decision over to sign, not sign or veto. There’s a cost to each. I typically look at constitutionality as kind of my threshold. But after, say, the last two, four, six years, a lot of the naysayers who tried to profit politically off it have become more relegated to a deeper superminority. We went from $8.7 billion in capital investment to $22 billion and our pipeline is full right now. Purdue has record enrollment. (Eli) Lilly is making the biggest single site investment to date. So when people say, “People aren’t going to move here; people aren’t going to want to go to school here,” tell that to Illinois. Why are so many people leaving? What’s the narrative in Illinois and California and New York? Because they are leaving (those states) in droves. Exodus. We’re gaining people, maybe not as fast as we want. If these issues were as important to issues forcing people in those three states, I have mentioned, to leave, we’d see the same result. But we’re seeing the opposite. Maybe not because of those issues, but because of the other things we’re doing. I don’t think there are that many one issue voters. If you’re pro-life, pro-gun and you say these things are going to hurt our state, have at it. Republicans have over 90% of local offices, supermajorities and every statewide elected office. The question would be, are you worried you’re not going to continue to pick up seats when we continue to pick up seats? And we’re playing offense in areas we don’t have right now.
Q. During the special session in July of 2022, were you messaging to the legislature on the exceptions of abortion, or the weeks threshold? If you were, what were you communicating?
A. I’ve not changed my stripes. I never wavered where I was. Republicans in control were very clear that they needed space. They didn’t know where it was going to end up, either, inside their caucus. They needed it to play out. My thing again was, in my brain, how do we not cross the Constitution in terms of life. While I do believe it is rightly left to the states, long term we’re going to continue — and I told them this — to be in this arena where the legislative process takes effect, and then the judicial process takes effect. And after the judicial process, then the executive branch comes in.
Q. You mentioned at the time that this was just the beginning of this sequence.
A. I’m not saying this is the route it’s going to take, but if you say or subscribe to our founding documents, or the Declaration (of Independence) that we’re all entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Then, to me, it comes down to a constitutional … how we define what life is, what liberty is and the pursuit of happiness is. Life being first, so what is or isn’t life? I think that gets decided ultimately in the current form, state by state. Until you would have a federal consensus which there seems to be little of in any area, especially in the most contentious, particularly with personal, deep-held beliefs. I get it that a person can have a 180-degree opinion than what I do. I sincerely believe that. We’re left with what is the process? And I look at it very black and white. What is the process? How does that play out in our state? Because while I do think it is an American issue, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness won’t be resolved at the congressional level because we can’t balance the budget.
Gov. Holcomb with State Reps. Tim O’Brien (left), Mayor Winnecke and State Rep. Wendy McNamara. (Credit: HPI Photo by Brian A. Howey)
Q. I’m assuming you took part in the recruitment of the Class of 2010, and I was reminded of this when I chatted with state Rep. Wendy McNamara earlier today. We’ve had an unprecedented string of supermajorities. Did you ever fathom that would ever happen? And how has that changed the governorship now that we’ve got six consecutive supermajorities?
A. There are lots of things that’s enabled this. Multiple governors have said they support an appointed superintendent of public instruction. It didn’t get done until my watch, not because of me, but because of the makeup. That has to do with not just supermajorities, but the makeup of the caucuses. Some people hung it up early and said, “I’m out. I’ve done my time, I served my state.” There’s a new chemistry, and new makeup — and they should take a bow, Wendy McNamara — that class could have come in and squandered doing things that weren’t smart. And it would have been harder for every class thereafter. But what it’s done is it’s made it easier for anyone who has a passion for certain policy positions to run, and then again, it’s people that are voting. It’s not that they elect themselves.
Q. I’ve asked both Speakers Brian Bosma and John Gregg what an ideal House majority would be and both told me 57, 58 seats.
A. Hmmmm.
Q. The supermajority creates its own weather, not unlike some of these Western wildfires.
A. Absolutely. Yes. I think that’s true, but it’s true in anything. It’s like the difference between the Dream Team and having one all-star on your team. You’re able to do a whole lot more. But also, there’s only one ball. You have Karl Malone, Scottie Pippen, Michael Jordan, Steve Nash … that requires other planning and execution. It definitely takes a different coach to acknowledge you’ve got 70 rather than 52, or 50-50.
Q. We’re in a completely different era. What can we expect from the last year and a half of your administration?
A. The General Assembly was very good with this last budget, last two budgets, by the way. A number of people have told me, “I’ve never seen a budget so good.” My team is probably tired of me saying this, but this last year and a half, it’s implementation, implementation, implementation. And we’ll go out looking for some more good ways of changing, ways of doing business, investments around the state of Indiana. It’s not like we just need to implement. We’re still looking for some things to do that will not be done on my watch, but setting the trajectory for a new direction.
Q. Like the energy dynamic we talked about on the way here (evolving from fossil fuels, to solar and wind renewables, to hydrogen, which the Holcomb administration has teamed up with Democratic Govs. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and J.B. Pritzker of Illinois to better position the potential outcome with the Biden administration).
A. To the Eli Lilly LEAP district in Boone County. When you think about READI … Regional Cities, READI and READI 3.0 and then think about Warsaw, or Fort Wayne, or think about South Bend and Elkhart in that region. They just got in this budget $30 million. Fort Wayne, same thing. Origin Park down in Jeffersonville, $37 million. Some of these districts are getting $15 million, $30 million, $50 million. And, like Indianapolis and their homeless (initiative) that’s another READI project the state is investing. You start to think about housing that’s inside READI and outside. Workforce Development programs that Warsaw is going to be able to use these dollars. You can go to Valparaiso and it doesn’t look the same as it did 10 years ago, Fishers doesn’t look the same, downtown Fort Wayne doesn’t look the same or Kokomo. Think about billions and billions and billions of dollars on top of READI, in capital investments. And it’s not over. We’re not done in Howard County. How we skill up, how Stellantis builds Workforce Development pathways from the third grade, straight through Ivy Tech and Purdue … how they build those pathways is the key. There will be a lot of projects between now and my last day that will be the first time we’ve ever been there; that haven’t even been announced yet. And (then there are) the ones that have been announced, but on a scale never seen before, like that broadband internet. Or the $180 million trails (investment). Now there’s a sense of vibrancy in these communities by connect Point A to Point B. Or as we heard today, they want a 50-mile riverfront redevelopment.
Q. You wrote your State Affairs op-ed in which you said you were going to finish out your term and not seek another job. You said you buried the lead.
A. I must have.
Q. When you were at the NWI Times event earlier this spring, you suggested you might be open to a third nonconsecutive term as governor. You obviously love being governor. Politically, what’s next for you? You’re only 55 years old.
A. That’s certainly not the calculus. I’m not waiting to see how somebody’s going to do, looking over their shoulder, throwing cheap shots at somebody. I’ll want them to have space to govern. That’s not to say I won’t be paying attention. My aim is not to be a political knife in the drawer. But, never say never. I really do like the job and you never know what will happen. Whatever I do next — and I’ve not decided — it won’t be based on “Maybe I’ll run for governor in four years or eight.” It won’t be. It will be based on how can I replace the impact I’m able to make in maybe a narrower lane. There will be areas that I’ll want to explore. So I don’t think I’ll know what I’m going to do next until much closer to my last days.
Gov. Holcomb with then Vice President Pence. (Credit: Twitter Photo)
Q. Let’s talk about Mike Pence. You came out and endorsed him for president. I talked to some Republican House members earlier today and they told me the presidential race hasn’t come up within the caucus. Do you think you can help sway some support in the state for him?
A. It was a no-brainer for me. I’m for the home team. I’ve known him the longest. What I’m really pleased about so far, and I’ve known this about Mike for years, is I saw him do an interview on “Meet The Press” and it verified what I had been thinking and had known. He went through … let’s balance the budget or have a plan to, secure the border from illegal immigration and let’s figure out how to get more legal immigration, and let’s address our standing around the world. You can do all sorts of things, but if you’re not doing these three things you’re not going to win or really move the needle for our country. That’s the kind of collaboration and partnership we need so that we are putting our best foot forward. Just in that one interview, he addressed all three of those buckets. People will want him to talk about pro-life or wedge issues and he’s been very clear about that. He is talking about substance. He is willing to be politely blunt about the differences between the next potential four years and the four years he was he was in the White House. I’ve worked closely with him; I’ve watched him closely for years; I think I know who he is as a person.
Q. Will you be reaching out to legislators on his behalf?
A. I will be as helpful as I can. I don’t want to create false expectations. So many people get all wrapped up in this endorsement thing. Ultimately what it comes down to is how does the candidate I favor wear? Around the country, not just Indiana. And, are they connecting with issues of the day?
Q. Donald Trump. He’s up big in the polls. It looks like he has a better than even shot at winning renomination. What’s your perspective on him? You’re a former Republican chairman and the titular head of the Indiana GOP. What are your thoughts on Donald Trump?
A. My thoughts are he’s in the same boat as everybody else. There are lot of twists and turns in any election, gubernatorial, presidential, mayoral. Issues of the day tend to crop up and define and course correct. There could be bumps or there could be … jolts! I suspect we’ll have a few of those we can’t see right now along the way. I think that the process for Republicans will tend to, by design, weed out the weak, promote the strong or stronger with American electorate, meaning how much money they raise, the debate threshold. We’ll be in a different place in September than we are today. For Donald Trump or Mike Pence or Asa (Hutchinson) or (Ron) DeSantis or (Will) Hurd, the process will tend to sort some of this out in the not too distant future. I think that’s advantage if the synergy is harnessed correctly for the competitors with any frontrunner.
Q. You mentioned that on “Meet The Press,” Mike Pence was focused on three key issues, yet Donald Trump’s focus is on the “rigged” 2020 election. Does that cause you concern?
A. It does in the sense that if the election were tomorrow, I’d be more concerned. But it’s not. The field will winnow down. As it narrows down candidate positions will be contrasted easier. I think Mike Pence has a huge upshot in describing and sharing who he is beyond his face. Mike has an opportunity to describe who he is separate from who he was with before. I think people will appreciate his global knowledge, global affairs … because of his career and he’s been vocal about issues like immigration, the budget and taking our medicine now because it’s going to taste worse later. There’s these areas to contrast and say those who say they are going to do something with no substance behind it, you might be getting scammed. To Mike’s credit, he’s politely blunt because he’s thought these things through. What you want to pay attention to now is what the trajectory looks like. When it gets to September or October this year, that’s when we’ll see that contrast play out.
INDIANAPOLIS — In an isolated Miami federal courtroom, sans video or audio, former President Donald J. Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 criminal charges of violating the Espionage Act and obstructing justice on Tuesday.
While the docket was sedate, the former president did not have a mug shot taken or a perp walk performed, and his supporters did not riot outside the Miami courthouse, it sent America careening into its next unknown political chapter. On the day Trump was arrested, he led the Real Clear Politics polling composite by 30.7% over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Mike Pence, both of whom have been critical of the charges leveled at their former patron.
Trump was not arrested and criminally charged for possessing top-secret documents detailing U.S. war plans, its nuclear capabilities and those of its allies. Had he done what President Joe Biden and former Vice President Pence did earlier this year — give such documents back to the National Archives — Trump would have been left to fend off 17 dubious charges related to a payoff of porn actress Stormy Daniels in the state of New York while running for the GOP nomination.
But Trump didn’t do that. He obfuscated, plotted, obstructed, diverted and exposed his own legal team, leading to the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago last August. In photos released by special counsel Jack Smith last Friday, cartons and boxes containing top secret documents were seen stacked under a crystal chandelier and next to a toilet, as well as on stage at the resort that has hosted thousands of Trump patrons and, most certainly, foreign spies.
Or as conservative jurist J. Michael Luttig explained in a Twitter thread, “[Trump] has dared, taunted, provoked, and goaded DOJ to prosecute him from the moment it was learned that he had taken these national security documents. On any given day for the past 18 months — doubtless up to and including the day before the indictment was returned — the former president could have avoided and prevented this prosecution. He would never have been indicted for taking these documents. But for whatever reason, he decided that he would rather be indicted and prosecuted. After a year and a half, he finally succeeded in forcing Jack Smith’s appropriately reluctant hand, having left the Department no choice but to bring these charges lest the former president make a mockery of the Constitution and the Rule of Law.”
A photo contained in the indictment released on June 9, 2023, from the U.S. Southern District of Florida, shows boxes stored in a bathroom of potentially sensitive documents that were found at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla. (Credit: DOJ via US Southern District of Florida)
The specific language in 18 US Code 793 (e), which is cited in the indictment against Trump, reads: “Whoever having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, or note relating to the national defense, or information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted, or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it ….”
“I just say, ‘not guilty.’ I didn’t do anything wrong,” Trump told Howie Carr on his radio show on Monday. “I did nothing wrong. Presidential Records Act. It’s not even a criminal event. There’s no criminality here. It’s ridiculous.”
But in a brief statement on Friday, Jack Smith explained, “Adherence to the rule of law is a bedrock principle of the Department of Justice. Our nation’s commitment to the rule of law sets an example for the world. We have one set of laws in this country and they apply to everyone.”
Smith was present in the Miami courtroom on Tueday, with witnesses saying he had a “steely” look on his face as he stared Trump down.
Retired Gen. Mark Hertling tweeted, “The documents were likely extremely detailed intelligence assessments, w/ potential foe (& friendly) capabilities & weaknesses & U.S. capabilities we would not want anyone – especially foes – to know. Many have said, this isn’t a document issue it’s a national security issue. There’s a reason I reacted viscerally to the ‘my papers’ statement. To claim they are ‘his’- as if they’ve been given to him for personal use or vanity just like the WWE belt, the NY Post clippings, or any other trinket or memento found in these boxes – is horrid. Yes, military & intel officials are pissed. They know the power of these documents that were treated cavalierly. All Americans should be equally pissed.”
Legendary lawyer Alan M. Dershowitz, writing in The Wall Street Journal, observed, “What should have begun as a routine civil investigation under the Presidential Records Act has ended up with a multi-count criminal indictment, the first federal prosecution ever of a former president or a leading candidate for the presidency. This is partially because prosecutors targeted Mr. Trump and partially because of the unwise way he responded.
Photo of Alan Dershowitz in 2009. (Credit: Sage Ross/Flickr)
“Mr. Smith had a lot of help from Mr. Trump,” said Dershowitz. “Had the former president cooperated with investigators and immediately returned all the classified material in his possession, as Messrs. Biden and Pence did, charges would have been unlikely. But Mr. Trump did what he always does. He attacked Mr. Smith and resisted his efforts. That provoked investigators to double down, which in turn led Mr. Trump to engage in the allegedly obstructive conduct that forms the basis for several counts in the indictment.”
Journalist David A. Graham, writing in The Atlantic, added, “The indictment against Trump … lays out the federal case against the former president in vivid, shocking, and sometimes even wry detail. In particular, Smith alleges a few key points. First, that Trump handled the classified material exceptionally sloppily and haphazardly, including stashing documents in a shower, a bedroom, and — as depicted in a striking photo — onstage in a ballroom that frequently held events. Second, that Trump was personally involved in discussions about the documents, and in directing their repeated relocation. Third, that Trump was well aware of both the laws around classified documents and the fact that these particular documents were not declassified. Fourth, that Trump was personally involved in schemes to hide the documents not only from the federal government but even from his own attorneys. The indictment carefully lays out its case with pictures, texts, and surveillance footage.”
As with many of his political crises since 2015, Trump’s current legal woes are self-inflicted, and poorly handled by his shoddy political and business organizations.
Trump’s supporters have at times alluded to potential violence — including Kari Lake, a Republican from Arizona who told Georgia Republicans on Saturday at their state convention, “If you want to get to President Trump, you’re going to have to go through me, and you’re going to have to go through 75 million Americans just like me. We’re at war, people — we’re at war.”
And while U.S. Rep. Jim Banks, a leading GOP candidate for Indiana’s open U.S. Senate seat, tweeted, “Democrats are throwing away 247 years of American democracy over a records case … Horrifying,” there seemed to be series of fissures appearing in Trump’s once impermeable Republican wall, even as the Indiana congressional delegation remained mostly mute.
“If even half of it is true, he’s toast,” William P. Barr, who served as attorney general in the Trump administration, said on “Fox News Sunday” earlier this week. “It is a very detailed indictment and it’s very, very damning. This idea of presenting Trump as a victim here or a victim of a witch hunt is ridiculous. Yes, he’s been a victim in the past. His adversaries have obsessively pursued him with phony claims. And I’ve been at his side defending against them when he is a victim. But this is much different. He’s not a victim here. He was totally wrong that he had the right to have those documents. Those documents are among the most sensitive secrets that the country has. They have to be in the custody of the archivist. He had no right to maintain them and retain them.”
Former district attorney and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie added, “What makes it so ridiculous that we’re here and we’re in a situation where there are people in my own party who are blaming DOJ. How about blame him? He did it. He took documents he wasn’t supposed to take. He kept them when he was asked [for] them back. They got a grand jury subpoena. He refused to comply. They raided his home finally because he refused to comply.”
Republican presidential candidates U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley went further. Scott called it a “serious case with serious allegations,” while Haley said on Fox News, “If this indictment is true, if what it says is actually the case, President Trump was incredibly reckless with our national security.” Haley, whose military husband is deploying this month, expressed anxiety that Trump may have exposed his mission.
Pence speaking with attendees at the 2020 Student Action Summit hosted by Turning Point USA at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida. (Credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
Pence, who canceled an appearance on Fox News’s “Hannity” show after word of the indictments escaped, demanded at the Georgia Republican Convention over the weekend that Attorney General Merrick Garland explain to the American people “why this indictment went forward,” calling it “an unprecedented indictment by a justice department run by the current president” in an effort to highlight what he sees as unequal treatment by the justice system.
Pence told Hugh Hewitt on his radio show, “I’m deeply troubled to see this indictment move forward. Yesterday on the road in Iowa, I had said I had hoped that the DOJ would see its way clearer not to move forward here.” But then Pence added this caveat: “Let me be very clear: No one is above the law.”
On Tuesday, Pence seemed to be hedging, telling The Wall Street Journal editorial board, “Having read the indictment, these are very serious allegations. And I can’t defend what is alleged. But the President is entitled to his day in court, he’s entitled to bring a defense, and I want to reserve judgment until he has the opportunity to respond. I think millions of Americans are deeply troubled by this indictment, particularly given the fact that Hillary Clinton engaged in very similar behavior in the 2016 campaign and did not face indictment. And we’ve got to have equal treatment under the law in this country. My bottom line is this: I think the American people have lost confidence in the Department of Justice, not just because of this, but because of, really, a long series of abuses that have come to light.”
DeSantis said over the weekend, “There needs to be one standard of justice in this country. Let’s enforce it on everybody. You can’t have one faction of society weaponizing the power of the state against factions that it doesn’t like.”
“I’m angry,” said U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee. “The country is going to go through tumult as a result of one thing. President Trump didn’t turn over military documents when he was asked to do so. Why is the country going to have to go through all this angst and tumult?”
While Trump allies called the legal charges tantamount to giving the former president a third GOP presidential nomination, the harsh reality is that this has been a brutal Spring for the billionaire. Trump’s business organization was convicted of 17 felonies. He was found guilty of sexual abuse in a Manhattan civil trial and ordered to pay $5 million to author E. Jean Carroll. He now faces 34 New York felony counts in addition to the 37 felony counts filed in Miami on Tuesday. There is rampant speculation that he will face more charges stemming from an Atlanta grand jury in August, as well as Jack Smith’s ongoing probe into the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection.
Former President Donald Trump speaks at the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting on April 14, 2023, at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis. (Credit: C-SPAN)
If nominated, Trump will likely be challenging an 82-year-old President Biden in November 2024. Should he win, it sets up the specter of a candidate running (or ruling) from a federal penitentiary. Trump has suggested that should he win, he would pardon himself.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board pointed to uncharted waters ahead. “Whether you love or hate Donald Trump, his indictment by President Biden’s Justice Department is a fraught moment for American democracy. For the first time in U.S. history, the prosecutorial power of the federal government has been used against a former President who is also running against the sitting President. This is far graver than the previous indictment by a rogue New York prosecutor, and it will roil the 2024 election and U.S. politics for years to come.
“The greatest irony of the age of Trump,” the WSJ editorial continued, “is that for all his violating of democratic norms, his frenzied opponents have done and are doing their own considerable damage to democracy.”
On Wednesday, the WSJ board added, “If Mr. Trump is the GOP nominee, he is unlikely to defeat Joe Biden. But if he did win, the document fiasco is what a second term would be like. He wouldn’t be able to deliver the conservative policy victories that Republicans want because he can’t control himself. He’d be preoccupied with grievance and what he calls ‘retribution.’ The best people won’t work for him because they see how he mistreated so many loyalists in the first term. If Republicans nominate Mr. Trump again, they won’t ‘own the libs,’ as the faddish saying goes. The libs will own them.”
Ipsos Poll chart. (Credit: ABC/Ipsos)
A CBS News poll released Sunday found that only 7% of GOP primary voters say the indictment makes them think less of Trump. He now leads Ron DeSantis by an impressive 61% to 23% margin. But the gap is widening between the GOP and the rest of the country. An ABC News/Ipsos poll found that 61% of Americans think the charges against Trump are “serious,” including 38% of Republicans, a number up significantly from 21% in April. The ABC/Ipsos poll also reveals a major General Election problem for Republicans: 63% of independents believe the 37 federal charges are serious.
Header Image: President Donald J. Trump attends a United Nations event on Religious Freedom Monday, Sept. 23, 2019, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead).
INDIANAPOLIS — On his 64th birthday on Wednesday, Mike Pence pledged to thread a historically narrow needle, finally announcing the pursuit of his life’s goal, the American presidency. In a campaign video, he conjured the leadership of Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan, never mentioning his former boss, President Donald Trump, who now leads the 2024 field by a 30% margin.
In Iowa, Pence directly confronted Trump and the Jan. 6 insurrection. “Jan. 6 was a tragic day in the life of our nation,” Pence said. “President Trump’s reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol. But the American people deserve to know on that fateful day, President Trump also demanded I choose between him and our Constitution. Now voters will be faced with the same choice. I chose the Constitution and I always will.
“President Trump was wrong then and he is wrong today. I kept my oath to the Constitution of the United States,” Pence continued. “I had hoped he would come around to my role that day. That was not to be. The Republican party must be the party of the constitution of the United States. I believe anyone who puts themselves over the constitution should never be president of the United States.”
On Ukraine, Pence reminded voters that Trump called Russian President Putin a “genius” after the invasion began in February 2022. Pence said, “I know the difference between a genius and a war criminal.” He called the Ukraine war “America’s fight.”
“I believe America relies on a heavy dose of civility,” Pence said. “Our politics are divided as ever before. I’m not convinced America is divided.”
In his campaign video, Pence said, “Today our party and our country need a leader that will appeal, as Lincoln said, to the better angels of our nature,” Pence said in a video announcement titled “Best Days.” “My family and I have been blessed beyond measure with opportunities to serve this nation, and it would be easy to stay on the sidelines. But that’s not how I was raised. That’s why today, before God and my family, I am announcing I am running for president of the United States.”
If there was a reference to Trump, it was the legacy of tax cuts and Pence shepherding the president to choose three pro-life U.S. Supreme Court justices, including Justice Amy Coney Barrett of Indiana that paved the way for the repeal of Roe a year ago. “I’ll always be proud of the progress we made together, for a stronger, more prosperous America,” Pence said.
Instead of focusing on Trump, he trained his sights on the Democratic incumbent, saying, “Our country’s in a lot of trouble,” accusing “President Joe Biden and the radical left” of weakening America “at home and abroad.”
Donald Trump and then Governor Mike Pence of Indiana speaking to supporters at an immigration policy speech at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona in September 2016. (Credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
He cited “runaway inflation,” the “under siege” southern border and unchecked “enemies of freedom” in Russia and China “on the march” with Vladimir Putin and China’s President Xi Jinping.
“We’re better than this,” Pence says. “We can turn this country around. But different times call for different leadership.”
Pence will run on his advocacy of a national abortion ban, backing Ukraine in its war with Russia, increasing military spending, going back to his free trade roots, and stoking a series of social issues involving transgender students and reining in drag shows before children.
Pence kicked off his campaign in Des Moines instead of his home state of Indiana, hoping to galvanize his support among influential evangelical voters there that could lead to a breakthrough. In 2020, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg won the Democratic Iowa caucuses by concentrating on small towns and rural voters.
At this early stage, Pence does not appear to be gathering support among fellow Hoosiers. There were no endorsements from the state’s congressional delegation. House Speaker Todd Huston has signed on to help Pence gain support among the Republican General Assembly supermajorities.
But winning Iowa is a wild card for presidential prospects. While Democrats Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton all won the Iowa caucus, on the GOP side, past winners include George H.W. Bush in 1980 (Ronald Reagan was nominated), U.S. Sen. Bob Dole in 1988 (Bush41 was nominated), Mike Huckabee in 2008, Rick Santorum in 2012 and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in 2016. None of them won the nomination in those years.
“It’s going to be a historic moment when you have a former vice president challenge a former president,” said Scott Reed, co-chair of Committed to America, a super PAC supporting Pence’s candidacy. “It just shows you how high the stakes of this election are. Now, Pence has addressed Jan. 6 head-on, but he’s going to continue to talk about ways in which he differs with the former president on policies — policies that they pursued together while they were in office. He’s not going to try to out-Trump Trump; he’s going to stand out as a leader of character.”
A former vice president challenging a former boss is rare. In 1800, Vice President Thomas Jefferson defeated President John Adams. In 1940, former Vice President John Nance Garner lost to President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the Democratic National Convention.
Pence’s entry follows that of Trump, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, South Carolina U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.
Chris Christie speaking in Des Moines, Iowa in October 2015. (Credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
Christie declared his candidacy on Tuesday and aimed his ire squarely at Trump and his family. “Beware of the leader who won’t admit any of those shortcomings. Because you know what the problem is with a leader like that — a leader like that thinks America’s greatness resides in the mirror he’s looking at,” said Christie. “Beware, because that leader not only will not serve you, they will not be able to find anybody who will serve them. And a lonely, self-consumed, self-serving mirror hog is not a leader. Donald Trump made us smaller by dividing us even further and pitting one group against another, different groups pitted against different groups every day.”
Threading the needle
The Pence brain trust is counting on several elements to thread his needle. He needs Trump to face additional indictments in the Mar-a-Lago top secret document case (with grand juries currently meeting in D.C. and Florida), the Jan. 6 insurrection case, and the Georgia “find me 11,800 votes” case. Legal and media speculation that Trump could face imminent obstruction and espionage indictments from special DOJ prosecutor Jack Smith is the kind of game-changing scenario Pence will need to widen his narrow lane and rise in the polls. Trump indictments and convictions are an absolute historical wild card with no major party nominee ever facing such a situation.
Pence believes that DeSantis will fade, barring a last-minute personality transplant.
It will be a tough and unprecedented tight-rope walk. The Wall Street Journal editorial board saw it this way on Wednesday: “In an alternative universe, Mike Pence might be leading the Republican race for president in 2024. His résumé includes 12 years in the House, four as governor of Indiana, and then four as vice president, giving wise counsel and needed ballast to a volatile outsider in the Oval Office. Yet Mr. Pence stood on principle when it mattered on Jan. 6, 2021, no doubt knowing it would hurt his political future. For this demonstration of character, President Trump has branded him a sellout, and many Republicans haven’t forgiven him. When Mr. Pence announces a 2024 campaign Wednesday near Des Moines, he hopes Iowans will be open to a reintroduction. Meet Mike Pence, a tested conservative, heir to the Trump economy and the Reagan foreign policy, an evangelical Christian who cites the Word without seeming like a faker, and the only candidate at last weekend’s ‘Roast and Ride who actually rode a motorcycle.
“Will this strategy work for the former Veep?” the editorial asks. “Who knows? But stranger things have happened in politics, very much including Mr. Trump’s unexpected rise.”
“People have seen Mike Pence the vice president. I think what people are going to see is Mike Pence the person,” said Indiana House Speaker Todd Huston, a longtime Pence friend who has signed on to help with outreach to state legislators (AP). “I’m super excited for people to get to know the Mike Pence that I know, who’s funny, who’s just a wonderful person … the more relaxed Mike Pence.”
Official headshot of Greg Pence, brother of Mike Pence. (Credit: U.S. government)
Currently, there has been little Hoosier support for Pence beyond Huston and U.S. Rep. Greg Pence. U.S. Rep. Jim Banks, the probable U.S. Senate nominee, told HPI in April, “There are other great Republicans in the field who have a chance to make their case and campaign for the Republican nomination and I think there’s a reason Donald Trump is substantially leading just about any poll you can find because the Republican Party is looking for a fighter in the White House who is going to fight back against the woke left. I’m enjoying the support I have in the Senate race, too. That’s what Republican voters are looking for.”
Asked if there are other indictments of Donald Trump in Georgia, or the Mar-a-Lago document case, would he reevaluate his support, Banks responded, “Only in that those political witch-hunts aimed at the former president strengthen him, perhaps that would embolden my support even more.”
Pence and Christie’s good cop, bad cop
Pence, like Christie, is inextricably tied to Trump, yet neither man is well positioned to capitalize on those ties — even as they approach things from radically opposite angles, with Christie taking Trump head-on and Pence intent on avoiding conflict in hopes of wooing Trump’s former supporters (Axios). “They’re both kind of in a sour spot with voters,” said The Bulwark’s Sarah Longwell said. “We all give [Pence] credit for certifying the election, but he also stood next to Donald Trump and normalized and validated him for four years while Trump ran roughshod over the presidency.”
Tom LoBianco, who wrote “Piety & Power” on the Pence career, sees the race in a state of flux. “This is a field that is not going to be blindsided by Donald Trump. They know what they’re dealing with now,” LoBianco said on MSNBC on Wednesday. “Will that work? We have so many X-factors out there right now” with grand juries surfacing and top aides like Mark Meadows now testifying.
New York Times conservative columnist David French observed earlier this week, “Nothing signals GOP loyalty to Trump more than GOP anger at Mike Pence. And what sin has he committed in Republican eyes? After years of faithful service to Trump, he refused to violate the law and risk the unity of the Republic by wrongly overturning an American election. We can’t take Pence seriously until Republicans stop taking Trump seriously. Pence’s stand on Jan. 6 is defining him. In a healthy party, his integrity at that moment would be an asset. In the modern GOP, it’s a crippling liability.”
The Real Clear Politics polling composite on Wednesday had Trump leading with 53.2%, followed by DeSantis at 22.4%, Haley at 4.4% and Pence at 3.8%. A May CNN poll found 45% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said they would not support Pence under any circumstance. Only 16% said the same about Trump. According to The Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll in June 2021, 86% of Iowa Republicans said they had a favorable view of Pence. But the Register’s March Iowa Poll showed that figure had dropped to 66%.
Epilogue
For Mike Pence, his 64th year around the sun will be in pursuit of a life-long dream. After losing his first two Indiana congressional races, and facing a dire gubernatorial reelection bid in 2016, Donald Trump threw him a career lifeline. Those two are now on a collision course. Mike Pence’s long-awaited presidential bid starts on the narrowest of narrow lanes, but he has been ruled out and discounted before.
Header Image: Vice President of the United States Mike Pence addresses officers and agents as he visits U.S. Customs and Border Protection operations at Dundalk Marine Terminal within the Port of Baltimore in Baltimore, Md., February 8, 2019. (Credit: U.S. Customs and Border Protection Photo by Glenn Fawcett)
INDIANAPOLIS — Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, Hoosier voters have selected true partisans as their governors. These have been White men who worked their way through the Republican and Democrat establishments, serving as party chairs, at the White House, legislators or as members of Congress.
Jennifer McCormick is seeking a distinctly different path. The former Republican state school superintendent who declared for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination earlier this month is, in reality, not only a rare female contender, but a true swing voter. Or as 5th CD Republican Chair Judy Buck observed of McCormick’s primary voting history, “She has voted in primaries as a Democrat more than as a Republican. Needless to say, she has not truly switched parties … only returning to her roots.”
Republicans, like then GOP Chairman Jeff Cardwell, acquiesced around McCormick, then a school superintendent at Yorktown. By the time she arrived for the 2016 Republican convention, she won an easy first-round victory against Dawn Wooten. She was viewed in that prism as an establishment Republican, gaining financial support from Betsy Wiley of Institute for Quality Education, Christel DeHaan, Robert Enlow of EdChoice and the Indiana Chamber CEO Kevin Brinegar. “She is her own person,” Wiley told Chalkbeat, and not “Tony Bennett 2.0. A lot of the big reforms are done.”
McCormick’s voting record chart.
In a Howey Politics Indiana interview on Tuesday, McCormick readily acknowledged what she called “my checkered past” when it comes to her voting record. “When I got into office, I ran as a Republican,” she said at Starbucks on North Keystone Ave. “There was much conversation about my checkered past. When I got in I just quickly learned about the values they were using or at least talking about [what] they were using for policy just did not align with the values I just took with me to office.”
Before we sat down for this interview, Democratic State Rep. Carey Hamilton entered the coffee shop and greeted McCormick before meeting with a constituent. “She’s the real deal,” Hamilton said of McCormick.
After wandering the political desert since Glenda Ritz and Joe Donnelly were the last two Democrats to win statewide in 2012, Hoosier Democrats seem open to rallying around a former Republican for governor. In 2019, McCormick participated in a series of town halls with state Sen. Eddie Melton, now the likely next Democratic mayor of Gary. Another Gary Democrat, state Rep. Vernon Smith, has endorsed McCormick.
Two years after she was elected, Superintendent McCormick announced she would not seek a second term, citing “politics” interfering with public education. McCormick told HPI that she had been summoned by a group of Republican state senators to a meeting with a national group in 2018. “They asked me if I had a classroom library,” McCormick said of her days as a teacher. “Their reason I had a classroom library is that was where I hid my porn.”
McCormick is now the lone Democrat seeking the gubernatorial nomination. Reminded that the late IUPUI pollster Brian Vargas said 20 years ago that Indiana wasn’t ready to elect a female governor, McCormick responded, “It’s time. When the people say there’s no way a female, there’s no way for a Democrat … I’ve heard it all, but I tell them, ‘I respect your opinion but you’ve got to get out of my way.'”
And in an approaching political cycle where post-Roe abortion restrictions and an epidemic of school and societal massacres will shape the issues landscape, McCormick cites the “mom factor” in her candidacy.
“The mom factor is huge,” McCormick said. “We’ve not had a mom in the office, we haven’t had a female in the office.”
Here is our HPI Interview with Jennifer McCormick:
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jennifer McCormick at an interview with Brian Howey at a Starbucks on North Keystone in Indianapolis. (Credit: HPI Photo by Brian Howey)
HPI: Are you expecting any other Democrats to run? Are you hearing of any other names?
McCormick: No, I have not. We got out. We had a great launch. We’ve had a lot of great energy, but I’m not hearing any other names for having a primary in my race. I’m not aware of any.
HPI: Are you surprised you’re the only Democrat running at this point?
McCormick: Like many, I’d heard some names out there but I’m just staying focused on what I need to do and I’m going 100 mph at it. It’s great to have a lot of great candidates out there so people can have options. That’s democracy, right? That’s always a positive thing. But now I’m focused on who’s going to be out there for the Senate race and who’s going to be out there for the attorney general’s race. I’m just looking at the lay of the land and what the top of the ticket will look like.
HPI: I’m interested in your journey in politics. You began running for state superintendent in 2015 seeking the Republican nomination.
McCormick: My voting record … is very checkered. I didn’t grow up in a hugely political family. We talked about people doing it for the right reason. We just got behind good people who gets work done and you can stand behind their values. That’s what I did as a voter. When I got into office, I ran as a Republican. There was much conversation about my checkered past. When I got in I just quickly learned about the values they were using or at least talking about [what] they were using for policy just did not align with the values I just took with me to office. I think they (Republicans) have just become more extreme. They seem out of touch, outdated. With supermajorities, they don’t have to compromise, they don’t have to listen. There’s no reason for them to do any of that. That doesn’t make it right, but under supermajorities that’s where we are.
HPI: We’re in an unprecedented era. Since the two-party system came into being in 1856, I cannot find another era where there have been five consecutive supermajority General Assemblies. Now Gov. Holcomb has signed a book ban bill and one of the most far-reaching abortion restrictions in the nation. From your perspective, what are we seeing?
McCormick: A lot of that is coming from a national lens. ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) is a big one. They are a big player in this. Many of them are getting in an alignment to what their marching orders are. There’s a lot of money and power flowing right now. Those national agendas are huge right now. We’re seeing the negative results. So many people, even Republicans, have said, “What I see at the Statehouse doesn’t reflect on local Republicans and what they want.” They want public schools to be strong, they want good infrastructure, and they want us to stop talking about litter boxes and porn in the libraries and get back to getting good teachers. Let’s have good health care, let’s take care of our neighbors. I’m hearing that everywhere across the state.
HPI: Let’s talk about vouchers. When you ran and won in 2016 you had the backing of Betsy Wiley and Christal DeHaan, and now we’ve seen a big expansion in vouchers with legislation that Holcomb signed earlier this month.
McCormick: I would say it is expanding at a pace that is very concerning. When I went into office, the school choice agenda was already underway. It’s not going to go away because you’re not going to change minds, you have to change people. That will take decades. That movement has started, it’s already moving and it’s just pretty difficult to stop that train once it’s on the tracks. When I got in early on there was more of an appetite to putting some quality parameters on it as far as who gets approved, the accountability, the transparency of it, the admissions of kids, the enrollment. There was more of that kind of conversation. We’re going to have choice, but we’re concerned about the quality of choice. Now it’s like a free-for-all. It’s choice for the sake of choice under the umbrella of parental rights. I think the underlying piece of what’s happening is the defunding of public schools. The way to do that is to privatize and push that movement.
HPI: If that movement was to continue unabated over the next eight to 10 years, what happens? Some Democrats say there’s an overt move to defund public education. Are we that close to the brink?
McCormick: Yeah. How long it will take I don’t think anybody knows. I will tell you that to sustain what public schools are doing, particularly the small rural schools and the big urban machines at the rate in which choice is happening is very, very problematic. My county, Henry County, is pretty rural. You’ve got New Castle but then you have a number of rural schools and within that we’re losing over a million dollars a year and this has been going on since 2010 to choice, and very few kids are using that option. It’s just an incredible amount of fiscal loss.
HPI: How many students are there in Henry County and how many are using vouchers?
McCormick: I don’t know the exact number of how many students are in Henry County schools, but the number who take (vouchers) is less than 20 in the county, but we’re still losing $1 million a year.
HPI: Less than 20 students are using vouchers?
McCormick: Yes.
HPI:The Washington Post reported that after Holcomb signed HEA 1447, Indiana librarians could face jail time and $10,000 fines for have ‘obscene’ books. What are we seeing on that front and will that be an issue for your campaign?
McCormick: Nothing happens overnight. I remember when I got into office in my second year I was asked by a group of senators if I would meet with a group. I did and I got lectured by this group as I was a teacher for 10 years, I taught sixth-grade language arts and was a special education teacher and they asked me why I had a classroom library. I said, “Yes, I have a classroom library. There are times when you don’t want to send a kid to the library library because you’re trying to get things accomplished.” There’s a lot of reasons why you have a classroom library. Their reason I had a classroom library is that was where I hid my porn. That was early on and that was the first sign of this rhetoric that teachers are hiding porn. It just snowballed and snowballed. None of that is happening by accident. It’s a national movement, it’s coming from national groups and Republicans across the nation, a lot of them but not all, have jumped on to that movement, whether it is litter boxes or the furries, or critical race theory. It’s all a distraction and it’s distraction because they know that the distractions go up and the resources go down. That’s a perfect recipe for school closures. The name of the game is defunding public schools.
HPI: And then what happens?
McCormick: That’s a great question for our community members. So as I go across Indiana and I do a lot of listening, nine times out of 10 they see their local schools as the centerpiece, the front porch of their communities. It’s the community center. It’s the community pride and they really are not well-informed. I’m not being critical. It’s so nonsensical and it’s so against what our communities stand for that they wouldn’t think that’s what the end goal is. That’s why that governor’s position is so important because you can inform people differently and get out and use that platform …
HPI: The bully pulpit.
Jennifer McCormick (Credit: HPI)
McCormick: It is the bully pulpit and using it for the good to save our public schools is pretty important.
HPI: I’ve written extensively about how Indiana has become a one-party state, that 90% of county commissioners are Republican, that nine out of 11 congressional seats are Republican, the General Assembly supermajorities, that they hold all the Statehouse Constitutional offices. And now we are watching what some call an extreme agenda ending up into law. Are Republicans concerned about these laws?
McCormick: It’s been interesting. The Democrats are all fired up and energized and they feel like yes, let’s go. So they’re ready. The independents are really paying attention. The Libertarians are really paying attention. For Republicans, I’m very open. I say, “If you want to hear what I have to say, if you want to help with the campaign, if you want to donate, I don’t care what party you’re affiliated with, if you’re aligned with our values and want to help, let’s go.” Republicans I have had conversations with are all trying to find a home. They don’t recognize what’s going on, they don’t appreciate it. Some of them still want to be labeled as a Republican because of the tradition in their family, but they don’t like the actions that are happening. They are very concerned. They didn’t like what happened with Trump, they don’t like what’s happening in our Statehouse and so they are just trying to find their way. For those folks, I’m a real good option because they see me as common sense, bipartisan, calm, not extreme, not throwing things out and seeing if they stick. There are some real issues we need to solve and that’s why I am doing this.
HPI: We’ve become a weaponized society and we’ve had 220 massacres already this year as of this interview. How are you going to approach the issue of school shootings and arming teachers?
McCormick: The gun violence we are seeing now is real. People will link it to all different kinds of things. It’s here, it’s real and it’s getting worse. My son is 25 years old and I still tell him, “When you go out, be aware of your surroundings.” No one should have to do that. My parents never had to tell me “Be aware of your surroundings.” It’s very scary, it’s sad, it’s frightening, it’s frustrating. The whole gun violence piece, you shouldn’t have to be scared about where you shop. You shouldn’t have to live like that, not just here in Indiana, but anywhere in the world. Making sure we’re working with our experts, making sure we’re taking steps in the right direction, we have a red flag law, so let’s make it stricter. We need safe (weapon) storage. There are a lot of sensible laws that even gun owners can get behind. You have to have the willingness to move and if the governor’s not speaking up, the supermajorities are not speaking up; the statewides and the congressionals are all supporting the NRA coming to town; someone has to speak up and say, “Here’s the problem, we’ve got to take some steps toward some solutions.” To act like it’s not happening or being afraid to offend an organization is ridiculous.
HPI: What do you think about arming teachers?
McCormick: I rarely run into a teacher who supports that, or an administrator. Or a school board. There are a lot of insurance problems. More than that, I had 30 kids in my classroom and I didn’t have time to worry about where’s my weapon. I’m trying to teach a lesson plan, not being a part of a SWAT team. There are people who could probably be trained, but they need extensive training. I have law enforcement that say that’s a really, really bad idea. Do you know how many hours of training we’d have to have? And they don’t have 30 to 60 kids looking at them. In my opinion it’s a bad idea. Why aren’t we paying for and providing the resources for those who are trained, more SROs, police officers to do that job. It’s sad we’re in that situation but that’s where we are.
HPI: Rep. (Carey) Hamilton is in there talking to a constituent about rising property taxes. One of the things I’m going to be working on over the next six months is connecting the rise in property taxes to school referendums that are funding the hardening of schools in the wake of all these atrocities. Washington Township has just passed two referendums, Clearwater Elementary School was just built and I’m sure it’s hardened, and our property taxes have risen. Does anybody know how much taxpayers are paying to harden schools?
McCormick: I want you to start thinking about this. We put our tax money in, right? And those dollars that you’re putting into your school are flowing out of your school into schools that aren’t even necessarily in your area. They are not even under the same safety requirements that the rest of us are under. So for a public school, your money is being sent in for some of our most at-risk students, more at-risk environments per se, and the money is flowing out not for that purpose. And then they ask the community, “Hey, you need to run a referendum and raise your taxes.” It’s outside the tax caps but you’re still raising your taxes. Because the money you just paid into that is going outside of your area. You’ve already spent that money to secure your buildings. Now you have to do it again because that money went elsewhere. A lot of that money is heading out of Indiana. It’s not just going to other schools, it’s flowing out of Indiana.
Jennifer McCormick speaking at the Indiana American Federation of Teachers convention on May 6, 2023. (Credit: Jennifer McCormick/Twitter)
HPI: Where do you stand on the abortion issue here in this post-Dobbs, post-Roe environment?
McCormick: So we’re waiting to see what comes out of the courts. It’s sad. I’m frustrated. We turned back time, so that’s a scary thing for a lot of people. I’m hearing from women, from young girls, I’m hearing from men who are dads and neighbors and grandfathers and husbands who are saying, “This is ridiculous.” I’m not hearing from a whole lot of people who are supportive of Indiana having one of the first bans out of the gate. They are not supportive of a ban at all. I do support the standards that were set by Roe. I support a woman’s right to choose. Those are our freedoms, our liberties, and a lot of factors play into that. It should be my body along with whoever I feel like whether it’s someone of faith, a medical professional, someone in my family. A woman should be responsible enough but also have the rights, the liberties and the freedoms to say, “This is who I’m going to make my decision with for a lot of different reasons.” Who are we as government officials to know better? I don’t support that. I know the lieutenant governor was proud about casting that last vote and I’m like, shame on her. Shame on her. She just turned back 50 years of women’s rights and freedoms. We’re not fooling anybody. Everybody’s aware of it. Very few people are in favor of it.
HPI: Because this has become such a Republican state and if you’re nominated by the Democratic Party, would you consider a Republican running mate on a unity ticket?
McCormick: I’m not ruling anything out at this point. There’s a lot of time, still, to consider. I’m starting to formulate a list of people I think would be really great to add to a ticket. But I’m more concerned about the person. I’m concerned about what they can bring to the State of Indiana, I’m more concerned about making sure I’m doing it for the right reasons, that they understand the difference between a politician and a public servant. I think we’ve lost that in Indiana.
HPI: How do you win?
McCormick: Yeah! What’s my path to victory? The first thing I hear people say is, “What are you thinking? No Democrat has a chance in Indiana.” And I say, “I respect everyone’s opinions, but can you keep it to yourself and just get out of my way because I tell people that if I’m in this race, I’m in it to win. I’m going to be real smart about the path to victory. I know where I need to shave off votes. I know the resources I’m going to need. I know the team I’m going to need. I know the volunteers and the ground operation. I know the policy planning that goes into it. I know the experts I need to reach out to who have been ignored for decades. I’m going to win, but it’s not just going to be me doing it, it’s going to be a team of people doing it because that’s [the] way it should be. It’s going to take a lot [of] people to move Indiana. It’s going to take a lot of us to change the direction we’re going in. So I’m the person on the ticket but there’s a lot of people on the team. We’re going to get it done; we’re going to win.
HPI: When Glenda Ritz upset Tony Bennett in 2012, he had a five-to-one money advantage. Do you believe you can compete moneywise? What do you think you need to raise?
McCormick: It’s going to be an expensive race. I know I’m going to need north of $10 million. I also understand that people in the race on the Republican side are not going to have some of the challenges I’m going to have. They worked hard; they have their money, but that’s not my situation. I’m an educator, my husband is an educator. My family is not super wealthy.
Jennifer and Trent McCormick. (Credit: Jennifer McCormick/Twitter)
HPI: Tell me about your husband?
McCormick: Trent is a superintendent. He was a chemist turned science teacher, then an athletic director and now a superintendent at Blue River. It’s one of those rural schools in Henry County that is getting hammered by this situation. There’s so much pride there. They have one of the best ag programs in the nation and one of the best business official programs in the nation. They are the spirit of that community, out in Mooreland and Mount Summit, Indiana. You take that away and what’s left in some of those communities? It’s frightening, so I do know what I’m up against.
HPI: Is the Democratic Party funding infrastructure still there? Or are you going to have to recreate it?
McCormick: Yes and yes. There are parts of it that are still there. Yes, we’re starting to look at things a little differently. But I’ve been one to say I understand the top of the ticket and the importance of that, how it helps everybody down the ballot. I’m hoping all candidates will benefit from some of the measures we put in place, to launching the Democratic Party forward so we have a better shot at things down the road. I’ve been totally transparent that we need to share resources and we need to get things moving. The money, and I’m not going to pretend, is going to be a challenge. But I’m going to work really hard and I’ve had so many donors. The quantity of donors is humbling. I’ve had people come up and say, “I’m going to give you $20.” And I say, “That $20 is perfect. If you believe in me enough to give me $20 I’ll take it.” It’s the same as someone giving me $20,000. No amount is too small. That is their pledge to say, “We’re getting behind you.” Many of them are first-time donors. It’s been humbling, the total number of donors, and it just keeps going up.
HPI: Anything you want to add that I didn’t ask?
McCormick: What I don’t get asked a lot about that I think is important is the mom part of me. I am a mom, I have a 25-year-old son, a military kid.
HPI: A West Point graduate?
McCormick: He’s a West Point graduate and he serves in the military. I’m extremely proud of him. The reason I bring it up is I think it’s important for the mom Lens that is something fierce. I understand what it’s like to have kids first and to make sure someone is going to be a champion for your kids and I think the power of that mom factor cannot be underestimated for the moms of Indiana. The mom factor is huge. We’ve not had a mom in the office, we haven’t had a female in the office.
HPI: There was an IUPUI pollster who said about 20 years ago that Indiana wasn’t ready for a female governor.
McCormick: It’s time. It’s time. There’s so much excitement, not just from women and girls but from a lot of men as well. They have told me it’s time to have a different perspective. It’s time to have someone with different experiences. It’s time. When the people say there’s no way for a female, there’s no way for a Democrat. I’ve heard it all, but I tell them, “I respect your opinion but you’ve got to get out of my way.”
HPI: Have you thought about “It’s time” as your campaign slogan?
INDIANAPOLIS — Republican mayoral nominee Jefferson Shreve knows his challenge to beat Mayor Joe Hogsett is tantamount to climbing a political Mt. Everest. What he’s hoping for is a redux of 2007.
That year, Democratic incumbent Mayor Bart Peterson was upset by Republican Greg Ballard by a 50.4% to 47.2% margin, generated by a tax and spending crisis. Peterson had just 77,526 votes in that historic upset loss, or 14,837 fewer votes than his 2003 reelection over Republican Greg Jordan.
In 2003, Democrats ended up winning Indiana’s seven most populous cities. Now, Indianapolis, Bloomington, the Lafayettes, South Bend and Lake County are literal blue islands in a sea of red. The cities are more liberal now, just as the prairie cities are turning a darker hue of red.
“Right track, wrong track, is our city in better shape than it was eight years ago?” Shreve asked during an HPI Interview on Monday. “I think our citizenry is receptive to new leadership. I think third terms are tough for our mayors for a reason. You’ve got to run on what you’ve done, and I don’t know what this mayor is going to tell us [about] what he is going to do over the next four years [that] we didn’t hear four and eight years ago. I will remind our citizens that, yes, mayor, you told us you were going to do this last time. I don’t believe this mayor will become more politically emboldened with one final run.”
To demonstrate what Shreve faces, look to last November when Republican Marion County prosecutor nominee Cyndi Carrasco challenged appointed Democrat Ryan Mears. Despite ample funding and the backing of her former boss, Gov. Eric Holcomb, Carrasco was swamped by Mears to the tune of a 38,466-vote plurality in a 59.1% to 40.9% loss.
Jefferson Shreve (right) won the Republican primary for mayor early May. (Credit: Shreve for Mayor/Facebook)
Observers look to the May primary to see that 28,000 people voted for Mayor Hogsett, while just 19,000 voted to nominate Shreve over media personality and attorney Abdul Hakim-Shabazz and another candidate. Hogsett has a $4 million war chest, while Shreve self-funded his primary race to the tune of more than $2 million.
Shreve said that while he will “contribute” to his general election campaign, he needs the “buy-in” of voters. “In this referendum vote that these things are, I’ve got to work very hard these next six months to help people understand that I am that viable alternative that will work to get some good things done for our city,” Shreve said. “These are problems that we have that are not unique but that are fixable.”
Hogsett will attempt to become only the second Unigov-era mayor to win a third term. Third terms are often seen as the toughest to achieve. Once attaining a third term, many Hoosier mayors go on to win two or three more times. If Hogsett prevails, he will join Republican Mayor Bill Hudnut in that three-term category. The irony there is that Hogsett defeated Hudnut in the 1990 secretary of state race, seen as a prelude to the 1992 cycle when Hudnut had hoped to challenge then-Gov. Evan Bayh.
This HPI Interview came on the same day that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson was sworn in. He used the crime issue to upset Mayor Lori Lightfoot in the Democratic primary, which sent shock waves across Chicagoland and into northwest Indiana.
A day after HPI talked with Shreve, Democrat Donna Deegan, of Jacksonville, Florida, upset Republican Daniel Davis with 52% of the vote. His campaign managed to rally Republicans to the polls with an election day surge that ended with nearly 7,200 more registered Republicans than Democrats casting ballots in the race. But Deegan overcame that advantage in a victory that needed independent voters to break solidly for her while she also peeled away Republicans who chose her, according to the Florida Times-Union. Deegan had campaigned on the crime issue, noting in a March debate that Jacksonville’s homicide rate per capita is four times as high as New York City, “so we have to do something differently than we’re doing,” he said, calling for hiring hundreds of cops.
“I think crime is the front and center challenge before our city,” Shreve told HPI. “The next administration needs to demonstrate it has the conviction to fix [it] so we can go on to do so much more. But until we get that done, it’s hard to spend a whole lot of time — and we’re obviously trying to — talking about some of the other places making things like growing our convention industry and X, Y and Z.”
Here is our interview with Jefferson Shreve:
HPI: Congrats on winning the primary.
Shreve: I was happy with the percentages. Abdul [Hakim-Shabazz] spent 18 years in the market. I thought I was going to win and naturally I followed your Horse Race rating and you had it as “Likely” Shreve and I felt good about that, but you never know. I was comforted my message had gotten through with that pretty small slice of the electorate that turned out for the primaries.
HPI: You filed at the deadline. Why did you wait so long?
Shreve: I filed pretty late in the process. I had been thinking about it for a decade. When Mayor [Greg] Ballard decided not to run for a third term I was serving on the [city-county] council. I considered it then. I had some pretty familiar characters whispering in my ear about that possibility. I really went through the heart-searching. At first, when someone talks to you about running for a significant office like that, my first response was, “No, not me.” But I did. I thought about it and when you get a close-up view of the executive from the legislative side you’re looking at how the administration is working. They become human, real and you realize that they’re not Superman or Superwoman and I can do that, too. So I went through that part of the mental dance back in 2015. The reality was two-fold. I could give up the time professionally to run, but I wasn’t positioned to potentially run and serve. I didn’t have my life in a position where I could take on what is probably the toughest job in politics.
HPI: I’ve often said that beyond the president of the United States, being a mayor of a big city — or, really, any city — is one of the toughest jobs in politics.
Shreve at Dallara IndyCar factory where he gave a speech May 16, 2023. (Credit: Jefferson Shreve/Twitter)
Shreve: We don’t have control over fiscal policy. We can’t print money. You’ve got to work with what you’ve got and you go into this job knowing that people are going to be unhappy with you on a regular basis. That was 10 years ago. The other half of that was not just being positioned in my life, but I was not confident I could do with confidence a better job than the other people competing. I knew Chuck Brewer a little bit and Chuck came and Chuck went. Joe Hogsett was someone I felt like there was a lot of enthusiasm for what he might be. I wasn’t confident I could do a better job than what he might have done. That confidence played out over the past seven and a half years: Yeah, I can do a better job than what he’s doing. So, two-fold at this inflection point, uniquely perhaps in my life, if I get hired for the job, I know with certainty that I can give my all to the job. I’ve already given up this year to apply for the job. If I get hired, I can commit my life to doing this job. And, No. 2, I watched this play out with conviction that I can do a better job than Mayor Hogsett is doing. That’s one man’s opinion and this will take a whole lot of opinions to get there. That’s the hard work that lies ahead.
HPI: Did you have an in-depth conversation with Greg Ballard, because he basically laid out the template of how a Republican can win in a city that’s as Democratic as Indianapolis is? We’ve also seen Evansville elect Lloyd Winnecke and Terre Haute elect Duke Bennett. Those are Democratic cities with multi-term Republican mayors.
Shreve: I’ve talked with Mayor Ballard and Winnie over the years time and again. I truly count them as friends. I talked with him before I filed and his reaction was like, “Wow!” I shared with him some of what I’m sharing with you which is the genuine two factors that came together in playing into this. In terms of filing late in the process, that wasn’t about whether I felt ready and had the commitment of time but I wanted to survey the field of talent that was going to put themselves forward. This isn’t a vanity play. If a number of other people had filed or jumped in I would have been happy to do what I have done time and again which is to support other good candidates in our party. We had some good folks that filed in the primary, but none who persuaded me [that] they could do more.
HPI: This morning Brandon Johnson was sworn in as Chicago’s 57th mayor and he upset incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot largely on the crime issue. Do you feel the crime issue here in 2023 to Mayor Hogsett is what the tax issue was to Mayor Bart Peterson in 2007?
Shreve: Yes.
HPI: Can you extrapolate?
Shreve: It’s that fundamental part of our House that is not in order and hasn’t been in order in the Hogsett administration. Fixing our crime problem … You know, we keep score with our homicide rates because it’s that FBI-qualified metric, but there’s more to it, obviously. It is what shapes our visitors’ and our opinions of our city. I think crime is the front-and-center challenge before our city. The next administration needs to demonstrate it has the conviction to fix [it], so we can go on to do so much more.
HPI: Beyond hiring a dedicated public safety director, what are the hallmarks of your anti-crime agenda to bring crime to an acceptable level?
Shreve: We’re going to have to change [the] disposition of the whole [Indianapolis Metropolitan Police] Department. We’ve got to recruit and retain talented, sworn officers. We bring recruit classes in, and over the years I’ve been to a number of those ceremonies but the reality is we lose more talented members than we keep. Why are we losing them? I never see an exit interview and I doubt our HR systems are wired to take those, and we certainly don’t share those. It would be painful feedback. I think our HR systems are broken in a number of areas of city/county government and it’s important that we address, improve and fix some of those. We lose more than we bring in, in a talent-competitive world. They leave us to go to happier pastures. They may laterally transfer to someplace like Louisville but we lose most to the doughnut counties. I’ve got to set the stage where our department feels they are supported and appreciated and backed by the administration in ways the current administration has not. I’ve talked about adding to our headcount of sworn officers. That’s a well-worn path. Mayor Hogsett campaigned on that for his first term.
HPI: Mayor Peterson ran on a call to hire 200 new cops in 1999.
Shreve: It is unnecessarily difficult to get good sworn head counts. There have been numbers shared with the council and I am confident there are fewer on the force today than when Hogsett was sworn in on Jan. 1 [2016]. He campaigned then on adding 150 more. We’re well south of that. I heard a lieutenant command staff officer at a Broad Ripple neighborhood meeting last week [say] that we were 400 officers down.
Shreve meets with voters ahead of the May 2, 2023 Indiana primary elections. (Credit: HPI photo)
Even Mayor Ballard would say it’s not about the number of sworn officers. He’s been plainspoken about that. In my view, that 400 differential is that pivot point between reactive policing, which is the model we are clearly living at today — where every morning on Fox 59 we see the crime tape and the red lights flashing. That’s the reactive posture we have been relegated to. Add a few hundred more officers to the force and we’re able to return to a proactive posture, which means you can get our force out and visible in neighborhoods and turning up at neighborhood meetings.
I represented, over the course of seven years, two districts in Perry and Center townships and it was the case [that] in my first term we would routinely have beat officers and a public information officer at public meetings. They talk about what they are doing and keeping an eye on and mostly listening to the engaged neighborhoods who come to those meetings. They are saying, ‘Every Saturday night we’re seeing this, that and that.’ These folks are holding up their spiral notebooks and they’re taking notes saying, ‘We can beef up our patrols here, we can get a little more of a presence there.’ It’s not rocket science, but it really works. We don’t have enough on our force to go out and do that; to engage and demonstrate a visible, proactive posture.
The PSD in my mind is the absolute, Day 1, first-year critical hire. I don’t come with a background as a prosecutor; I’m not a former cop. I don’t hold myself out as a subject matter expert, but I would make sure our city on-boarded that expertise from the get-go. We’ve got to do what we’ve got to do to fortify our force, to increase the headcount and to retain that force. In part, we do that by demonstrating our commitment to supporting them. While cities have fiscal challenges, this is not one of them. I served on the IMPD Staffing Commission. John Barth chaired that years ago. We were at one time data-driven in ways that [we are] not today. We know objectively what a headcount for a city our size with the geographic dispersion we have and we’re just not there.
HPI: Mayor Tony Roswarski in Lafayette is facing the same type of manpower shortage as Indy. I suspect if you were to survey other large Indiana and Midwestern cities you’d find the same thing. Mayor Hogsett described a “faucet of guns” in what has become a weaponized society. And I saw that two slain Indiana officers were to be placed in the National Law Enforcement Memorial this week, along with 555 other murdered American officers. Being a cop is a more dangerous profession. and we’re seeing a lot of officers, health care workers after the pandemic and teachers say they’ve had enough and are quitting.
Shreve: That is one of the big challenges not just for Marion County, but societally. We certainly see that people are rethinking going into education. When I was a kid, I thought I might want to be a cop or a firefighter. My sister did become an elementary school teacher. That was pretty common if you grew up watching “Adam-12” or “Emergency.” We have surely made that far less attractive for young people to think about entering that profession, at great peril to where our society is going.
We need people who will serve and protect life and property, and we need people to educate young minds and we don’t nearly have enough of them. I know we burn through a whole lot of overtime on IMPD because we don’t have enough people. It’s a false economy. That math clearly doesn’t work because they are so burned out and they are responding to the violent crime and are materially less engaged in the property crimes. Those escalate into some of the more challenging crimes. With every arrest, there is incident processing and they get so frustrated with the system. It’s the system that’s not working and the mayor doesn’t control the whole system.
I’m running to get hired for the piece of the job that controls that citizen-effacing portion and to work hard with the other elements of the system to try to reason or use the bully pulpit of the mayor’s office. We need to pull those into synchronicity so we can help improve our town. I can’t imagine we don’t want so many of the same things. We wear different jerseys; I think we can make some progress.
Shreve will face off against incumbent Democrat Mayor Joe Hogsett this November. (Credit: Joe Hogsett/Facebook / Jefferson Shreve/Twitter)
HPI: Where do you think you stand against Mayor Hogsett? Have you done any polling? Is this a competitive race? Set the stage for what you found when you won the nomination.
Shreve: When I made this decision of conviction I knew this was going to be an electoral challenge. I didn’t enter the challenge lightly as I have largely self-funded the first part of this.
HPI: Will you continue to self-fund?
Shreve: I’ll continue to contribute to the fight but the evidence would be clear you need to get buy-in from the broader electorate. I’ve got a lot of work over the next six months to get that buy-in. Here’s my conviction, not from polling, but from living and moving around Indianapolis: Right track, wrong track, is our city in better shape than it was eight years ago? I think our citizenry is receptive to new leadership. I think third terms are tough for our mayors for a reason. … He’s a great campaigner but I don’t think his energy level or conviction to really do something for our city is going to accelerate after November. In this referendum vote that these things are, I’ve got to work very hard these next six months to help people understand that I am that viable alternative that will work to get some good things done for our city. These are problems that we have that are not unique but that are fixable.
INDIANAPOLIS — With Democrat Jennifer McCormick’s official entry into the 2024 Indiana gubernatorial race, Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott has ruled out seeking the Democratic nomination.
“As for me, I don’t see the stars aligning for a McDermott candidacy in 2024 at this time,” McDermott texted Howey Politics Indiana on Wednesday. “Of course, you can never say never and things do change from time to time, but currently I have no plans to campaign for governor in 2024.”
McDermott told HPI following his 2022 defeat for the U.S. Senate that he would seek reelection this November (currently he’s unopposed) and then run for governor in 2024. Allies of former senator and current Vatican Ambassador Joe Donnelly had told HPI last year that he was leaving his political options open for 2024.
That leaves McCormick as the lone Democrat seeking the nomination at this time. What she aims to do is exceedingly rare. There has been only one female gubernatorial nominee in history, when Jill Long Thompson won the Democratic nomination in 2008, only to lose to Gov. Mitch Daniels.
And, there have been only two party switchers to ascend to the governor’s office since the current two-party system took shape in 1856. The first was the legendary Civil War Gov. Oliver Perry Morton, who began the 1850s as a Democrat, then as a Free Soiler (which got him kicked out of the DP), then a Whig, before that party dissolved, setting off a great migration to the nascent Republican Party. Morton was elected lieutenant governor in 1860 and when Gov. Henry Lane appointed himself to the U.S. Senate, Morton ascended. Morton was reelected in 1864. The second was Isaac Gray who won an Indiana Senate seat as a Republican in 1868, then won lieutenant governor and governor races as a Democrat in 1876 and 1884.
Jennifer McCormick celebrates her 2016 GOP superintendent nomination. (Credit: HPI Photo by Mark Curry)
Beyond Jill Long Thompson, female gubernatorial candidates are relatively rare. Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch is currently seeking the GOP nomination in 2024. District Attorney Virginia Dill McCarty was the first to run as a Democrat, losing to State Sen. Wayne Townsend in the 1984 primary. There were brief candidacies by Democrat state Sens. Vi Simpson in 2003, Karen Tallian and Superintendent Glenda Ritz in 2016 and Republican Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman in 2010.
Simpson, Tallian, Ritz and Skillman all failed to generate much fundraising traction. Simpson exited the race in late 2003 when Gov. Joe Kernan opted to get back in after taking office following the death of Gov. Frank O’Bannon in September 2003. Skillman folded her campaign just weeks after announcing in 2010, as the GOP establishment rallied around U.S. Rep. Mike Pence for governor.
When McCarty ran, it was during the Equal Rights Amendment era and she pledged “equal justice under law” as part of her platform. During her campaign, McCarty encouraged women and girls to take more active roles in politics and government. “All it would do was give us equal rights as far as the government was concerned but it wouldn’t affect private employment at all, I thought,” McCarty said. “But it became the battleground for the feminists versus the anti-feminists.”
Ritz, who upset Superintendent Tony Bennett in 2012, declared for governor in June 2015, before opting to seek reelection two months later. “Now is not the right time for me to run for governor,” Ritz said. “Under my leadership, I have brought the discussion of public education into the public discourse and have started to fundamentally change how we support schools. My work is not finished, and my passion is stronger than ever. I am resolutely dedicated to educators, students, and families from Pre-K to graduation.”
McCormick would defeat Ritz in 2016 1,422,146 to 1,239,957, or a 53% to 47% margin. McCormick failed to carry just 10 counties (Perry, Vermillion, LaPorte, Vigo, Tippecanoe, Monroe, Porter, St. Joseph, Lake and Marion).
“I’m not Tony Bennett,” McCormick said in October. “I stand on my own proven leadership. It is not a return to many of the reforms that went through during that era. I have my own style and my own concerns.”
In October 2018, McCormick stunned the Hoosier political establishment, announcing she would not run for reelection in 2020, in part because of the General Assembly’s move in 2017 to make the superintendent position a gubernatorial appointment. It was originally scheduled for the 2024 election, though there was persistent talk of moving that up to the 2020 election cycle.
“As a parent, I would not be happy if my state superintendent were spending time on noise, and that’s simply what this has become,” McCormick said. “For that conversation to keep coming up and suck all of our energies out, to me, I’m growing very weary of that. The best way I can help shut that down is to let people know I’m not running again.
“I still have a passion for kids. My team has a passion for kids. We can get things done for kids,” McCormick said. “But when the governance structure is becoming a problem for kids, that’s not why I intended to get into office. A second term is not on my radar. So I would hope that those who continue to keep the noise going for their sake of political reasons would tone things down.”
Jennifer McCormick after winning the GOP superintendent nomination with then Lt. Gov. Holcomb and then attorney general nominee Curtis Hill at the 2016 GOP convention. (Credit: HPI Photo by Mark Curry)
McCormick did not consult with Gov. Eric Holcomb prior to her bombshell. Holcomb reacted, saying, “I reminded her that we have more time left in this term than we’ve been here, and there’s still plenty to be accomplished. Dr. McCormick has given me a lot to digest as I dig into her legislative priorities. I thanked her and told her today I appreciate and respect her lifetime devotion to children and education, and that we’ll take the steps necessary to ensure Indiana has the best team working together to provide the highest quality education for children.”
McCormick’s pitch
In her campaign video kickoff last Thursday, McCormick said, “Let me introduce myself: My name is Jennifer McCormick. Now I’m running for governor of Indiana because it’s time to put Hoosiers first. I bring common sense and bipartisanship back to the Statehouse.”
She added, “I grew up on a small family farm in New Castle. My community was full of spirit and support, and the public school was the community’s front porch. Neighborhoods were filled with kids, and families had an opportunity to thrive. Yet, as good-paying jobs left my community, I saw families, small businesses, schools, and local infrastructure suffer. I spent a decade as a special education and language arts teacher before becoming a public school principal and superintendent for nearly 15 years.
“In 2016, I successfully ran for state superintendent of public instruction to be a champion for Hoosier kids,” McCormick continued. “As state superintendent, I took on politics that were negatively impacting our schools and fought for what was right for kids, teachers, and parents. Now, I’m running for governor of Indiana because it’s time to put Hoosiers first. I will bring common sense and bipartisanship back to the statehouse. I’ve already proved I will stand up to out-of-touch policies that are destroying public education, stripping Hoosiers of their rights and freedoms, and leaving rural communities behind.”
Unprecedented supermajority era
The other historical anomaly beyond gender and education politics are the current GOP supermajorities in the General Assembly, which have extended to an unprecedented five cycles since the two-party system began in 1856.
That has brought a lot of smoldering divisive social issues to the fore, like banning books, critical race theory, limiting LGBTQ+ rights, and a recent spate of transgender legislation. Speaking to the NWI Times’ Doug Ross in Valparaiso, McCormick framed her candidacy in the “distractions” that prompted her not to seek reelection in 2020. “The answer is nothing other than as a distraction from the real problems because they’re complex and they’re difficult to solve,” McCormick said. “I really feel like the supermajority wants to hover in that because that is a national trend and it keeps that distraction. That’s easier to do than to work on the problems.
“You had a lot of supermajority power, and so someone’s got to own it,” McCormick said. Instead of owning it, Republican legislators act like, “We’re going to pretend like it doesn’t happen and we’re going to focus on these areas.”
“I’ve heard about the struggles that Hoosiers are facing, and I’ve also heard about the leadership they expect,” she said. “In Kosciusko County, I heard about the fight for public education. In Bartholomew County, I’m hearing about women’s rights and making sure that we watch that and making sure we protect it. In Hamilton County, I hear a lot about the desire to return to common sense.
“Hoosiers do not recognize the out-of-touch divisiveness that is coming out of the Statehouse,” McCormick said. “They expect a leader who believes in common sense and bipartisanship to solve problems and make Indiana the state that she can be.”
She noted legislative action critical of Holcomb’s handling of issues during the COVID-19 pandemic. “I know what that’s like to have authority stripped because what they did to Gov. Holcomb, they did the same thing to me, and they’re doing the same thing to a lot of different offices. So I completely understand that,” she said. “However, it’s still the governor of the state of Indiana, and I still know people put that at the top of the pedestal. It’s a voice, it’s a platform. It appoints a lot of committees. It appoints a lot of boards. It can get a lot of things done,” she said.
Speaking in front of the St. Joseph County courthouse in South Bend last week, McCormick focused on book banning and charter school funding, saying it was “beyond ridiculous.”
“So we will start with book banning, really?” McCormick told WNDU-TV. “We’ll start with the bans on LGBTQ health care rights. I mean the list goes on; we’ll talk about you now, public education, which services 90% of our kids – was the most underfunded system of all the schools. The one that services the smallest percentage of students got by far the majority of the money.”
State Rep. Vernon Smith, D-Gary, offered his endorsement of McCormick in Gary (NWI Times). “I believe in her,” Smith said. “I worked with her for four years. I saw that she was not a politician but a public servant. This woman showed that she cares about people.”
McCormick had spent part of 2019 conducting a series of statewide listening tours with state Sen. Eddie Melton (the current Gary Democratic mayoral nominee) when he was weighing a gubernatorial bid. That ignited speculation of a Melton-McCormick ticket. Democrats, instead, nominated Woody Myers that year.
“Indiana needs more statewide leaders who value the voices of practitioners and community stakeholders, as demonstrated by Sen. Eddie Melton,” she said in July 2019. “As State Superintendent of Public Instruction, I am optimistic that a potential 2020 gubernatorial candidate has the foresight and the willingness to elevate educational issues and work collaboratively. This next election will direct the future of our state for generations to come. Decisions regarding the education of our children must be at the very heart of that future.”
Indiana Republican Chairman Kyle Hupfer reacted to the 2019 Melton/McCormick listening tour saying, “Today’s announcement seems to confirm the rumors of the last few weeks: that Jennifer McCormick is auditioning for a new job — including as the lieutenant governor nominee on the Democrat ticket in 2020. After being on stage at our Republican Conventions in 2016 and 2018, running on GOP ideals in 2016 and accepting campaign aid from thousands of Republican Party supporters across the state, it begs the question whether Jennifer McCormick is still a Republican.”
Last week, Hupfer said, “We would like to officially welcome Democrat Jennifer McCormick to the 2024 gubernatorial race and presume that she is seeking the Democrat nomination. With her campaign launch today, Democrat Jennifer McCormick has decided to continue her well-known streak of misleading Hoosiers. But they have come to know that’s just who she is — someone who will say or do anything to get elected. But Hoosiers also know this — Democrat Jennifer McCormick believes that teachers and administrators know what’s best for our children and that parents should have no say in what happens in our schools. Hoosiers have rejected that position, and they will reject her too.”
What are McCormick’s chances?
McCormick filed her statement of organization on May 3. The McCormick for Governor campaign had a beginning balance of $40,160 and an ending balance of $42,341 as of Jan. 17, with funds migrating from her past superintendent campaign.
By comparison, Friends of Suzanne Crouch reported a year-end cash balance of $3.19 million. The campaign of Republican Eric Doden reported a year-end cash balance of $2.8 million. U.S. Sen. Mike Braun reported a cash balance of $2.9 million and received a $25,000 contribution from Stephen Hilbert on May 3.
In 2020, Holcomb won reelection with 56.5% to 32% for Democrat Woody Myers and 11.4% for Libertarian Donald Rainwater. Myers carried just Lake, Marion and Monroe counties.
In 2016, Holcomb defeated Democrat John Gregg 51.4% to 45.4%, or by 1,397,396 to 1,235,503. Gregg carried 13 counties.
In 2012, Republican Mike Pence became the first modern governor to win with less than 50% of the vote. He defeated Gregg 1,275,424 to 1,200,016, or 49.49% to 46.56%, while Libertarian Rupert Boneham had 3.5%.
McCormick will likely find gathering support from the wider public education community, which rallied to Ritz in her 2012 upset of Bennett, despite being outraised by Bennett $1.86 million to $341,873. Ritz rallied educators with a social media campaign based on the 2011 Egypt Tahir Square political uprising.
If McCormick is the only credible Democrat to seek the nomination, she can potentially make this a competitive race by capturing the divisive issue outflows on abortion, gun reforms, and LGBTQ+ rights, all of which have seen wide polling majorities on a wide range of issues. For instance, last November’s Ball State Hoosier Survey revealed that 56.7% believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 76% find abortion to be an important or at least somewhat important issue.
McCormick tweeted this past week, “Women want to live, work, and thrive where access to medical care is not banned or limited. States who respect this and operate accordingly win.”
The Republican primary will likely find the three candidates shifting to the right on abortion and gun reforms. Crouch made it a point to note her tie-breaking Indiana Senate vote on an abortion exception amendment last July. That will be an asset in the primary but a potential liability in the general.
Header image: Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jennifer McCormick speaks to children at the Indiana Rotary Club on March 19, 2023. (Credit: Jennifer McCormick for Governor)
INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana Democrats will be facing an existential election this November. Already purged from rural areas and many small to medium-sized towns, holding no Statehouse constitutional offices, only two of 11 federal offices, and with superminority status in the General Assembly, the party has been relegated to the state’s big cities and college towns. Now, Republicans will be taking aim at Indiana’s biggest two cities, Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, where incumbent Democrats fit the description of “embattled.”
In Indianapolis, self-funding Republican mayoral nominee Jefferson Shreve will take on two-term Democrat Mayor Joe Hogsett, who dispatched state Rep. Robin Shackleford, 58%-38% on Tuesday. The fact that 42% of Democrats didn’t vote for the mayor has Hoosier Republicans licking their chops.
Shreve spent more than $2 million after filing his candidacy right at the filing deadline last February. He described Indianapolis as a “jewel” of a city that has been damaged by a rampant murder rate, high crime and a lack of cops. “Indianapolis’s rising crime and failing infrastructure have damaged our sense of community pride,” Shreve said. “It’s time for a change, Indianapolis. Today is the first step in restoring order to our streets and building a better tomorrow for our city.”
Indianapolis Republican nominee Jefferson Shreve votes Tuesday. (Credit: Shreve Twitter Photo)
Shreve told supporters Tuesday night that after he filed at the deadline, state Sen. Jack Sandlin asked him if he had had his head examined. “I told him I should have my heart examined,” Shreve said. He said that his decision to run was “not a business decision; this is a decision from the heart. I’m running for mayor as a Republican and it’s gonna be tough. We live in a Democratic city. I’m not fooling myself, I understand the challenge. In my heart, I am convinced I can bring something better and bolder than what we have today.”
Indiana Republican Chairman Kyle Hupfer said, “It’s clear that Marion County Republicans aren’t just ready to build a better future for our capital city, but restore its spirit too. And Jefferson, with his combination of executive leadership and experience on the City-County Council, is the right person at the right time to get the job done. We’re looking forward to partnering with Jefferson and his team over the next few months and helping to deliver much-needed change in Indianapolis.”
Democratic Party Vice Chair and Marion County Democratic Chairwoman Myla Eldridge said, “Jefferson Shreve’s message is already falling short. After spending more than $2 million on Trump-style ads promoting his right-wing agenda, less than 30,000 Republican ballots were cast on Election Day compared to a historic 45,000 Democratic ballots. Jefferson’s platform may resonate with hardcore conservatives, but it’s clear Indianapolis voters aren’t interested.”
In Fort Wayne, four-term Democrat Mayor Tom Henry will face the only Republican ever to beat him. That occurred in 2003 when Republican Tom Didier upset him by 172 votes to win the city council seat Henry had held for 20 years. Henry recovered, winning the mayor’s office in 2007.
On Tuesday, Henry easily dispatched a little-known Democrat challenger, Jorge Fernandez, with 78% of the vote. It’s his first public test since being arrested on a DUI last October. He pleaded guilty in November. “If you voted for my opponent, that’s quite all right,” Henry said in his acceptance speech. “I still got 80%.”
Councilman Didier, who defeated Councilman Jason Arp 64-33% on Tuesday in the GOP primary, smells blood in the water. “Now I’ve got to get checkmate, I feel very confident,” Didier told the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. “I really believe the voters are ready for a change.”
Henry said his family and the Didiers have known each other for a long time and expects a donnybrook. “I think it’ll be a very lively campaign,” he said. “Aggressive, but in a positive way.”
Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry speaks to media and community leaders at the groundbreaking of the new Pontiac Street Market on March 9, 2023. (Credit: Tom Henry/Twitter)
Indiana Democrats have other potential challenges. They have seen the GOP encroach in areas where it once dominated, including southern Lake County and St. Joseph County, where all three county commissioners are Republican.
South Bend Mayor James Mueller defeated Councilman Henry Davis Jr. with 68%. South Bend Tribune columnist Jack Colwell explained, “Davis had to top 30% to show he had any significant impact. He just reached that. But he fell short of the 40% that would have signaled Mueller was vulnerable for a possible fall upset by Republican challenger Desmont Upchurch.”
In Anderson, Democrat Mayor Thomas Broderick defeated Councilman Rodney Chamberlain by a mere 32 votes and faces Republican Jon Bell, who won his primary by just four votes. “Hard work paid off,” Broderick told supporters at Grandview Municipal Golf Course. “Every vote counts. I look forward to a robust fall campaign.” Broderick said he expected the election to be close against Chamberlain and Tony Watters, telling the Anderson Herald Bulletin’s Ken de la Bastide, “I thought I could win by 200 to 400 votes. The low turnout overall was a factor. There were 1,500 to 2,000 fewer voters than I expected.” Republican Kevin Smith won the Anderson mayor’s office twice, in 2003 and 2011, before Broderick defeated him in 2015.
Indiana Democrat Chairman Mike Schmuhl said after the November 2022 elections, “Indiana Democrats laid the groundwork in 2021 and 2022, and now it’s time to crisscross our state even more, build up our party from the grassroots, elect city leaders in 2023 and a governor, U.S. senator, and additional state legislators in 2024.”
There may be some opportunities for Democrats as well.
With Republican West Lafayette Mayor John Dennis retiring, he endorsed Democrat Erin Easter. “People know her. She is a respected entity. People respect her,” Dennis said. “She has been around. She knows how this community works. She loves the city of West Lafayette.” The Lafayette Journal & Courier reported last December that supporters from both the Republican and Democratic parties turned out to lend their support to Easter’s candidacy.
There will be an open seat in Evansville, where Republican Mayor Lloyd Winnecke is retiring. He and his wife, Carol McClintock, recruited and helped newcomer Natalie Rascher win a decisive primary against Vanderburgh County Commissioner Cheryl Musgrave by 1,500 votes. Rascher will face Democrat Stephanie Terry in November.
Democrats control 7 of 9 Evansville Council seats, though the Courier & Press reported in March that Republicans had difficulties recruiting candidates earlier this year. “We’ve talked to several people, and people are just not really interested in putting in the time or the effort (to run for City Council),” said Vanderburgh County GOP Chairman Mike Duckworth.
Another open seat comes in Carmel. Republican Mayor Jim Brainard did not seek another term and endorsed Council President Kevin “Woody” Rider. But Councilwoman Sue Finkam won the three-way race with 37% of the vote and will face Democrat Miles Nelson in November. Finkam said after her win Tuesday, “We knew we had to be scrappy and tough and resilient and not back down from a fight. We overcame a candidate who was well-funded and another candidate who had previously run for mayor. They underestimated us at every turn.”
Brainard told Current in Carmel, “Sue will be a great candidate and will be a good mayor, if elected.”
Nelson told a gathering of 150 Democrats, “As we move toward the November election, I’m ready to continue engaging voters in our city on how we build an administration that’s responsive to their needs, transparent about our spending and priorities, and guarantees Carmel remains one of the best places to live, work and raise a family in America.”
The Nelson campaign said, “Despite the continued population growth in our community, and hundreds of thousands of dollars spent by the three candidates, Republicans saw a marked decline of thousands of votes in primary participation from four years ago. This enthusiasm gap highlights how Carmel voters are increasingly looking forward to a mayor who is ready to lead with a track record of delivering for our neighborhoods.”
Nelson’s campaign manager Cynthia Johnson said, “What’s been made clear tonight is that over the next few months, voters are going to be offered two very distinct visions for the future direction of our city. One brought forth by Miles that’s collaborative, transparent, rooted in the voices of our neighborhoods and focused on the real challenges facing our community, and the other – full of plans without a real vision to implement them, indecisive while trying to have it both ways on every important issue and choosing political expediency over the true needs of our community.”
In Terre Haute, Republican Mayor Duke Bennett is seeking a record-tying fifth term and will face Democrat Brandon Sakbun, who upset Tom Goodwin on Tuesday with 54%. Goodwin, running as an independent in 2019, came within 213 votes of upsetting Bennett. “The hard lesson is that hard work pays,” Sakbun told the Tribune-Star. “When the results go your way, you’re definitely happy, but you can’t rest on your laurels of success. You ask yourself, ‘How do I grow from this moment now to be even better tomorrow?’” He added that his positive message — believe in Terre Haute and let’s get a fresh start — resonated with voters.
Here is a roundup of other key primary races:
Gary: Sen. Melton topples Gary Mayor Prince
State Sen. Eddie Melton has unseated Gary Mayor Jerome Prince (DeVore, NWI Times). Unofficial election results showed Melton won with just under 61% of the vote. “I just received a call from Mayor Jerome Prince. He congratulated me,” Melton told a cheering crowd around 9:30 Tuesday evening. “Thank you, Gary!” Melton said he and Prince have agreed to sit down and discuss the city’s progress in the coming weeks. Prince was not available for comment Tuesday evening. “We are a city of innovators, entrepreneurs, leaders and problem solvers. What we accomplish tonight will change the trajectory of the city,” Melton told the some 200 attendees that filled the Diamond Center at U.S. Steel Yard Stadium. “Gary will rise from the ashes to become a beacon of light.” Melton will compete against Republican Andrew Delano, who is unopposed in the GOP primary, at the Nov. 7 general election for a four-year term as Gary mayor.
Indianapolis: Hogsett to face Shreve in Indy
Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett speaks to IMPD, clergy and neighborhood leaders on April 27, 2023, to call for communities to be a part of promoting peace and stopping the cycle of gun violence. (Credit: Joe Hogsett Twitter)
With all votes counted, Mayor Joe Hogsett will face Jefferson Shreve in the November election for Indianapolis’ next mayor. State Rep. Robin Shackleford called Hogsett to concede the race around 8:45 p.m. (IndyStar). Hogsett won with 58% of the vote in the Democratic primary. Shackleford had 38% of the vote. Hogsett weathered criticism from within and outside his party, especially on crime, throughout his campaign cycle, but ultimately Democratic voters decided to stick with him. “Well, friends, tonight the voters of the Marion County Democratic Party sent a resounding message that they are ready to roll up their sleeves and work with me to ensure our city’s brightest days are yet to come,” Hogsett said in a victory speech at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers hall downtown. Shreve had 66% of the vote in the Republican primary. Abdul-Hakim Shabazz, a lawyer and political commentator, had 26% of the vote. “In my heart, I’m convinced I can bring something better and bolder to lead our city than that which we have today,” Shreve said to applause in a victory speech at his watch party, held at Hotel Tango in Fountain Square.
Carmel: Finkam wins Carmel GOP nomination
Carmel City Councilor Sue Finkam won the Republican nomination for mayor, defeating fellow City Councilor Kevin “Woody” Rider and former Hamilton County Councilor Fred Glynn in a close race (Current in Carmel). With all precincts reporting, Finkam finished with 4,595 votes, or 36.08% of the vote, compared to 4,092 (32.13%) for Rider and 4,048 (31.79%) for Glynn. Finkam celebrated the victory at the Renaissance hotel in Carmel, where supporters gathered throughout the evening as results came in. After receiving calls from Rider and Glynn conceding the race, she addressed the crowd, thanking voters for taking her campaign from “underdog” status at the start of the race to a primary victory. “We knew we had to be scrappy and tough and resilient and not back down from a fight,” Finkam said. “We overcame a candidate who was well funded and another candidate who had previously run for mayor. They underestimated us at every turn.” Finkam will face Democrat Miles Nelson, who is also a member of the city council, in the November general election. Carmel Mayor Jim Brainard, a Republican who has been in office since 1996, endorsed Rider but stopped by Finkam’s event to congratulate her on the win. He described Finkam as a hard worker who has supported the overall direction of the city for many years, and he plans to support her and the rest of the Republican ticket in November. “Sue will be a great (general election) candidate and will be a good mayor, if elected,” Brainard said.
Evansville: Rascher dominates Musgrave in GOP primary
Vanderburgh County officials confirm that Natalie Rascher won the Republican primary, making her the party’s candidate for Evansville mayor. Rascher received 64% of the vote to defeat Cheryl Musgrave by a wide margin, officials confirmed (WFIE-TV). “I’m overwhelmed honestly,” Rascher said. “To have such tremendous supporters come out, all of the volunteers who have helped me throughout this process, it’s been amazing. I’m very excited to be the Republican nominee this year.” Rascher, a businesswoman, has never held public office, but ended the night with a decisive victory over her opponent Cheryl Musgrave. She said the win points to her connection with the voters. “I think that they want to see a fresh face,” Rascher said. “They wanted to see that next generation of leadership step up to the plate, and I think that old adage of ‘nice matters.’” Musgrave held a watch party at the Fraternal Order of Police, who had endorsed her campaign. “I thank the voters who put their confidence in me in this primary — and the volunteers who gave their time and talent, and the donors who invested their hard-earned dollars,” Musgrave said. “I truly cannot thank you enough. I know you had to suffer in silence as we all weathered through the lies, blatant deceit and character assassinations from the opposition. But you kept your focus on what was most important: the people of Evansville. And while we may not be headed any further on the road to the mayor’s office this go around — we will continue our fight to ensure Evansville is a safe, secure and thriving city that we all deserve.” Rascher, along with Democrat Stephanie Terry, has a chance to make history and become the first woman elected as Evansville’s mayor.
Fort Wayne: Rematch between Mayor Henry, Didier
Democratic Mayor Tom Henry and Republican Fort Wayne City Councilman Tom Didier will officially face off in this year’s election, which is the second time the two have campaigned for the same spot (Wolf, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette). The last time the two faced each other was in 2003 when Didier won the 3rd District City Council seat from Henry by 172 votes – about 51% of the ballots. Henry served the 3rd District for about 20 years before Didier was elected, which was about 20 years ago. Henry and Didier said they are also looking forward to the contest. “Now I’ve got to get checkmate, I feel very confident,” Didier said. “I really believe the voters are ready for a change.” Henry said his family and the Didiers have known each other for a long time. So he expects both sides to run a positive and spirited competition. “I think it’ll be a very lively campaign,” he said. “Aggressive but in a positive way.” Henry is a four-term incumbent and the city’s second-longest-serving mayor. He beat his only challenger, Jorge Fernandez, by 4,209 votes, according to the initial vote count Tuesday. Henry won with 78% of the vote. “If you voted for my opponent, that’s quite all right,” Henry said in his acceptance speech. “I still got 80%.” He said the vote showed a strong statement from Democrats that they want him as mayor again. Henry said he didn’t think Fernandez getting 22% of the vote was a reaction to the mayor’s drunken-driving arrest in October. He said he hopes the incident doesn’t have an effect on voters in the general election. “Obviously it was a bad judgment call on my part,” he said. “We’re all human.”
Terre Haute: Sakbun tops Goodwin for Dem nomination
Political newcomer Brandon Sakbun won Tuesday’s Democratic mayoral primary election in Terre Haute, prevailing over former city engineer Pat Goodwin with 2,414 votes, or 54.27% of those cast (Kronke, Terre Haute Tribune-Star). Goodwin, who also ran for mayor in 2019, received 2,034 votes (45.73%). On Nov. 7, Sakbun will face incumbent Mayor Duke Bennett, who will be seeking his fifth term as mayor. Bennett, unopposed in his party’s primary, brought in 1,020 votes. Celebrating his win at The Terminal Public House downtown, Sakbun was ebullient when discussing what helped propel him to victory. “The hard lesson is that hard work pays,” he said. “When the results go your way, you’re definitely happy, but you can’t rest on your laurels of success. You ask yourself, ‘How do I grow from this moment now to be even better tomorrow?’” He added that his positive message — believe in Terre Haute and let’s get a fresh start — resonated with voters.
Bloomington: Thomas cruises to Dem nomination
Kerry Thomson speaks with supporters. (Credit: Kerry Thomson Campaign)
Kerry Thomson is the winner of Bloomington’s Democratic primary. Thomson took 3,444 votes, beating out opponents Susan Sandberg (2,644) and Don Griffin (1,924) (Indiana Public Media). Thomson was the executive director of the IU Center for Rural Engagement and previously served as the CEO of Monroe County Habitat for Humanity for 20 years. She had not run for public office or served as an elected official until now. At her victory speech, Thomson thanked her supporters and signaled her intentions to take Bloomington in a new direction. “It’s people like you who can step aside when things look like they’re getting negative, and can continue to believe that that is not where we need to go in Bloomington,” she said. Thomson hearkened back to her arrival in Bloomington 28 years ago. “When I rode my bicycle through here in 1995, I knew this place was different. And you all are proving that this place is different.”
Greenwood: Myers staves off challenger
Despite a highly contentious primary, Republican voters in Greenwood want Mark Myers to keep the city’s top job (Daily Journal). Myers, who has been in office since 2012, was able to thwart a challenge from former Center Grove School Board President Joe Hubbard to receive the nomination for Greenwood mayor Tuesday. He got 3,465 votes, or about 55% of the votes cast while Hubbard received 2,785 votes, or roughly 45%. “I am extremely excited and happy and glad that the people of Greenwood have decided to keep me for another term,” Myers said. “I’m excited to see what new things we can do for our community.”
Columbus: Ferdon defeats Milo Smith for GOP nod
A current leader in city government has been chosen as the GOP nominee for Columbus mayor. Mary Ferdon easily won the nomination with 2,533 votes (62.93% of the vote), with former Indiana state representative Milo Smith receiving 1,492 (37.07% of the vote) (Howey Politics Indiana).
Muncie: Mayor Ridenour to face Robinson
First-term Republican Mayor Dan Ridenour had an overwhelming victory on Tuesday. Ridenour dominated opponent Tony Cox in Cox’s first turn at running for office (Muncie Star Press). Ridenour defeated Cox with a tally of 1,498 votes to 301. The mayor should face a more substantial challenge in the fall with the Democratic nominee, City Council President Jeff Robinson, who moved through his primary unopposed. The two men will contend in the Nov. 7 election.
Anderson: Mayor Broderick renominated by only 32 votes
Incumbent Anderson Mayor Thomas Broderick Jr. has won the Democratic Party nomination to seek a third term. But it was close. Broderick will be opposed in the November election by Republican Jon Bell, a current member of the Anderson City Council (de la Bastide, Anderson Herald Bulletin). Both Broderick and Bell barely survived the Tuesday primary. The mayor defeated challenger Rodney Chamberlain by just 32 votes, prevailing by less than 1%. Bell’s margin was even smaller, just four votes over Robert Jozwiak. Broderick took a 253-vote lead over Chamberlain when the early and absentee ballots were counted. But his advantage dwindled in live voting Tuesday. Chamberlain said he will seek a recount after he and his campaign team reviewed the voting numbers. “I thought we did well,” he said. “I tried to run a clean campaign. Early voting and the low turnout were factors.” “Hard work paid off,” Broderick told supporters at Grandview Municipal Golf Course. “Every vote counts. I look forward to a robust fall campaign.” Broderick said he expected the election to be close against Chamberlain and Tony Watters. “I thought I could win by 200 to 400 votes,” he said. “The low turnout overall was a factor. There were 1,500 to 2,000 fewer voters than I expected.”
Westfield: Willis wins GOP nomination
Scott Willis has secured the Republican nomination for Westfield mayor, defeating two other challengers in the primary election (Current in Carmel). Willis received 3,506 votes, while Jake Gilbert was second with 3,265 votes, according to unofficial results by the Hamilton County Election Office. A third opponent, Kristen Burkman, garnered 992 votes. Willis, who gathered at his home in Westfield with his family and supporters, said he is excited that Westfield voters backed his campaign and believed in a path that moves the city forward. “We’re excited about getting the hard work done,” Willis said. “I am honored that the residents of Westfield have placed their trust in me to be their next mayor. I have worked hard to earn their support, and I think my experience, qualifications and vision really resonated with people.”
Zionsville: Stehr wins GOP nod
Zionsville Republican nominee John Stehr. (Credit: Stehr campaign)
John Stehr, a retired TV broadcast journalist and president of the Zionsville Parks and Recreation Board, won the Republican nomination for Zionsville mayor (Current in Carmel). With all 42 precincts reporting, Stehr received 3,432 votes, while Burgess tallied 2,781 out of 6,213 votes cast. “It is gratifying to see how the people of Zionsville have responded to my positive message and vision for our town,” Stehr said after the results were tallied. “I am humbled and excited to get to work for the people who have put their faith in me.” Burgess, a former Zionsville Community Schools board member, thanked her supporters. “While I did not emerge as the victor in the primary mayoral race tonight, I remain filled with a sense of pride and gratitude,” Burgess said. “I thank all of my loyal supporters who believed in me and put their faith in my vision for our community. Your enthusiasm and dedication to this campaign have been truly inspiring, and I am humbled by the trust you placed in me.”
East Chicago: Mayor Copeland clips Santos
Democrat Mayor Anthony Copeland staved off a challenge from North Township Trustee Adrain Santos, 52.9% to 47%.
Valparaiso: Costas to face 28-year-old Trueblood
Former Republican Mayor Jon Costas will compete against newcomer Hannah Trueblood in the November mayoral election (DeVore, NWI Times). Unofficial election results showed that Trueblood beat Pamela Schroeder in the Democrat primary with about 65% of the vote. Costas beat Art Elwood in the Republican primary with 83% of the vote. Both Costas and Trueblood declared victory just before 9 p.m Tuesday. “It’s honestly kind of surreal,” Trueblood said, noting she is the first female mayoral nominee to make it to Valparaiso’s general election. “We’re super excited for the opportunity.” At 28, Trueblood would also be the city’s youngest mayor. Costas, who previously served as mayor of Valparaiso for 16 years, threw his hat in the ring shortly after current Mayor Matt Murphy announced that he would not be seeking reelection.
Portage: Bonta defeats former mayor Cannon
Austin Bonta defeated former Mayor John Cannon by a nearly 2-1 margin to become the Republican challenger in November’s mayoral race (Ross, NWI Times). “Two to 1 is great in terms of numbers,” Bonta said. “We want to make sure we come together now as a party.” He wants people who considered him their second choice on Tuesday to support him in November, and he wants people who did vote to know he’s open to meeting with them. Bonta said he wants to examine the issues in the campaign, some of which were Republican themes and others that were nonpartisan but of interest in the city, to see what resonates with voters. “We’re here at the Bonta bunker, I call it, with my family and parents,” he said Tuesday night. Some of his campaign volunteers met each other for the first time at the “Bonta bunker.” “They came from all sorts of backgrounds in Portage,” he said. According to unofficial final results, Bonta had 1,125 votes to Cannon’s 670, giving Bonta nearly 63% of the vote. Bonta will face Democrat Sue Lynch, the incumbent, in November. If he wins, he would tie former Mayor John Snyder as the youngest mayor in the city’s history. Cannon served as mayor for nine months in 2019 following Snyder’s felony conviction on public corruption charges.
Logansport: Rematch between Mayor Davis, Kitchell
Two very different celebrations took place Tuesday evening as election results rolled in. At Logansport Skate World and Fun Center, Mayor Chris Martin celebrated his win in the Republican mayoral primary as music pounded against the walls and kids raced around on roller skates. At Amelio’s, a more subdued celebration was happening over dinner. Former Mayor Dave Kitchell was announced as winner of the Democratic mayoral primary (Logansport Pharos-Tribune). The results set up a rematch between Martin and Kitchell in the November election. The two could be joined by independent candidates, who have until July 15 to submit signatures and paperwork. Martin hopped up on a counter to talk to his supporters after the results were read. “I’m only 5’3,” he said. “So I have to stand up here so you can all see me.” Martin had 475 votes to James McKeever’s 334. Martin thanked his supporters for all they had contributed during the primary campaign. “We put in the legwork,” he said. “But you put in the legwork elsewhere. We can’t thank you enough for doing just that.” Kitchell overcame a challenge from three other primary participants for the opportunity to regain the mayor’s office after losing to Martin in 2019. Kitchell received 206 votes followed by Terry Doran with 162 votes and Jacob LeDonne with 107 votes. Larry Hood had 52 votes. “I think anybody in this situation feels relieved when you’ve been through a tough race like this,” he said. Kitchell said the Democratic primary was a very clean race between all of the participants. “I think we kept it above board,” he said. “We weren’t vicious to one another. I feel good about it. I have no regrets how we treated each other.”
South Bend: Mayor Mueller defeats Davis
South Bend Mayor James Mueller not only won his primary election challenge with 68%, he won the equivalent of a political parlay (WNDU-TV). Mueller backed six council candidates and one candidate for city clerk and billed them as “Team South Bend.” Every single one of his picks won. “This is something we’ve known, and I feel it, as someone who is 40 years old, born and raised in South Bend, this is the best time to be mayor of South Bend in my lifetime because for many, for most of my lifetime we are figuring out how do we turn the corner. Now we’ve turned the corner and we have all these opportunities in front of us to take advantage of.” Mueller found it particularly rewarding that given four years ago, voters put their faith in a 30-something unknown, who won the endorsement of Pete Buttigieg.
Michigan City Council President Angie Nelson Deuitch (Credit: Deuitch campaign)
Michigan City: Deuitch wins Dem nod
Michigan City Council President Angie Nelson Deuitch won the Michigan City Democratic mayoral nomination. Deuitch had 1,434 votes for 51%, while LaPorte County Councilman Mark S. Yagelski had 482 (17%), former Mayor Ron Meer had 406 (15%), Johnny Stimley had 404 (14%) and Michael Mack had 70 (3%). Mayor Duane Parry won the GOP nomination. In 2019 he upset Meer after criminal charges had been filed against him. Parry also faced misdemeanor charges following an accident in a city vehicle in 2022. He was charged with leaving the scene of an accident.
New Albany: Mayor Gahan wins with 79%
Incumbent Jeff Gahan defeated challenger Dylan Rash in Tuesday’s Democratic primary for New Albany mayor (News & Tribune). Gahan received a little more than 79% of the vote, garnering 1,213 votes to Rash’s 322. Gahan, who is seeking his fourth term as New Albany mayor, advances to face Republican Ed Clere in the November general election. Clere was unopposed in the primary. Turnout was low for the municipal primary with few contested races. There were 2,258 ballots cast out of 25,949 registered municipal voters, a turnout of 8.70% according to the unofficial results from the Floyd County Clerk’s Office.
Lawrence: Whitfield wins Dem primary
Lawrence Common Councilmember At-Large Deborah Whitfield won the Democratic Primary for mayor of Lawrence and will face Republican Dave Hofmann. If elected in November, she will be the first African-American mayor in the city’s history (Howey Politics Indiana). “It is an honor to have earned the trust and support of so many voters in our city,” Whitfield said. “When I announced I would run for Mayor over a year ago, I set on a journey to visit all corners of our city and gather feedback directly from our residents. What I’ve learned has laid the foundation for what this campaign is about—standing up for ALL residents of Lawrence, no matter what neighborhood they live in. It’s important to me that everyone has a voice in local government, and I will continue to work hard for all of my neighbors in the city of Lawrence.” Marion County GOP Chairman Joe Elsener said, “In Dave Hofmann, the City of Lawrence has the only candidate prepared to continue Mayor Steve Collier’s legacy of putting policy over politics. The City of Lawrence stands as a testament to the value of strong leadership in a county that has been mismanaged by Democrats for the past eight years. We look forward to Dave’s campaign as he takes the message to voters and continues Lawrence’s upward trajectory of being one of the best cities in the Midwest to live, work and raise a family.”
Governor
McCormick to make announcement
Jennifer McCormick (D) announces a run for Indiana governor on May 4, 2023. (Credit: Jennifer McCormick campaign/YouTube)
Democrat Jennifer McCormick will kick off her gubernatorial campaign at 10 a.m. today in New Castle. In a YouTube video, she said, “Let me introduce myself: My name is Jennifer McCormick. I grew up on a small family farm in New Castle. My community was full of spirit and support, and the public school was the community’s front porch. Neighborhoods were filled with kids, and families had an opportunity to thrive. Yet, as good-paying jobs left my community, I saw families, small businesses, schools, and local infrastructure suffer. I spent a decade as a special education and language arts teacher before becoming a public school principal and superintendent for nearly 15 years. In 2016, I successfully ran for state superintendent of public instruction to be a champion for Hoosier kids. As state superintendent, I took on politics that were negatively impacting our schools and fought for what was right for kids, teachers, and parents. Now, I’m running for governor of Indiana because it’s time to put Hoosiers first. I will bring common sense and bipartisanship back to the statehouse. I’ve already proved I will stand up to out-of-touch policies that are destroying public education, stripping Hoosiers of their rights and freedoms, and leaving rural communities behind.” She is the first Democrat to declare, though Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. has told HPI he intends to run. U.S. Sen. Mike Braun, Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch and Eric Doden have declared for the GOP nomination.
Libertarian Rainwater announces
Libertarian Donald Rainwater announced his intention to run for governor in 2024 after netting a historic 11.4% in the 2020 gubernatorial election as a third-party candidate (Downard, Capital Chronicle). Running again as a Libertarian, Rainwater vowed to focus on education, tax and administrative reform in an announcement on his website, which followed his Friday declaration to run on WIBC’s “The Kendall and Casey Show.” Rainwater said the purpose of government is to protect people’s rights and provide a system of justice but that “Hoosiers don’t need the government to run their lives.”
Presidential 2024
Trump leads DeSantis by 36%
Former President Donald Trump, who’s running to return to the White House in 2024, now leads Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), a possible contender who hasn’t yet declared a 2024 bid, by 36 points in a new poll of Republican primary voters. A CBS News-YouGov poll released Monday found Trump at the head of a hypothetical GOP primary field with 58% of the vote, followed by DeSantis with 22%. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) and conservative entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who have launched official bids for the Republican nomination, earned just 4% and 5%, respectively. Mike Pence, who hasn’t yet said whether he’s running, also earned 5%.
Header Image: Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett at Municipal Gardens on primary day, May 2, 2023, in Indianapolis. Incumbent Hogsett won the Democratic primary and will face Republican Jefferson Shreve in November. (Credit: Joe Hogsett/Twitter)
Congressman completes statewide tour, posts $1.3M; Democrats try to convince Donnelly to come back
INDIANAPOLIS — It’s early – still more than a year before the Indiana U.S. Senate primary – and yet it seems late as Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Banks appears to be coalescing significant support and resources as the only announced candidate.
Late last week, Banks announced that he raised over $1.3 million in his first quarter Federal Election Commission (FEC) report. This includes over $1.2 million in direct campaign contributions and more than $100,000 from authorized Joint Fundraising Committees. Banks announced his Senate race in January and the campaign has over $226 million cash on hand.
“My family and I have been overwhelmed and honored by the outpouring of support from strong conservatives dedicated to making sure the next senator that represents Indiana in Washington is a strong conservative who won’t back down,” Banks said. “I am grateful for the generous donations and grassroots support we have received, and we’re just getting started.”
The Columbia City Republican also completed his “Only In America” statewide tour this past week, traveling from Goshen to Evansville and a dozen points between. “Only in America can the son of a factory worker and nursing home cook grow up to become a congressman and hopefully the next conservative senator for the state of Indiana. I am running for the Senate to protect the freedoms and opportunities that allowed me to live the American dream for my daughters and for future generations.”
U.S. Rep. Jim Banks (Credit: U.S. Government)
Teaming up with Club For Growth’s David McIntosh, Banks launched a preemptive strike at former Indiana governor and Purdue president Mitch Daniels last January, designed to keep him out of the race. Daniels opted not to run, saying that he couldn’t convince himself that running and serving in the U.S. Senate for the next eight years was a good life option.
Now Banks awaits the end of the General Assembly biennial budget session, which is expected to unleash a barrage of congressional candidates in the open 3rd and 5th CDs. And, perhaps, the biggest threat to his nomination – whether there will be a second Senate run by Gov. Eric Holcomb – will be answered.
Holcomb, who was running for the Senate when Gov. Mike Pence chose him to replace Lt. Gov. Sue Ellspermann in March 2016, said in December, “We’ve got a long session, January through April, and we’ve gotta win that race, first and foremost. There’ll be time for me to think about the future in the future. But it would be next to irresponsible for me to take my eye off the job that I’ve got.”
As for Democrats, there has been almost no activity. Speculation has centered on whether U.S. Ambassador Joe Donnelly, who raised more than $18 million in his 2018 loss to Republican U.S Sen. Mike Braun, might seek a comeback. Another credible name to watch includes Indiana Democratic Chairman Mike Schmuhl, who managed Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential campaign that raised more than $100 million. Beyond Donnelly and Schmuhl, Hoosier Democrats have a limited bench with the ability to raise big bucks. The only one to express interest in the race is Indianapolis Councilor Keith Potts.
Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr., who lost to U.S. Sen. Todd Young in 2022, castigated former White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain on his “Left of Center” podcast in March, after the latter said he was uninterested in running for the Senate. “Neither you nor the national Dems lifted a finger to help any Hoosier Dem win in the last election cycle. We have a major problem in Indiana, and I don’t see anything being done to fix it. Nothing. Democrats had a good 2022 across the county. In Indiana, we got shelled. Of course, we had no help whatsoever from Washington, D.C. We were completely on our own.”
In December, McDermott told HPI that it’s becoming almost impossible to run for the Senate without being a self-funder.
On Tuesday, HPI conducted this interview with Banks:
What did you learn on your statewide tour across the state?
We’re off to a great start. I know there’s a long way to go so I’m not taking anything for granted. Support and the response statewide so far has been very strong. There’s been an overwhelming number of endorsements from state legislators, county chairs, and grassroots leaders. I’ve spoken to a couple of dozen Republican Lincoln Days, and county party events throughout the state, and the response has been very strong. Hoosier Republicans are looking for a strong conservative to send to the Senate to replace Sen. Braun. I’m excited about where we stand but I know there’s a long ways to go.
Are you hearing about any other potential Republican candidates getting in?
Rep. Jim Banks visits with state Rep. Chuck Goodrich at Gaylor Electric in Noblesville, Indiana. Goodrich is expected to seek the 5th CD Republication nomination. (Credit: Rep. Jim Banks/Twitter)
It’s been a long time since we’ve heard rumored names. I fully expect others getting in on both sides. I’m not taking that for granted, but so far we’ve been able to consolidate support and bring different factions of the Republican Party together. We believe that’s the key to victory in this race, to continue to unify Republicans. So far we’ve been able to do that in a way Republicans from around the country are looking at and seeing how they can replicate.
Have you had any conversations with Gov. Holcomb and do you think he may consider jumping in?
I don’t know. Gov. Holcomb is a long-time friend. I don’t know what his next move will be. He’s busy wrapping up the legislative session. I really have no idea what comes next for him. We wish him well.
Your relationship with Gov. Holcomb goes back to the days on Congressman John Hostettler’s staff, right?
Yes. Good memory. As a College Republican at IU and a part of that old Hostettler organization, we worked together a long time ago. It’s been fun to watch him rise to where he is and I don’t know what comes next for him, but I wish him well. I look forward to hearing what he’s going to do next.
Who are the Democrats you’re hearing about possibly running?
Honestly, I haven’t heard any names specifically at this point. We’ve been so focused on unifying the Republican Party base and meeting with local party chairs on the Republican side. That’s been our focus. I’ll focus on the general election after we get through next May. I’ve got my head down doing my job on Capitol Hill as a representative and focused on the Republican primary next May and building support in the state.
Do you think there’s a chance Democrats may opt to do what they did in 2006 when Sen. Lugar was up for reelection, which is to not field a candidate in order to have resources for other statewide races?
I was talking to a long-time member of the Lugar team over breakfast a couple of days ago in Indianapolis and was recounting when Sen. Lugar didn’t have an opponent. This is an open seat and that would be unprecedented for the Democrats not to put somebody on the ballot. I don’t take that for granted. I mean, it’s almost a year before the filing deadline and we’re about to kick off the next phase of the campaign which is the petition drive that will start in the next few weeks, when the petitions are released after the legislative session ends. We have already built a statewide grassroots organization in the style of those old Hostettler campaigns. We have district and county coordinators identified all over the state to help us carry out that petition drive. I have 34 state legislators who have endorsed me and that list is growing. There are dozens of county chairs and party leaders around the state on board.
Rep. Jim Banks with Vanderburgh County Commissioner Cheryl Musgrave, who is running for mayor of Evansville, Indiana. (Credit: Rep. Jim Banks/Twitter)
How much money will spill into this race if there’s a competitive Democrat? We’ve watched Senate races go from $7 million or $8 million during the Dan Coats era to $110 million in 2018.
It’s hard for me to answer that question. We raised $1.2 million in the first quarter, I’ve got $2.25 million in campaign committee. It’s hard to say what it would take for a Democrat. I’m focused on winning the primary and that’s going to be a $7 million to $10 million goal for our campaign to raise for the primary. If I don’t have a primary opponent that means more resources to use in the general. Of course, we’re hoping for that. (Hammond Mayor Tom) McDermott barely broke $1 million in a race last time and, obviously, it’s going to take more for the Democrats than that.
As you crisscrossed the state, what are the issues you’re hearing from Hoosiers that mean the most?
Voters have a sense that our country is falling apart, failed by the current leadership in the White House, and both parties who have sold out our economy to China. Voters are concerned about that threat from outside and the threat of wokeism and the coming apart of our American traditional values at home, and the internal threats. They’re looking for leaders to step up and fight back. They’re drawn to my message of being a conservative leader and fighter in the House and looking for more of that leadership in the Senate.
On the gun issue, Mike Pence came out advocating having an armed officer in every school. Do you agree with that?
I absolutely agree we should be funneling more resources … to more adequately secure our schools. At the state level when I was at the Statehouse, to the federal level I’ve sponsored and co-sponsored a number of bills that would provide more resources to schools to do just that, with a greater focus on security. I would support that platform of the former vice president to do that. That is absolutely necessary and important and I will do everything I can to fulfill that goal of providing armed security, greater security in our schools. I’ve visited with school administrators from across the state and I hear from them often about different ways to secure our schools. I want to be a part of any solution to provide those resources.
Are you backing Donald Trump officially in the 2024 presidential race? Or are you open to seeing how Mike Pence does?
Former President Donald Trump and Rep. Jim Banks. (Credit: Rep. Jim Banks/Facebook)
President Trump was a strong president, and, as you know, he endorsed me from the outset. He’s been very supportive of me; he’s my preference in the primary race. There’s a growing field of candidates who are running. I was with the former president when he was in Indiana on Friday and he’s been very helpful to me and I appreciate his support. He’s my preference in the presidential race.
So here’s my loaded question, which is, when Donald Trump calls for the “termination” of the U.S. Constitution to return to office, how do you square that?
Look, Donald Trump is running through the constitutional election process of our country to become president again. The Republican primary will determine who’s our candidate. I expect Joe Biden to be the Democrat candidate. There are other great Republicans in the field who have a chance to make their case and campaign for the Republican nomination and I think there’s a reason Donald Trump is substantially leading just about any poll you can find because the Republican Party is looking for a fighter in the White House who is going to fight back against the woke left. I’m enjoying the support I have in the Senate race, too. That’s what Republican voters are looking for.
If there are other indictments of Donald Trump in Georgia, or the Mar-a-Lago document case, would you reevaluate your support?
Only in that those political witch-hunts aimed at the former president strengthen him, perhaps that would embolden my support even more.
Brian Howey is managing editor of Howey Politics Indiana/State Affairs at StateAffairs.com/pro/Indiana. Find Howey on Facebook and Twitter@hwypol.
Header image: Rep. Jim Banks speaks during National Police Week at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on May 12, 2022. (Credit: Rep. Jim Banks/Facebook)
INDIANAPOLIS — The Indiana Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling any day now on the constitutionality of SEA 1, the abortion restrictions bill passed in a special session of the Indiana Legislature last August by towering Republican supermajorities.
SEA1 replaced the state’s 22-week abortion ban with a near-total ban. There are exceptions if the woman’s life is in danger and in cases of rape or incest up to 10 weeks gestation.
According to the Indiana Lawyer, the case of Members of the Medical Licensing Board of Indiana, et al. v. Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai’i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky, Inc., et al., 22S-PL-338, focuses on one central question: Does Article 1, Section 1 of the Indiana Constitution protect the right to an abortion? In September 2022, a trial court judge essentially answered that question with a “no” when she enjoined SEA 1. SEA 1 allows abortions only in cases of rape and incest within certain time limits, fatal fetal anomaly or to protect the health of the mother. One week after the law took effect, Special Judge Kelsey Hanlon determined it violated Article 1, Section 1, which includes a right to “liberty.”
There was a second challenge to SEA 1 on religious freedom grounds. In that case, the Marion Superior Court struck down the law as a violation of the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, so the state is once again seeking an emergency transfer to the Supreme Court (Indiana Lawyer).
Should the Supreme Court strike down that law, returning the state to a 22-week gestation, that will prompt calls from pro-life proponents to come back this summer to pass a new law. Other states have opted for 15 weeks and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has proposed and promised to sign a six-week law. And the more radical wing is eying the Texas case where a federal judge ruled that the FDA had overstepped its authority in approving the medical abortion medication mifepristone.
Informed and reliable sources tell Howey Politics Indiana that the restive pro-life advocates in both House and Senate majority caucuses are pushing for an adjournment on April 29, instead of Sine Die, similar to what occurred in 2022, paving the way for last summer’s special session. These sources say that should the Supreme Court strike down any part of SEA 1, this would allow them to come back this summer to make changes.
One source told HPI that there has been “no discussion at leadership level yet.”
But should that scenario play out, Hoosier Republicans could find themselves venturing out onto the proverbial limb, or a bridge too far. Since the U.S. Supreme Court repealed Roe with its Dobbs Mississippi decision in June 2022, pro-abortion rights ballot measures have passed in six states. These include the ruby red states of Kansas (with 59% of the vote), Montana (53%) and Kentucky (52%). Neighboring Michigan approved its measure with 57%.
The latest penultimate thunderclap occurred last week in Wisconsin, with liberal state Supreme Court justice candidate Janet Protasiewicz winning a stunning 11% blowout victory. Wisconsin has been one of the “blue wall” states that Donald Trump won by less than 1% in 2016 and President Biden won by a virtual equal margin in 2020. Politico reported that 2022 mid-term election exit polling revealed 63% of voters said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 34% thought it should be illegal in most cases.
Hoosier Republicans are feeling impervious on this issue due to the gerrymandered maps they drew and Gov. Eric Holcomb signed in 2021 that have maintained House and Senate supermajorities for a historic fifth consecutive election cycle.
While Democrats picked up a new suburban seat in Hamilton County (State Rep. Victoria Garcia-Wilburn’s win in HD32) and Rep. Kyle Miller in Fort Wayne’s HD82, they saw Democrat Rep. Terri Austin upset by Kyle Pierce, and lost a Bloomington area “blue seat,” HD62. They almost lost state Rep. Rita Fleming, who became the national face of the Indiana Democratic Party during last summer’s special session. In the Senate, Republican Dan Dernulc upset Democrat state Sen. Michael Griffin in Lake County, while Democrats picked up SD46, which moved from Southern Indiana to Indianapolis.
Indiana Right to Life CEO Mike Fichter noted that not one legislator who voted for SEA1 lost in 2022. “In spite of predictions by some pundits and pollsters that Indiana went too far in its approach to protecting unborn children, yesterday’s election results serve as a reminder that Indiana is a pro-life state,” Fichter said the day after the election. “We look forward to even greater opportunities to show Indiana is a state that cares for pregnant mothers and their babies.”
Hundreds gather in Monument Circle in downtown Indianapolis on May 4, 2022, to rally for and against abortion rights. (Credit: Dominic/Wikimedia Commons)
These election results came before the Ball State University Bowen Center poll released last December that revealed 56.7% believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Most Hoosiers – more than 76% – found abortion to be an important or at least somewhat important issue. Hoosier voters were almost evenly split on whether they would vote for a candidate that has a different stance on this issue, with 48% saying they would not and 52% saying they would or might still vote for such a candidate.
Influential LaPorte Democrat Shaw Friedman told HPI after the 2022 election, “Keep in mind that in other parts of the country where election deniers and anti-choice extremists were beaten, it was because they were effective foils to run against. These Trump-recruited and -backed candidates made for effective targets useful to mobilize a D base. Here, early voting and Election Day turnout from D’s was down because in the two most highly visible R’s – Eric Holcomb and Todd Young – you had relatively moderate R’s who don’t scare people. Neither one is a fringe election denier and certainly neither one has come out for a nationwide ban on abortions. The states where extreme R’s were active and visible afforded reason to boost D turnout.”
Since the Wisconsin blowout, The New York Times has characterized the GOP heading for an abortion issue “cul de sac,” Politico reported that “conservatives are finding out the hard way that abortion isn’t a 50-50 issue anymore” and the Cook Political Report’s Amy Walter reported, “Democrats are happily watching from the sidelines as the Republican Party continues to be defined by two issues that turn off swing voters: Donald Trump and abortion.”
Walter observed: “Both sides acknowledge that it remains a serious liability for the GOP in swing states. The victory of Wisconsin Supreme Court liberal candidate Janet Protasiewicz only served to validate those concerns. Given these results, it’s easy to understand why Democrats are eagerly watching potential GOP presidential candidate Gov. Ron DeSantis support a Florida bill that would limit abortion to the first 6-weeks of pregnancy. A KFF poll taken last fall found that a majority of Americans (59%) oppose this measure.”
Conservative commentator Charlie Sykes, writing in The Bulwark, said earlier this week, “Many Republicans are trapped by their base. They no longer have appeal to swing voters.”
The new realities may be settling in. TheNew York Times reported that RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has been showing polling to members of her party demonstrating that Americans largely accept abortion up to 15 weeks into a pregnancy and support exceptions (rape, incest, life of the mother) that had been the pre-Dobbs line of demarcation.
“If we can show that we care just a little bit, that we have some compassion, we can show the country our policies are reasonable, but because we keep going down these rabbit holes of extremism, we’re just going to keep losing,” said U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., who has repeatedly called for more flexibility on first-term abortions and exceptions for rape, incest and the life and health of the mother (New York Times). “I’m beside myself that I’m the only person who takes this stance.”
Dan O’Donnell, a conservative radio host in Wisconsin, observed for the MacIver Institute, “Abortion is now a primary driver of young voters, who fear that an unplanned pregnancy could derail their life’s plans. Fear is quite possibly the single greatest motivator, and the fear that ‘women’s rights’ could be trampled (by a man, no less) motivated a voter base already whipped into a frenzy following the repeal of Roe. For nearly 50 years, Americans were accustomed to the idea of legal abortions even if the thought of ever personally having a child aborted was something they could never abide. As difficult as this may be to come to grips with, Republicans are on the wrong side politically of an issue that they are clearly on the right side of morally.”
Pollster Kellyanne Conway told Fox News, “I think we got some work to do on the young people who think differently on abortion perhaps, guns or climate change.” Conway noted that while most Americans (53%) say medication abortion should be legal, 66% of Americans ages 18-29 say it should be legal compared to the 12% that say it should be illegal, according to Pew Research Center. Conway also said she’s concerned the left is becoming a “turnout machine” with young voters because of the Biden administration’s use of influencers. “Influencers have this domino effect, lemming-like effect of people just all…wanting to be part of the same crowd,” Conway said.
Then came the federal court rulings over mifepristone from Amarillo by U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk and Washington state last Friday.
Axios reported on Tuesday: “Top Republicans are in a state of paralysis over abortion, watching – with one eye on the 2024 ballot box – as a cascade of new restrictions threatens to dig the party into a political hole. The Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade last summer was a huge victory for the GOP. But the backlash to new abortion restrictions has been furious – and could box Republicans into defending rigid, unpopular policies in next year’s elections. That backlash already helped drive Democrats’ over-performance in November’s midterms – and their landslide victory in last week’s Wisconsin Supreme Court race, a campaign that focused squarely on abortion rights.”
“The GOP’s political headaches over abortion aren’t going away – especially with prolonged media coverage of the mifepristone legal fight, and a wave of unpopular new abortion restrictions coming at the state level,” said Mike Allen of Axios.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board observed on Monday: “Abortion has been a political gift to Democrats that they want to keep giving, which explains why they sounded almost gleefully furious on Friday after a Texas federal judge overruled the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion pill mifepristone. A conflicting order by another lower court issued the same day means the issue could be headed to the Supreme Court. The Court’s Dobbs decision last summer handed abortion regulation to the states, but many on the anti-abortion right and abortion-rights left are trying to nationalize it again via the courts. The justices in Dobbs sought to extricate themselves from regulating abortion, but partisans on both sides don’t want to let them.”
Worth noting is that former Vice President and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence was the sole potential 2024 presidential candidate to issue a statement praising the Amarillo ruling, calling the FDA’s approval of the drug a “20-year wrong.”
Brian Howey is managing editor of Howey Politics Indiana/State Affairs at StateAffairs.com/pro/Indiana. Find Howey on Facebook and Twitter @hwypol.
Header Image: People rally for abortion rights and march through downtown Chicago on May 7, 2022. (Credit: SHYCITYNikon/Flickr)
INDIANAPOLIS — The mammoth NFL gridiron sprawling out across this city’s southern flank has long been called “the house that Peyton Manning built,” a tribute to the Hall of Fame Colts quarterback. But it was a man who stood nearly a foot shorter and, perhaps, 75 pounds lighter, who really was responsible for building Lucas Oil Stadium.
Gov. Mitch Daniels had campaigned on a 70-plus point agenda when he defeated Gov. Joe Kernan in 2004. By the time he took office, the capital city was at loggerheads with the Colts, the NFL, and the General Assembly over building a new stadium. There was no funding mechanism in place. The team, it appeared, would be headed to Los Angeles.
Mayor Bart Peterson and his team approached the new governor. “They came to see me, asking if could we pull it off, could we do it,” Daniels told Howey Politics Indiana in a February interview. “Having looked at it, we thought it was in the broad public interest. It’s always important to point out to people that 90-plus percent of the events were not Colts games. We wouldn’t have built a stadium just for the football team, much as I love the Colts. But it was the convention business and the almost year-round revenue that made it a real good idea.”
The Daniels team focused at first on a 2% restaurant tax, but the city already had a 1% tax and a 2% difference with its neighboring counties was deemed unacceptable. “So that’s why we decided to talk to the surrounding counties,” Daniels said. “We finally worked out a proposal where after it was paid and we knew this would be more than enough to cover it, they would share in the overage.”
Two audacious strategies emerged. The first was to convene county officials from the doughnut counties to make a pitch from out of left field. The second would be to use the new governor’s nascent political capital to make the sale, sans Peterson and General Assembly leaders.
“In one of the most interesting moments in the entire eight years, I invited the county-elected officials, commissioners, county counselors from the doughnut to a confidential meeting at the Governor’s Residence,” Daniels said.
Gov. Eric Holcomb, who was Daniels’ deputy chief of staff at the time, told HPI in January, “We were there. We got criticized for breaking the Open Door Law because we had every county commissioner there and politely pointed out every single commissioner was a Republican.”
Gov. Daniels at a town forum on his stadium tour at Golden Corral in Shelbyville. (Credit: HPI Photo by Brian A. Howey)
Daniels explained, “It happened that they were all Republicans at that time. That was crucial, because then the meeting could be held in confidence and not in public. This thing would never have happened; you’d have no stadium, no convention expansion and no Colts, probably, if that meeting had been held out in the open. Anyway, we had that meeting. We showed them a lot of data, how many people from their counties worked downtown, worked in hospitality, how many hotel rooms in their county filled up during conventions or even games. And then we said, ‘Go to separate corners here, and tell us whether you can help us with this.’
“All but one county did,” Daniels explained.
That set the stage for the rookie governor to make the case for a tax increase in the doughnut counties to pay for a downtown Indianapolis NFL stadium. Daniels showed up at a Golden Corral in Shelbyville, the Hamilton County Council chambers, as well as stops in Greenfield, Lebanon and the three other counties.
In Lebanon, Daniels politely accepted a question from a Boone County man wearing a green “My Man Bitch” tee shirt and earnestly answered. It was the kind of moment that would have made other governor handlers cringe and steadfastly avoid. Gov. Atlas just shrugged.
The Greenfield Daily Reporter’s headline read “Don’t force-feed food tax, citizens warn governor,” and its lead story began “A vocal group of Hancock County residents told Gov. Mitch Daniels Monday they object to a 1% food and beverage tax being shoved down their throats.”
Appearing before a standing-room-only crowd in the Hamilton County Council chambers (complete with the motto in gold letters: “That government is best that governs least”) after he made his case, the capacity throng rose to give him a standing ovation. The anti-stadium crowd was, in this writer’s estimation, about a quarter. In Shelbyville, when a man asked the 80 people gathered whether they supported the tax and stadium, the result was virtually unanimous against it.
After Daniels appeared in Noblesville, Hamilton County Council President John Hiatt said he had initial misgivings about the proposal, saying feedback from the public had been 50-50. “I was on the fence before tonight, but I’ll probably vote for it,” he told the Noblesville Daily Times. Commissioner Christine Altman agreed. “He opened it up to all the questions, he addressed all the issues, and I was just very impressed,” she said.
When it was all said and done, all but Shelby County approved of the plan. Lucas Oil Stadium was built (with the state in control), with the Colts (and Peyton Manning) staying put. “The point is, after all the consternation, on the back side of that we had a great venue, a new convention center, all that new business and we had a Super Bowl, and we kept the Colts,” Daniels said. “And, believe me, without that process, that doesn’t happen. I’ve told people over the years, here’s one of the untold stories.”
In the June 9, 2005, edition of HPI, this was the observation: “The people loved this governor coming to their hometowns to sell and defend something that would have been unfathomable in times gone by. Many of them didn’t agree with him on the tax hikes. But few were rolling their eyes or spewing under their breath as they left. The press found this to be a spectacle, a Republican governor going to seven base counties selling tax hikes he agreed to after legislative Republicans cut off the options. There is no doubt the governor has some real gonads. But it was striking that legislative leaders who brought this spectacle on were missing. It wasn’t too long ago that legislative leaders would have leaped at the chance of sharing the limelight with their governor. Perhaps they thought the doughnut kitchen during Gov. Daniels’ salad days would be too damn hot.”
Daniels always had a savvy grip on history, and he reached for it often, whether it was Lincoln’s “mystic cords of memory” or China’s Chou En-Lai being asked if the French Revolution was a success. “Too soon to tell,” the Communist leader said.
It’s been a decade since Daniels exited the Statehouse. As we did in 2006 with the legacy of Gov. Evan Bayh, in 2013 with Gov. Frank O’Bannon and last week with Gov. Joe Kernan, it’s time to reassess the 49th governor’s legacy.
Gov. Daniels with Sen. Evan Bayh and Indiana House Speaker B. Patrick Bauer. (Credit: HPI Photo by Brian A. Howey).
In the Nov. 27, 2012, edition of HPI, it was observed: “By definition, the word ‘transformation’ is a thorough or dramatic change in form or appearance. In a political or policy context, the word is often used in association with war, revolution or economic crisis. And in the Hoosier experience, the word clashes with 196 years of stereotype: We are a conservative people, cautious, suspicious, resistant to change. Interrupting this history in key moments has been the transformational governor, almost always thrust into that role by the churning events of the day. As Hoosiers at the turn of this century, we have witnessed such a governor in Mitch Daniels Jr. Whether you regard him as a hero or adversary, few Hoosiers will dispute the notion that his eight years at the Indiana Statehouse have been impactful and have altered the trajectory of the state at a time when just about everything is changing on a global scale.”
HPI counts nine other Hoosier governors that fit the description of “transformational.” These include Govs. James Whitcomb and Joseph Wright in the middle of Indiana’s first century, with the bankruptcies of public works projects gone awry, prompting a new Constitution in 1851; the Civil War governor, Oliver P. Morton; Gov. James Putnam, who commenced the state’s highway system in 1917; Gov. Henry G. Leslie, who in 1928 had to clean up after the scandalous Ku Klux Klan takeover; and two governors – Thomas A. Marshall in 1909 and Paul McNutt in 1933 – who attempted to come to terms with the sprawl of bureaucracy over decades and challenged the status quo with a reform agenda. Marshall would go on to become vice president; McNutt would head the World War II era War Manpower Commission for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In the television age, Govs. Doc Bowen (property tax reform) and Robert Orr (education reform) stand the test of time.
A frenetic agenda
Anyone doubting this transformation would be dazed by the scope of the agenda of Daniels from the onset. “The wolf is not at the door,” Daniels intoned in his 2005 State of the State address eight days after taking office. “He is inside the cabin.” And he resorted to legendary CBS News pioneer Edward R. Murrow to help make his case: “Difficulty is the one excuse history never accepts.”
On his first day in office in 2005, Daniels ended collective bargaining rights for state employees by executive order. The governor was prepared to write checks on his political capital to install daylight saving time (which passed the Indiana House by a single vote), transform the Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV), spread charter schools, reorganize the Commerce Department into what would become the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC), expand full-day kindergarten, and boost classroom spending along with a 120-day moratorium on the issuance of any new school bonds.
Daniels would advise other leaders at Mackinac: “Do it early, do it fast, do it swiftly, and do it decisively. In the wisdom of the old country song, ‘If I’d shot you when I should’ve I’d be out of jail by now.’”
By March 2006, the IndyStar’s analysis blared an above-the-fold Page 1 headline: “Too Much, Too Fast? Many Hoosiers don’t like Daniels’ rush to make changes, The Star finds.”
His lease of the Indiana Toll Road that brought in $3.8 billion (and another $1 billion when it was renegotiated several years later) as well as his advocacy of daylight saving time, had pushed his approval rating below 40%. Two years later, Hoosier voters weighed in: He was reelected with 58% of the vote.
Holcomb, Goode and Johnston
In January HPI sat down with Holcomb; Earl Goode, who has served a dozen years as chief of staff to both the current governor and Daniels; and OMB Director Cris Johnston in the governor’s Statehouse office to get their take on the legacy of the Daniels administration.
“He changed the culture and we began to not just think big but act big,” Holcomb said. “He led the charge, but the culture of always trying to improve every single day, always competing, always putting the customer first – the customer being the citizen – always trying to build a record not to run on, but to be proud of. And I think that’s carried through and on to this very day. Gov. Daniels was so focused on leaning forward.”
Goode explained, “I would use two words: Change and pride. It took almost all eight years to begin to introduce change. But there was a lot of resistance, as you recall. Lots of resistance. In fact, I think his popularity numbers were below 30 for a little while. And the other was pride. I think certainly those of us that were part of that felt a lot of pride.”
“The things that the governor talked about: daylight saving time, the toll-road lease and so forth, are well known by most people that followed government,” Goode explained. “But to me, something’s very … very rarely talked about was the introduction … good government service. When we got here, most government services were provided through manual processes.”
Johnston, who headed Daniels’ government efficiency efforts, added that every state department had its own IT department. There were 10,000 state vehicles not in use, along with 22 aircraft. “He was relentless, saying, ‘We’re not slowing down.’ Every agenda included how we were going to sustain it,” Johnston said, adding that at one point Daniels admonished his staff: “Hiring a consultant is not a victory.”
“I had been gone from government and came back and I never heard anybody talk the way he did because he used really descriptive phrases and language,” Johnston continued. “When he talked about paying taxes, he talked of ‘coercion.’ He’d say, ‘We coerced money out of people’s pockets.’ On the spending side, he would say, ‘We have a solemn duty to spend it wisely.’ Whoever uses phrases like solemn duty? It got people’s attention. All the agency heads when they heard phrases like that: it made them think differently. I remember a time when we were getting tired of doing performance measures and our team was down-in-the-dumps tired, and he said, ‘We’ll never get a chance to do the big stuff if they don’t trust us with the small stuff.’ It just sort of lit the fire again.”
And he was a leader who listened. Daniels was planning to make an IEDC mission to Japan when torrential rains flooded the state. His communications director Jane Jankowski told him, “Governor, you will regret for the rest of your time as governor if you leave this state right now.” Goode recalled, “And to his credit, he was mad, but he listened and course-corrected. He turned out to be the hero that week. He was every place with Gen. Umbarger, all over the state. As involved as he was, he also trusted people. You had to earn his trust, but once he trusted you, he let you do your thing. That’s important for a leader.”
Here are how some of the major issues under Daniels stack up after a decade.
‘Major Moves’
The $3.8 billion toll-road lease was a masterstroke, helping the state forge I-69 from Indianapolis to Evansville (it’s expected to be completed in 2025), the U.S. 31 freeway from Indy to South Bend, and a new East End Ohio River bridge between Jeffersonville and Louisville. When the original lessors went bankrupt, Holcomb renegotiated the deal for another $1 billion in 2018. Of that extra billion, $600 million would go toward speeding up the completion of I-69; $190 million would go to projects on U.S. Routes 20, 30 and 31; $20 million would go toward luring new direct flight routes to the state; $90 million to improve or build hiking and biking trails, and $100 million to increase rural broadband access.
Holcomb said in January, “The bigger point of ‘Major Moves’ was a lot of people said, ‘You can’t do that. It’s never been done that way.’ It took a whole difference and independence to be able to say, ‘No, what’s really going to be best for the consumer, is the motorist putting the safety efficiency modernization and so not beholden to any relic of the past that you’re not necessarily proud of in terms of your heritage. Triple-A credit ratings might not last. Education reform may or may not last. But those roads and bridges will be there for 100 years. Look at how we’re building the East End Bridge over the Ohio (River). It’s going to get built faster and cheaper and it will be built on someone else’s capital because there’s not enough gas tax money right now.”
Daniels said in June, “Who spent more time stuck in a car on 31 than Pat Bauer? There are so many things we did, and honest people can differ, I suppose, but if people had any doubt about it what a success that is, everybody outside of Indiana knows; it won every award. It was found money. Not a penny of interest, not a penny of spending, and not a penny of taxes to build billions of dollars of infrastructure and get a much better toll road out of it, by the way. A great example, I hear from them quite often; you know River Ridge down in Jeffersonville? It’s booming. People down there said for years that if ever we could get a bridge built so the through traffic could go around, so many people would like to put their business right there. That’s probably as clear an example as I can give you.”
Johnston added, “The Bond Buyer is a newsletter that comes out daily for the public finance industry and there was a conference on infrastructure and they call it asset recycling. Right? Taking the proceeds of an asset and not using it for other purposes or just supporting your budget, but putting it back into infrastructure. And at this conference, they asked about the different P3 transactions and they commented that if there was a gold standard, it was an Indiana model because it was put back into infrastructure and then it also had the ability to recycle again as the governor said, with the billion dollars in 2018.”
Education reforms
Gov. Daniels with a young girl. (Credit: HPI Photo).
After Republicans regained the House majority in 2010 (after four years), Daniels pushed for sprawling reforms in 2011. Prior to that, he said, “We tried to move money from capital (accounts) into the classroom. We got some of that done. We took the Taj Mahal architecture that we managed to stop. I mentioned social promotion; you mentioned full-day kindergarten. The bill protected teachers who were keeping order in the classroom so they couldn’t be sued. We tried to do something every year to strengthen education. When you get to ’11, there were things that we had not been able to do that we then could. You may want to check this, but (Speaker) Todd Huston told me recently that between 20 and 25% of all the kids in Indiana are in some sort of choice environment. That could be changing from one public school to another.”
Daniels moved to change the school funding formula. “We finally hit on what was really a simpler system, which was to pick up certain costs entirely,” he said in a Howey Politics Indiana Interview last June. “Like we picked up child protection and brought it to the state level. It was a big cost on local property taxes that is no longer there. The other big one was K-12 operating. The effect was once the localities were no longer taxing for operating, they had no basis to charge a kid tuition for coming across the (district) line. It depopulated some – I’m not picking on them but the Anderson school system for example – and suddenly Lapel and Pendleton and places like that were stronger. I was just as happy with that, what I call public school choice, as I was about opening up charter school opportunities as the vouchers. It’s all about just giving people that option. I believe competition, as many have always claimed, improved the quality of public schools over time. They worked to attract and keep students.”
On the expansion of full-day kindergarten, Daniels said, “I hope it was positive. It was certainly the right thing to do. We were happy to do it. As you remember so well, half our time we had a divided legislature. I was always looking for things we could get an agreement across the aisle and that was one. The Democrats had been more committed to it than the Republicans historically, so I was really pleased just from that standpoint it had to be positive. I don’t know if we can measure it. Maybe somebody has. There is just no doubt in my mind that was an important step to take.”
Daniels missed out on one top priority, moving the elected superintendent of public instruction to a gubernatorial appointment. “I think the biggest single failure of our time – so ironic – was not getting the superintendent of public instruction to be an appointed job,” Daniels said in June. “It appeared in the party platform of both parties in 2004. It was just a good government thing. Public education being over half the budget, it just makes sense that an elected governor is aligned with whoever is implementing it. It’s the one thing that both political parties agreed on that didn’t get done. In all honesty, (Senate President Pro Tem) Bob Garton didn’t want to do it, he was protecting (Supt.) Suellen (Reed), maybe. We were doing so much that first year or two. They said, ‘We’ll do it next time.’ Then it was an election year. There was always a reason and we didn’t get it done.” Holcomb finally signed legislation and appointed Katie Jenner Ph.D. to the new position of education secretary.
Higher education
The week before HPI’s interview with Daniels at his Purdue Hovde Hall office, new data showed that college enrollment had fallen from 64% of eligible students to 53%. His letter to the Purdue Community last winter asked “where are all the men?”
As Ball State economist and HPI columnist Michael Hicks Ph.D. observed: “The iconic achievement of the Daniels years was school reform. The combination of limited private school vouchers, expanded authority to start charter schools and sending funding with student transfers was a huge policy achievement. It did exactly what school choice reformers wanted – it forced local public schools to compete for students on quality. Schools responded so effectively that today a higher share of Hoosier students attend local public schools than they did before the Daniels reforms. When Daniels left office, nearly 64% of high school students pursued post-secondary education. Today, that number is 53%, among the very worst in the nation. All of this decline has come in attendance at Indiana’s public universities.”
“The decline didn’t start with COVID. It’s a 10-to-12-year decline and Indiana has not been immune to it,” Daniels said. “The number of students going to college has gone down; the percentage of students choosing college has gone down. There’s been a big drop in the last couple of years. COVID accelerated a lot of other things and accelerated this. I think the combination of cost alone has deterred people. All of those things have come together but I think we were all stunned by the degree of the drop. It was one thing to trickle down from the high 60s, but then to drop 8% all at once.”
Personal income
An initial goal of the Daniels administration had been to raise personal income. Is Daniels satisfied with how that turned out? “Well, no. I think it’s been misrepresented in a few ways,” he said at Hovde Hall. “We got more people working, but these are per capita figures. Sometimes they don’t adjust for cost of living, which is so much lower here. Your dollar goes a lot farther here than a lot of other places. So many other places are pricing themselves out of the market, so to speak. Nobody thought that was a 10-year or even 20-year project. A two-earner family, when you’re at 2% unemployment, you’ve got a lot of those. Measured against our cost of living in a state where, at least for the moment, darn near everybody who wants to work can, we’re not doing bad. All those speeches I gave about time’s on the side of the Midwest, I think you’re starting to see the evidence. It took longer than I thought.”
Property tax caps
Is Daniels satisfied with the impact of his property tax caps? “Yes, the last months, the three most attractive places to live are in Indiana. The caps and low property taxes are the biggest single part of that,” Daniels told HPI. He called the caps the “fairest” way to control costs, noting that about half of the referendums pass. “Then we constitutionalized it,” he said.
BMV reforms
Daniels said the most enduring part of his legacy occurred with revamping the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. “The macro point here is that I’ve always said we can and should always have debates about how big government should be; what it should do or not do,” he explained. “Having decided that, whatever it’s going to do, it’s got to do it well. You owe to the people and the taxpayers who are paying the money. It’s always important to have the public’s confidence. We’d like the public to believe it’s being administered by people really trying hard to do a good job and give them value for their money. So it’s why we did what we did with Department of Revenue and BMV because they touch so many people.”
Gov. Daniels with BMV Commissioner Joel Silverman (Credit: HPI Photo by Brian A. Howey)
Daniels has a soft spot in his heart for his first BMV Commissioner Joel Silverman, the former CEO of Galyan’s Sporting Goods. “We’ve had a couple of people who were great business people and we caught them in between (jobs) and said, ‘Hey, give a little time to your state.’ So Joel agreed. Why Joel? When we look at the BMV, I remember someone saying, ‘What you have here is 180 Dairy Queens.’ It’s a lot of walk-in traffic, a lot of cash transactions, it’s a retail business and they’re making a huge mess of it. That’s the business he came from. The thing about Joel was, he was naive. He’d say, ‘Of course, you’ve gotta do these things. You’ve got to close these branches because they’re losing money. Fix up the other ones. If you run Galyan’s, that’s exactly what you do and it works.'”
Holcomb remembers getting a call “in real time” when Silverman showed up in Rockport for a hearing to close a BMV branch. “Because as commissioner you have to be present to close a branch at the town meeting, due to a quirk in the law,” Holcomb recalled. “Joel goes down there and relishes breaking eggs for omelets, and it’s a packed house. Someone sends me this picture of a BMV branch having a meeting and it’s packed and it’s the size of this room. And Joel is sitting there listening to an hour of ranting. Someone who’s down there calls me. ‘You’re not going to believe this.’
“What happened?
“Well, there’s a little old lady who says, ‘This branch has been here forever.’ And Joel says, ‘Ma’am, you don’t have to go to the branch to do what you just described. You can do that at home on your computer.’ And she says, ‘Mr. Commissioner, I don’t have a computer.’ And he goes, ‘Can you lick a stamp?”’
FSSA and IBM
Tap above to read HPI from Oct. 21, 2009
This was the sequence where a policy disaster could have turned into a political one. IBM had been retained to modernize the Family Social Services Administration in 2006. By October, the Daniels administration terminated the $1.34 billion contract after reports revealed that people with no computer access or skills were falling through the cracks, with sometimes lethal results. HPI reported on Oct. 21, 2009: “Every presidential and gubernatorial administration finds itself in one of those dark moments when the world crowds in, the policy and political prospects dim and enemies seem to abound. For Gov. Mitch Daniels, that moment came last week when he decided to pull the plug on the $1.34 billion welfare privatization deal.”
“Among the most vocal were those in the Evansville area where Democrat State Reps. Dennis Avery and Gail Riecken, Republican Rep. Suzanne Crouch and Sen. Vanetta Becker were either critical or wrote legislation seeking to stop further roll-out of the IBM system.”
In the Oct. 21, 2009, edition, we reported: “A gargantuan amount of work awaits to develop the ‘hybrid’ system that restores the ‘face to face’ contact and keeps the problems with fraud in check. As one administration source told HPI, “The public appreciates the governor trying to reform and deliver a better and more modernized service. When the company the state contracted with failed to make the agreed-upon changes, they were relieved of their duty. That was leadership, not failure on the governor’s part.”
Goode told HPI in January, “There were two reasons I came here. (Daniels) asked me to coordinate the transition of the toll road. The other was to be his representative on Mitch Roob’s team that was putting together that whole (FSSA) plan. The initial plan that the agency called for was basically completely automated and to use not-for-profits in the counties if you needed assistance. Part of the discussion with the governor was that we’re not walking away without employees, so some of the changes we made were two basic rules: The system as it goes in has to be assessed based on how the Hoosier or citizen wishes, not how we wanted it. If you wanted it online, and it was still pretty early for online stuff, and there had to be at least two employees per county. So it got off to a pretty good start until it didn’t.”
Goode added, “So after he met with the chairman of IBM once and it wasn’t getting attention, then after two months, the secretary of FSSA and I were authorized to call the chairman and vice chairman in and told them basically they were fired. That’s when Michael Gargano took over. What the role with FSSA employees through IBM, using the same subcontractors, it was a year when we were pretty much back on track. It’s saved the state a lot of money and I don’t believe we’ve had a complaint about customer service.” In essence, the “hybrid” plan developed out of that policy disaster remains today.
Johnston observed in January, “Nor did he ever back off …” with Holcomb finishing, “of the mission.” Goode added, “The real lesson is Mitch listened.”
Asked in October 2009 if the IBM contract was his worst problem in five years of office, Daniels responded, “No. I’ve got a long list. I haven’t tried to rate them. The easiest thing to do in a situation like this is throw your hands up and say, ‘Well, that’s as good as it can be.’ This has been a daunting thing all along, and it still is, of course. Our first attempt didn’t get us there, but we did get some positives out of it. We’ll just have to take them and reverse some of the mistakes and move forward. I’ve told you for five years that’s how we’re going to operate, and this is a classic case.”
AAA bond rating
S&P in 2008 granted the state its first AAA bond rating. The other rating agencies – Fitch and Moody’s – came on board in 2010. Daniels explained, “It saves the state and its subdivisions a lot of money. You can borrow less expensively. Second, it was an incredible merit badge. All the work it took to get there, three or four years, had succeeded because the people who give those ratings give them in a hard-eyed way and if they say you’re AAA, there’s no funny business about it. There’s no way to trick ’em. We really had moved the state from a bankrupt position to the strongest one you can attain.”
Conservation expansion
During the Daniels administration, more than 50,000 acres of Indiana land were moved to protected status. Daniels told HPI in February, “It was always something I was interested in doing. We have a lot of natural beauty here. When I invited all the conservation people in, we had already done a couple of big, big projects. Goose Pond was the biggest one in state history by a factor of like two, and then Muscatatuck Bottoms was like three Goose Ponds, and the Wabash River Corridor, which is still being finished, was five times as much. They’re the biggest ones in state history.”
“We were trying to figure out how to celebrate the bicentennial; I said it’s got to be a conservation project,” Daniels continued. “That fits the occasion and fits the historic beauty. We brought in a lot of those good folks and I had worked with them a lot on some of these other projects. We looked around and found the first $20 million. I said, ‘We’re gonna put it out there as a challenge. We want to do at least one project in every single county for our bicentennial,’ and they were just astonished. I think that worked out great. We were always looking for things our loyal opposition could be excited about. It was common ground with folks who did not agree with much of what we were doing. But mainly I thought it was well worth doing. I was pretty sure we could be effective at it. Some things in government you don’t know if you’re making any difference or not. Putting all that money into education, for instance, what did we get? But here I was sure what we could get. Once land is protected, it’s protected.”
GOP dominance
Daniels served for eight years, four of which Republicans were in the House minority. He won reelection in 2008 with 58% of the vote, but failed to bring the House majority with him. Working with Speaker Brian Bosma and the House Republican Campaign Committee in 2010, the GOP returned to power and has yet to look back. Its House majority grew in 2012 and has been in supermajority status ever since 2014, which is an unprecedented concentration of power.
Gov. Daniels with Sen. Evan Bayh and Indiana House Speaker B. Patrick Bauer. (Credit: HPI Photo by Brian A. Howey).
During the two Daniels statewide campaigns, he never ran a negative TV or radio ad. He defeated an incumbent governor. Holcomb, who managed the Daniels reelection campaign in 2008, said in January, “That’s why it’s important to have a plan which is doing right by citizens, taxpayers and fill in the blank. You really have to dissect why we lost the majority because I was there. You had to look at the specific races, who was running, what kind of campaign they waged. Today, we’re benefiting from the momentum that good policy makes good politics. Never lose sight of that; always be tethered to that. If you start to believe what you say then that is thin ice, and so I think going back, I can remember recruiting people who were not drones, but like-minded, who wanted to be change-agents, who didn’t want to take the foot off the gas.”
Epilogue
During a 2012 exit interview with Statehouse reporters, Tom LoBianco asked Daniels what his greatest accomplishment was. “This is the who’s your favorite daughter question,” Daniels responded. “I think the best way I can answer this is to say there are several: Opening doors to building a better business climate, because that was always the central goal. If it does have staying power, it will lead to all the other good things. It will lead to jobs, therefore to revenues to do the things governments should do. It will underpin the success of the state. If it lasts, establishing Indiana as more of a leadership state at least in certain areas, I hope I’ve changed the culture inside state government to excellence, efficiency and good service, and outside, change the culture and expectations of higher expectations. An expectation of innovation.”
“We ran on a very explicit and very detailed agenda. We did most of it.” Daniels said in 2012. “I was in a hurry. We wanted to get the budget balanced and pay back the debts. We wanted to put some money in the bank. And then we wanted to start reducing taxes. When I look back, I have this tattered little report card we kept for ourselves. I may have one of the last ones around. If you look at those 70-odd things in 2005, there aren’t very many in the ‘Did Not Succeed’ column. We did have a more activist approach, I think it’s fair to say, than our recent predecessors. It’s a ‘to-each-his-own’ situation. I felt, and it’s the reason I ran in the first place, that Indiana was drifting and slipping and we needed to get in motion against a lot of big problems. As a matter of personal approach, every year, and in-between, we had new ideas, we had to define each idea, and present the state and the legislature where they were needed action items. We felt responsible to push in directions we felt were in the public interest. There was a lot to do and we were not a very innovative state. There was a time for a lot of action, or so we thought.”
Daniels liked to tell the story of a tornado plowing through a Hoosier community, reducing it to “looking like an ant farm.” Once on the ground, Daniels saw a FEMA worker notice that amidst the destruction, one house stood unblemished. The FEMA guy talked of how Mother Nature could be so arbitrary, leveling entire neighborhoods while leaving this one house unscathed. To which an Amish man replied, “T’weren’t there three days ago.”
A decade ago, HPI’s analysis was this: The Daniels governorship can be viewed as “transformative” because of its audacious scope and conspicuous use of political capital. He and his administration were in a hurry to do big, unexpected things. But it will take a decade or more to determine how effective the education and transportation reforms were.
Here we are and the assessment remains the same.
Brian Howey is managing editor of Howey Politics Indiana/State Affairs at StateAffairs.com/pro/Indiana. Find Howey on Facebook and Twitter @hwypol.
Header image: Gov. Mitch Daniels stands before a skeptical crowd in Greenfield, Indiana, in the spring of 2005 as he pitched a tax increase to build an NFL stadium in Indianapolis. (HPI Photo by Brian A. Howey)
INDIANAPOLIS — The gubernatorial legacy of Joseph E. Kernan III was a mere flash in time. Upon the death of Gov. Frank O’Bannon on Sept. 13, 2003, Kernan became the 48th Indiana chief executive. He was defeated for a full term 15 months later and left office the following January.
Kernan gave only one State of the State address in 2004 (described by Howey Politics as “exceptional”) and didn’t preside over a single biennial budget process.
During that lone State of the State address, he reported that he asked the state’s first female lieutenant governor, Kathy Davis, to study government reform and prepare an agenda. “I’ve asked her to do more than just look under the hood and kick the tires,” Kernan said. “If there’s a better way to serve you, then maybe it’s time to redesign the whole car.”
When he was defeated by Republican Mitch Daniels in November 2004, Howey Politics reported: “His was the lost opportunity for Indiana Democrats. He was the war hero in the time of war. He governed as a compassionate healer and the instigator of new ideas that included the historic 2002 tax restructuring, the Energize Indiana plan, and reforms that would have reshaped Indiana government. He broke the mold when he made Kathy Davis the first female lieutenant governor candidate. What Kernan had in substance, he lost in time and appearance.”
Kipper V. Tew, who was a close political ally and served as Indiana Democratic chairman under Kernan, observed of the late governor’s legacy, “No. 1, he picked the first female lieutenant governor in Indiana history and then they ran together and worked together as a team. He also had the first female chief of staff in his LG office (Mary Downes) and then Mary was also his chief when he became governor. Both of those appointments were a big deal at the time and his firm belief that it was hugely important to send the message to Indiana that half the population was actually equal.”
Last Friday – fittingly on St. Patrick’s Day – Gov. Eric Holcomb and the Statehouse community gathered to celebrate Kernan, who passed away in July 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic due to complications from Alzheimer’s disease. There was no public funeral.
“It’s obviously just a perfect day, on St. Patrick’s Day, that we set aside time for this unveiling of this truly – a man that’s been kind of referred to over time – as a legend, a leader, a statesman and so much more than that. Gov. Joe Kernan was certainly all three of those,” said Holcomb at the bust unveiling ceremony following the playing of bagpipes.
“This official portrait of him, kind of larger than life, to this day, still looks down at me over my shoulder, almost as if he’s grading my work … It will not come down on my watch,” Holcomb said of the official portrait hanging in his office. “Joe could connect with anyone, anywhere. His character was impeccable, his courage unwavering – his unrelenting commitment to duty is again, legendary.”
An official portrait of late Gov. Joe Kernan hangs in Gov. Eric Holcomb’s office at the Indiana State Capitol in Indianapolis. “This official portrait of him, kind of larger than life, to this day, still looks down at me over my shoulder, almost as if he’s grading my work … It will not come down on my watch,” Holcomb said. Pictured here with Holcomb are friends and family of Kernan, who was remembered March 17, 2023, when a bust was unveiled at the Capitol. (Credit: Gov. Eric Holcomb/Twitter)
Then-Purdue President Mitch Daniels observed after Kernan’s death that “[he] was at different times my ally, opponent, and advisor, but always a friend to me, and as far as I could tell, to everyone he met. In wartime and in peace, he embodied patriotism and the goodwill toward all we associate with the term ‘Hoosier.’ He was a true leader, and we have lost him far too soon.”
“Those among us so ready to bear malice against those with whom they differ and either so ignorant or so ungrateful that they disdain those whose sacrifices gave them the freedom to express their views should pause and consider the life and character of Joe Kernan,” Daniels said.
When Kernan died, my HPI column on July 30, 2020, was titled “Last Democratic governor.”
It was meant to be a statement of fact; Kernan has been followed by three Republican governors. In hindsight, it has become an inkling of Indiana’s future as the one-party state that it has come to be.
That many Republicans – both Hoosier and American – now equate Democrats as “Socialists” and even “Marxists” reveals an ignorance of the kind of leader Kernan actually was.
He served under Gov. Frank O’Bannon, reluctantly agreeing to give up the perfect job, mayor of South Bend, to move to Indianapolis and the Statehouse in 1996 when the two won an upset victory. Following O’Bannon’s historic 1997 session when he delivered on compromise legislation that created a new stadium for the Indiana Pacers and rare workers’ compensation increases, the 47th governor receded into what Howey Politics described as “the facilitator.”
Click here to read the Sept. 12, 2013, edition, and click here to read the Aug. 17, 2006, edition.
By 2001, Kernan, as lieutenant gov, had been given sprawling portfolios by O’Bannon. It was in May 2001 that O’Bannon told Kernan to begin working on a tax restructuring plan, which was ultimately unveiled Oct. 18, providing a framework for the final product that emerged after a torturous special session in May 2002.
O’Bannon approached tax restructuring not so much as an advocate but as a facilitator and, ultimately, an arbitrator in a state with a constitutionally weak governorship. “I’d say that’s a good observation,” O’Bannon told Howey Politics. “We got split houses here, one Democrat, one Republican.” Govs. Doc Bowen and Robert Orr, he said, had GOP legislatures and barely got their historic initiatives passed.
Following the 2002 special session, Howey Politics observed: “Kernan was a puzzling figure throughout the first six months of 2002. Popular with Democratic legislators, it was O’Bannon that brought about their loathing with vetoes of a pay increase and mixed signals on plans and budgetary numbers. Why wasn’t Kernan taking the lead, many asked. The answer was Kernan was a loyal second fiddle in a ‘facilitator’ administration. He wasn’t a freelancer. Ultimately, when he gave what was described as a ‘win one for the Gipper’ speech before the Democratic caucus on Saturday afternoon, Kernan delivered.”
“He answered all questions candidly, honestly, sincerely and straightforward,” then-House Speaker John Gregg observed. “Many were tough. He can go into the lions’ den like Daniel or into the fiery furnace like the three.”
Gov. Eric Holcomb with former first lady Maggie Kernan at the unveiling of late Gov. Joe Kernan’s bust, on March 17, 2023, at the state Capitol in Indianapolis. (Credit: Gov. Eric Holcomb/Twitter)
Kernan told Howey Politics the following Monday, “The governor weighs the pros and cons of individual circumstances. From beginning to end, he clearly believes the legislative process has to work its way. He stepped in and helped forge the compromise. It’s a monumental piece of legislation on the most difficult subject matter the General Assembly can deal with.
“There were parts of the plan that got better in my view since October 18 and parts of the plan that I don’t think are as good,” said Kernan, described by Howey Politics as “the presumed 2004 Democratic gubernatorial nominee.”
“From the beginning of the process, we have said you have to look at this as the total package,” Kernan continued. “There’s a saying in golf: No room for pictures on the scorecard. At the end of the day, it’s whether you win or lose. This was a win for everybody.”
Kernan’s highlights as LG suggested greater things to come. In addition to helping forge the 2002 tax reforms, he had chaired working groups dealing with crises hitting Hoosier farmers and insurers, as well as the creation of the 21st Century Technology Fund. O’Bannon urged him to be the administration’s conduit to military veterans.
The 2002 “win for everybody” excluded Indiana Democrats. In the following weeks, O’Bannon blindsided Kernan by choosing Peter Manous as the new Indiana Democratic Party chair, an appointment Kernan had expected to make. That December, Kernan stunned everyone, announcing he was going home to South Bend instead of running for governor.
In addition to his ire over the Manous appointment (the new chair would later be indicted and convicted on public corruption charges), Kernan had little stomach for the “dialing for dollars” fundraising for a gubernatorial campaign that needed to raise $50,000 a day, or $12 million for the cycle.
“If you’ve got two full-time jobs, you’re not going to be able to do either well. And if I can’t do something well, I’m not going to enjoy it,” Kernan said, while the long faces of Democrats revealed they were devastated and aghast at the decision.
Former DNC Chair Joe Andrew and State Sen. Vi Simpson attempted to fill the gap in the 2004 cycle, reaching a tortured crescendo at the French Lick straw poll in August. A few weeks later, O’Bannon suffered a stroke, with Kernan ordering Palmer House personnel to break into the unresponsive governor’s Chicago hotel room.
During this time of crisis – only three Hoosier governors had died in office, and the last to leave office prematurely came when Gov. Warren McCray was convicted of mail fraud in 1923 – Kernan proved steadfast. When Speaker B. Patrick Bauer and Senate President Robert Garton sought a transfer of power as O’Bannon slipped into a vegetative state, Kernan was steady.
He downplayed the transfer of power. “It is early. We are hopeful,” he said at a Statehouse news conference. “There is no need at this time to take any additional steps.” There was speculation that he might reconsider his 2002 decision not to seek the 2004 nomination. “I know there has been speculation,” Kernan said. “Nothing that has happened in the last 36 hours has changed my mind about the decision I announced in December.”
After Kernan was sworn in as governor, he chose Kathy Davis in October as the first female LG in Indiana history and returned to the 2004 gubernatorial showdown. South Bend Tribune columnist Jack Colwell observed, “Joe Kernan’s announcement that he will run for governor in ’04 was not the startling surprise it would have been if he had made the statement right after being thrust into the governor’s office by the death of Frank O’Bannon. And now further change; Kernan has decided to run rather than to walk away.”
Former Gov. Mike Pence (left) is pictured Nov. 25, 2013, with former Govs. Joe Kernan (right) and Edgar Whitcomb (seated) at the unveiling of an exhibit at the Indiana War Memorial Museum in Indianapolis. (Credit: Mike Pence/Facebook)
Daniels was campaigning at Don & Donna’s Cafe in downtown Franklin when the news broke. “We came to the conclusion that in the next year, we will be able to get a great start to achieve our goals,” Kernan said on the TV blaring over Daniels’ shoulder. “But there wasn’t enough time to get the job done and I don’t want to sit on the sidelines.”
Kernan presented a “vision of every child will be healthy and have a world-class education, and every Hoosier will have the opportunity to earn a good living.” He pledged to take care of “senior citizens” and those with disabilities and said, “Hoosiers will be safe from threats both inside and outside of Indiana.”
Daniels told the Franklin crowd that he welcomed Kernan’s entry. “No one can predict the ultimate political effect, but from a citizen’s standpoint, this is absolutely for the best,” he said. “It makes the questions before us completely plain. Do we have the kind of economic opportunity we want for our kids and for the least fortunate among us, or should we aim higher? As taxpayers, are we satisfied with the quality and performance of state government, or should we expect more? After 16 years of one-party rule by career politicians, do we want to start fresh, or not?”
Daniels had characterized the state under O’Bannon and Kernan as one that had become fiscally bankrupt, relying on smoke and mirrors to balance budgets. It was a narrative that stuck with voters, though it was powerful Republican Senate Finance Chairman Larry Borst who had the biggest impacts on biennial budgets of the era. When Brent Waltz successfully challenged Borst in the 2004 Republican primary in an insurgency backed by former Republican chairman Rex Early, Daniels pressed Early on why. “I’m trying to do you a favor,” Early reportedly responded.
There were two Kernan campaigns: the pre-December 2002 effort and the comeback in November 2003. What was lost was 16 months of campaigning. Kernan entered 2004 with a 15-point lead in the polls, the first female lieutenant governor candidate, and a volume of goodwill in how he had handled O’Bannon’s death, and yet, he lost the race to Daniels by nearly 10%.
Tew said after the election, “Mitch Daniels won the campaign. It wasn’t lost. He won it going around the state for 16 months. He kept to that theme and it worked brilliantly for him.”
“Gov. O’Bannon ran great campaigns but didn’t govern nearly as efficiently,” Howey Politics observed in a post-2004 election analysis. “Gov. Kernan was a compassionate, inclusive governor with the arc of a reformer, but that failed to permeate his campaign, which became a historic and far-reaching lost opportunity for Indiana Democrats.”
On the second Kernan campaign revival, he explained to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, “This has been one of those periods in my life where I really didn’t have a chance to catch my breath going back to last September. So on reflection, I will look back on this …,” Kernan said before stopping to gather his composure. “As the oldest of nine from a family where we didn’t on many days have two nickels to rub together, as someone who is very fortunate to be standing here at all today, to look back on nine years serving as mayor, seven as lieutenant governor and now a year as governor of Indiana … I’m a very, very lucky guy.”
Joe Kernan became the last remnant of the Democratic dynasty that began under Evan Bayh in 1988 and continued under O’Bannon and, finally, Kernan himself, with his last campaign coming under tormented conditions.
Joseph E. Kernan III, Indiana’s 48th governor. (Credit: State of Indiana)
Anyone who knew Kernan found him to be brutally honest, a pugilistic former Notre Dame baseball catcher, and a decent euchre player. I found that out late one hot August night on the French Lick Springs Resort’s veranda. I once referred to Kernan as a “Sox fan” because the now South Bend Cubs (which he bought to keep in River City) was once known as the “South Bend White Sox.” Kernan called me and left a message: “Brian, you can call me a lot of things, but don’t you ever call me a Sox fan.”
In addition to buying the South Bend Cubs, Kernan was drawn back into the public sphere by Daniels appointing him and then-Supreme Court Justice Randall Shepard to look into reforming local government. The Kernan-Shepard Commission proposed more than 20 reforms, most of which didn’t pass muster with the General Assembly.
A full Kernan term
What would a full Kernan term have looked like?
Tew explained, “He proposed a big increase in the number of community college campuses. I would argue he was at least a decade ahead of where folks are with regard to this issue now and all the talk you hear about not everybody needing to go to a four-year institution. He asked for tuition and fee increases to basically freeze at the rate of inflation (somebody followed his advice at Purdue years later). As co-chair of the Education Roundtable, he spearheaded the effort to make CORE 40 the mandatory curriculum and the P-16 plan to improve achievement.”
On health care, Tew said, Kernan advocated changes to the Hoosier RX plan to lower prescription prices for seniors. He signed legislation creating the state prescription drug purchasing pool, moving forward with the Hoosier Health Plan to bring affordable insurance coverage to the state’s uninsured.
“There are many more things he did in his way to short time in office,” Tew said. “I firmly believe had the election gone our way, he would have been one of the most consequential governors in state history. He had all of the tools, drive, and desire to make a difference.”
Tina Noel, Kernan’s press secretary as both LG and governor, added, “Joe’s priorities would have stemmed from the kind of person he was – someone who was compassionate, competitive and ridiculously smart; someone who famously encouraged everyone on his team to ‘do the right thing, always.’
“I think his work on government efficiency and improving Hoosiers’ interactions with state agencies would have continued,” Noel said. “Judging by his later bipartisan efforts to reform local government, he would have focused on that, too. And, of course, he would have built on his experience in the business community and as mayor and lieutenant governor by working every day to bring high-paying jobs to Indiana.
“I’ll reiterate something that his brother Terry talked about during the ceremony last week; Joe would have done all that he could to ensure that our state’s veterans received the care they deserved,” Noel said. “I nearly forgot that Gov. O’Bannon asked Joe to get deeply involved in veterans’ initiatives, and that was something he took on with fervor and really enjoyed.
“One thing is certain: Joe would have measured his success as governor by the success of Indiana’s citizens,” Noel said.
Lt. Gov. Joe Kernan at a press conference after Gov. Frank O’Bannon was stricken. (Credit: Brian Howey)
Epilogue
Holcomb, a U.S. Navy veteran, keeps portraits of two of his predecessors – Kernan and Gov. Edgar Whitcomb – in his office. Both had been prisoners of war. Kernan was shot down in 1972 over North Vietnam on a reconnaissance mission and spent 11 months in captivity. Whitcomb, a B-17 navigator, was captured by the Japanese during World War II, winning the governorship in 1968 after writing the book “Escape from Corregidor,” which detailed his eight-hour swim to the Philippine mainland.
Both Kernan and Whitcomb became political public servants. Time gifted Whitcomb: He died in 2016 at age 98.
For Kernan, time ran out … on his campaign for a full term and his early death at age 74.
Brian Howey is managing editor of Howey Politics Indiana/State Affairs at StateAffairs.com/pro/Indiana. Find Howey on Facebook and Twitter @hwypol.
Header image: Gov. Joe Kernan and first lady Maggie Kernan campaign in Scottsburg, Indiana, in November 2003. (Credit: HPI Photo by Brian Howey)
INDIANAPOLIS — There are some constants in life and politics, like death and taxes and Lucy enticing Charlie Brown to try another field goal. Then there’s Mike Pence, who looks in the mirror at his Carmel estate most mornings and sees a future president of the United States.
Sources both local and national say he is nearing a decision on running in 2024, with an announcement expected in the next several weeks, if not days. Last Saturday night, before the 138th white-tail media dinner called the Gridiron, Pence made his most conspicuous and audacious play of this emerging cycle. After dropping a few jokes, he launched his most intense criticism of Donald J. Trump since this powerful pair collided in an epic constitutional crisis on Jan. 6, 2021.
“President Trump was wrong. I had no right to overturn the election. And his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day. I believe history will hold Donald Trump accountable for January 6th,” Pence said of his potential rival for the ’24 GOP nomination in what was truly the first jaw-dropping moment of the cycle. “Make no mistake about it, what happened that day was a disgrace, and it mocks decency to portray it in any other way.”
Pence then took on Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, who cherry-picked thousands of hours of Capitol footage to suggest last week that Jan. 6 was not an insurrection, but a benign tourist event. “It was not, as some would have us believe, a matter of tourists peacefully enjoying our Capitol,” Pence said. “Tourists don’t injure 140 police officers by simply sightseeing. Tourists don’t break down doors to get to the speaker of the House. The American people have a right to know what took place at the Capitol on January 6th.”
Pence also took a shot at another possible ’24 opponent: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, “who has those everyman populist qualities that are so relatable … like degrees from Harvard and Yale.”
On Monday during his first campaign swing in Iowa, Trump blamed Pence for the insurrection: “Had he sent the votes back to the legislatures, they wouldn’t have had a problem with January 6th, so in many ways, you can blame him for January 6th. Had he sent them back to Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, the states, I believe, number one, you would have had a different outcome. But I also believe you wouldn’t have had ‘Jan. 6’ as we call it.”
With the 2024 Republican presidential race currently dominated by Trump and the undeclared DeSantis (former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has entered and shriveled), Pence is attempting to carve out a tortured lane in a party that has gone beyond an authoritarian, fascist flirtation. There is rampant speculation that Trump can win a third nomination with his stalwart 30-35% of the MAGA base. Like 2016, in a crowded field, that could be enough.
Pence appears to be betting that he can forge out of the GOP scraps the “adult in the room” lane. He used the Gridiron to put the national media on notice that he is still there.
While most pundits and GOP talking heads insist that Pence is headed for the 2024 ash heap in the Land of Oblivion, Saturday’s gambit was out of the same playbook chapter that saw the embattled Indiana governor turn a precarious reelection bid into a veepstakes winner that went on to help produce the biggest upset in American presidential history.
It’s tempting to say Pence has no chance, but he’s been massively underestimated before.
In a Monday analysis titled “Profiles in Half-Courage,” conservative commentator Charlie Sykes observed in The Bulwark: “I’d link to the video or audio of Mike Pence’s remarks on Saturday night, but alas, there is none. Which is kind of a tell, isn’t it? So Mike Pence’s Big Moment took place in a room full of media types and politicos, without cameras. The crowd loved it, giving him a partial standing-O. Unfortunately, it was arguably the worst possible focus group in America for a Republican presidential candidate. … It would be better though if Pence said it in front of a crowd of actual GOP voters sometime, wouldn’t it? But that’s the problem, and that’s why Mike Pence will never ever be the Republican nominee.”
Sykes continues, “Pence is a former governor and vice president of the United States. He is a solid conservative, beloved by the Christian Right, anti-woke before it was super-cool, and a hyper-loyal defender of the entire Trump agenda. In some ways, he is also an American hero. So, from the GOP’s point of view, what’s not to like? Why isn’t Pence a strong front-runner? Why is he, instead, utterly hopeless? One reason: Mike Pence refused to aid and abet the coup. And in the modern GOP that remains the one irredeemable sin.”
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough on Monday said, “Mike Pence stood in the gap in one of the most dangerous days in our democracy.” But he called Pence’s Gridiron speech “too clever by half. Trump is either a scourge of democracy or he’s not.”
In Sunday’s Politico Playbook, the reaction invariably led to two big questions:
1. Will Pence talk like this in front of Iowa Republicans? It’s one thing for him to slam Trump like this in a room full of D.C. journalists – and, importantly, to do so at an event that was not televised or filmed, which will limit the amount of play it gets on cable news. But will he show the courage to blast Trump in front of Republican primary voters?
2. If he feels this way about Jan. 6, why challenge Special Counsel Jack Smith’s subpoena? Pence has received criticism – including from well-respected conservative legal thinker and former Judge J. Michael Luttig – for suggesting the Constitution’s “Speech and Debate” clause protects him from testifying about what happened that day. Even some Republicans think he should cooperate with the probe
Pence and key aide Marc Short are betting on several things that could dramatically alter the 2024 sequence. He starts the cycle far off the pace. A national CNN poll released Tuesday showed Trump at 40%, DeSantis at 36%, Haley at 7% and Pence at 6%. Last week, in New Hampshire an Emerson poll had Trump with 58%, DeSantis at 17%, Gov. Chris Sununu (N.H.) at 7%, Haley at 6%, and Pence at 4%.
Pence and Short appear to be banking on a couple of possible developments. The first is that Trump is facing at least three potential legal indictments:
1. The Mar-a-Lago top-secret document hoarding case, with Special Prosecutor Jack Smith subpoenaing Pence to testify, which puts the former vice president on a collision course with himself. If Trump’s Jan. 6 behavior was indeed reckless, endangering and disgraceful, why not testify?
2. The Georgia vote fraud case is being pursued by Atlanta District Attorney Fani Willis.
3. The Manhattan DA appears to be preparing to indict the former president over his $130,000 hush payment to porn star Stormy Daniels during the homestretch of the 2016 campaign.
Trump can run for president if indicted or even imprisoned (as Socialist presidential nominee Eugene Debs was in 1920). But the Pence bet is that the persecution schtick will wear thin. The Pence/Short evaluation is that an indicted Trump will eventually fade once Republicans conclude that winning one out of three elections isn’t good for the part.
The second is whether DeSantis will find himself in the four-day-old fish category. Can the governor move beyond frontrunner speculation that has cratered past expectations that rendered Gary Hart, Rudy Giuliani, Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton into moot territory? DeSantis is not a warm and fuzzy guy. You’d have to go back to the LBJ/Nixon days to find a presidential nominee who you wouldn’t want to have a beer with win the White House.
DeSantis’ lack of experience on the national stage was evidenced when he was handed a cutout of a “snowflake” during his first campaign swing in Iowa. Every branch of the snowflake had the word “fascist” hidden in the design, creating the first photo embarrassment of the cycle.
Sarasota Herald-Tribune columnist Roger Brown wrote in December 2020 of the first gift he would place in the governor’s Christmas stocking: “It’s the gift of humility – the gift that might enable DeSantis to stop acting like someone who appears intent on transforming Florida’s state seal from a sabal palm to a middle finger.”
The Atlantic’s Mark Leibovich did a roundup of GOP operatives’ takes on DeSantis last November: “He was standoffish in general,” the Virginia Republican Barbara Comstock, a former House colleague of DeSantis, said. “A strange no-eye-contact oddball,” Rick Wilson, a Republican media consultant, wrote on Resolute Square. “I’d rather have teeth pulled without anesthetic than be on a boat with Ron DeSantis,” says Mac Stipanovich, a Tallahassee lobbyist. “On a debate stage, all of Trump’s strengths go straight to DeSantis’ weaknesses. My sense is that Trump would gut DeSantis with a dull deer antler. Trump would club DeSantis like a baby seal.”
There is also a potential showdown over Ukraine. Pence said in February, “While some in my party have taken a somewhat different view, let me be clear: There can be no room in the leadership of the Republican Party for apologists for Putin. There can only be room for champions of freedom. If we surrender to the siren song of those in this country who argue that America has no interest in freedom’s cause, history teaches we may soon send our own into harm’s way.”
Trump told Sean Hannity in a radio interview last week that “[Putin] would have never done it. That’s without even negotiating a deal. I could have negotiated. At worst, I could’ve made a deal to take over something, there are certain areas that are Russian-speaking areas, frankly, but you could’ve worked a deal.” A year ago, Trump praised Putin for being a “savvy genius” in invading Ukraine, a conflict that has cost over 200,000 lives and displaced millions of Ukrainians.
DeSantis said in a statement to Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Monday, “While the U.S. has many vital national interests – securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness with our military, achieving energy security and independence and checking the economic, cultural and military power of the Chinese Communist Party – becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them.”
Pence’s calling
In a discussion with evangelical leader Joel Rosenberg, Pence talked about “God’s calling” in all of the political races he’s run since 1988. “For the last 20 years, my aspiration has been simply to respond to what we perceive to be God’s calling in our life. And when I think about the great challenges facing this country, I do believe that 2024 will call for the new style of leadership grounded in the same principles that the Trump-Pence administration advanced.”
In a February Fox News interview, Pence said, “The American people love competition. And it’s a free country. Everyone is entitled to vie for offices in this country of their choosing. I do believe that different times call for different leadership. We think we’ve got time to be discerning, to be reflective, to listen. And my wife and I both believe that we’ll have a clear sense of our call sometime this spring.”
Before jaws began dropping at the Gridiron, Pence was a jokester: “Sorry I was running a little late tonight. There were a few more boxes I needed to drop off at the National Archives. I read that some of those classified documents they found at Mar-a-Lago were actually stuck in the president’s Bible – which proves he absolutely had no idea they were there.”
“It’s true that I am a man of deep faith,” Pence continued. “In fact, my preferred pronouns are ‘thou’ and ‘thine.’ I once invited President Trump to Bible study. That was an experience. He really liked the passages about the smiting and perishing of thine enemies. As he put it: ‘Ya know, Mike, there’s some really good stuff in here!'”
Pence also mentioned Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg during the Gridiron, saying the former South Bend mayor took “maternity leave” after the birth of his twins while giving “everyone else postpartum depression.” Former Buttigieg campaign communications director Lis Smith called Pence an “unambiguous asshole,” telling Politico Playbook that his comments were “gross and hardly in line with the upright, Christian image he tries to project.”
Pence told Rosenberg, “I do believe that democracy depends on heavy doses of civility, and in both parties. I sense that the American people long for that. People that worry about where the country is today. I tell them that we just got to have a government that is as good as our people.”
Header Image: Mike Pence speaks at the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. (Credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr/Creative Commons)
CARMEL, Ind. — The Republican Party is well on its way down the path of its Whig Party and Know Nothing Party predecessors. The next six years will determine whether the national Republican Party will continue to exist in any sort of viable or meaningful manner.
While there have been other times in history when the demise of the Republican Party has been prematurely predicted, I believe that cataclysmic forces both within and outside the party make its survival questionable.
This is not to say that the demise of the Republican Party could not give birth to a political movement that would be far more vital and productive. After all, the Republican Party sprang forth from former Whigs, Know Nothings and disaffected Democrats. Its birth was tumultuous but made possible much of our country’s advancement over 150 years.
The problem threatening the existence of the Republican Party today is a confluence of several key factors. The party has largely strayed from its long-term bedrock principles of a strong national defense coupled with conservative financial responsibility. The party has slowly drifted toward a populist cult revolving around a litany of some of the most disgusting politicians and social misfits possible. The GOP has allowed theocracy to dominate our legislative agendas on both the state and federal levels.
Republicans in Congress have squandered opportunities to make meaningful changes through legislation and, instead, have used their brief times in control to pass legislation that resembles Christmas in July more than long-term structural change.
Lastly, Republicans have moved toward a de facto purity test that stifles legitimate debate and marginalizes anyone who doesn’t agree with the puritanical mob as a “RINO” (Republican in Name Only).
The Republican Party had an admirable beginning and illustrious first 20 years. Of course, the hallmark of the early GOP was its anti-slavery beliefs and then elected officials who didn’t just talk about ending slavery but did it. Not only did Republicans lead the charge on the abolition of slavery, but they also embedded new rights in the United States Constitution that protected its newest free citizens.
They enforced the protection of the Constitution throughout the former Rebel states at the tip of a bayonet and gave the Party a record of which it could be proud. Although the Party was always pro-business and pro-industry, it was wise enough, under President Theodore Roosevelt, to realize that there were citizens being trampled and consumed by the emerging industrial might.
Republican-led efforts to bust up monopolies and trusts, along with reforms on working hours, working conditions, child labor and wages put Roosevelt on Mount Rushmore and strengthened the party. The GOP lost its sense of direction when it fell sway to the call of isolationists who failed to see that no nation is safe in a modern world, even if it hides from conflict. Thankfully, the Republicans realized that national strength comes from world leadership more than avoiding conflict.
Since 2000, Republicans on a national basis have almost completely disregarded any illusion of fiscal and financial responsibility They have joined their Democrat brethren in an orgy of deficit spending and tax cuts without spending cuts.
The massive federal debt is not the Democrat debt or the Republican debt. It is everyone’s debt. Republicans bear every bit as much responsibility for the debt as anyone. They knowingly jeopardize our country’s future through reckless fiscal management and feckless disregard for basic economics.
Donald Trump and the many whack jobs and loonies that he has spawned have done nothing to further the standing of the Republican Party. Although Trump had several admirable achievements as president, he frequently brought shame and embarrassment to his party and his country.
At times, we were the laughingstock of the world, and his callous disregard of diplomatic norms jeopardized both friendly alliances and the peace of the world. The failure of our party to put an end to the Trump experiment, particularly after the classless and dangerous way he exited the White House, has been a major blow to the future of the Republican Party.
In addition, Trump’s close allies and anointed candidates have many times amounted to a freak show that more closely resembles Walmart on a Friday night than an organized vibrant political organization. The conduct of Marjorie Taylor Greene, George Santos, Lauren Bobert and Matt Gaetz, to name just a few, is embarrassing to me as a Republican and totally indefensible. The failure of Republican leadership to rein in these misfits is unforgivable.
The move of the Republican Party from a political organization to a quasi-religious one has been another brick in the wall between the party and the American people. I have nothing against religious men and women seeking office. In fact, I believe that we benefit from their participation.
My objection is that the Republican Party has slowly morphed into political ayatollahs who want to dictate their versions of morality through legislation and make their personal faith the national religion. This is exactly the opposite of why and how our country was founded. Religious freedom and personal behavior that is consistent with a person’s religious beliefs, should be honored and protected by our party. Sadly, many in our party argue for religious freedom only for those who share their beliefs. This has proven tremendously divisive to our party.
Perhaps the most frustrating and disappointing development in our party has been the way serious, intelligent and effective leaders of the Republican Party have been defeated for office or casually dismissed for being Republicans in Name Only or RINOs.
Where the great President Ronald Reagan said that anyone who agreed with him 80% of the time was a friend, many in our party today believe that it is my way or the highway.
I am personally and painfully aware of this phenomenon. After columns where I have advocated for women, gays, the working poor or for my friend Joe Sixpack, I have received emails, calls and an occasional hateful social media post calling me a RINO. After more than 50 years of service to the Republican Party, that stings.
I can’t begin to imagine how incensed former Gov. Mitch Daniels must have felt when his superb record of leadership was attacked by the Club For Growth in advertisements trying to keep him out of the U. S. Senate race. The most effective and productive governor of my lifetime was denigrated as a failed liberal by the special interest pimps of K Street. It was all lies, distortions and a low-life attempt to interfere in the political process by a political ayatollah. When My Man Mitch is a “liberal,” your party is in trouble.
I recall a conversation that I once had with a statewide official when I met his young son Teddy. I naively asked if his son was named after Teddy Roosevelt and was told in no uncertain terms that, “Absolutely not, Teddy Roosevelt was a progressive.”
Well, there you go. One of the reasons I’m proud to be a Republican sickens a current GOP leader; I’d like to have heard him call Teddy Roosevelt a RINO to his face. I imagine he would have got a fistful of Bull Moose.
So here is my morose prediction for the next two years, and trust me, I sure hope this prediction is wrong: I believe that Republicans, failing to learn the lessons of the 2016 presidential campaign, will flood the field in opposition to Donald Trump and by fracturing a majority of Republican voters who want someone to be their candidate other than Trump, will guarantee that Donald Trump will be the nominee because of his solid 30-35% voting bloc.
I also predict that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy will allow the Republican caucus to continue to resemble a Ringling Brothers circus and that it will bog down in a morass of public hearings and investigations and introduce no viable legislative agenda that improves the lives of the average American.
As a result of a very troubled and divisive Trump nomination as the Republican candidate and the failure of the Republican House to do the people’s business, I believe that Republicans will not only lose the presidential election but also will lose control of the House and will fail in a very winnable quest to gain control of the Senate.
At this point, there will be Republicans who will begin asking if there is a better solution. And so went the Whig Party.
Craig Dunn is the former chairman of the Howard County Republican Party.
Dysfunction in D.C. persuades the former governor to take a pass on the Senate race; Trump endorses Banks
INDIANAPOLIS — Perhaps it was poll after poll showing congressional approval hovering around 18%. Or that he never had that horde mentality; Mitch Daniels has been for the past three decades the leader of the pack. Or, perhaps, it was the Cooperstown busts of two native Hoosiers – Major League Baseball commissioners Kenesaw Mountain Landis and Ford Frick – and the fact that the job could come open next summer, that might have held sway.
When it came to a decision, Mitch Daniels determined that spending the next eight years campaigning and serving in dysfunctional Washington, D.C., with Donald Trump-inspired loony bin senators in stasis congressional gridlock was the ultimate deal breaker.
Thus, the former two-term Indiana governor and Purdue University president and, arguably, the most cunning and influential Hoosier Republican of the 21st century, slammed the door on a political comeback. “I’ve decided not to become a candidate for the U.S. Senate. With full credit and respect for the institution and those serving in it, I conclude that it’s just not the job for me, not the town for me,” Daniels said in his announcement Tuesday.
Portrait of former Gov. Mitch Daniels at the Columbia Club in Indianapolis.
The decision capped off a two-month exercise of whether Daniels would seek a Senate seat that he had once turned down, when Gov. Robert Orr offered him Vice President-elect Dan Quayle’s seat in 1988.
After spending a day in D.C. last week, he seemed uncertain, telling Politico, “I’m not the least bit worried, honestly, about losing an election. I’m worried about winning it and regretting it for six years. I say this with great respect for those who do it. But you know, that doesn’t mean it fits me or fits me at this time of my life. So that’s what this field trip’s about.”
“My one tour of duty in elected office involved, like those in business before and academe after it, an action job, with at least the chance to do useful things every day,” Daniels said. “I have never imagined that I would be well-suited to legislative office, particularly where seniority remains a significant factor in one’s effectiveness, and I saw nothing in my recent explorations that altered that view.”
At this writing, U.S. Rep. Jim Banks, R-Columbia City, is the sole candidate to announce for the Senate seat being vacated by Mike Braun, who is running for governor. “As I’ve said before, I respect Gov. Daniels and I learned a lot from him when I served in the Statehouse,” Banks said in a statement Tuesday morning before meeting with former British prime minister Boris Johnson. “I’m excited about the early momentum and support for our campaign but we’ve got a long way to go. Over the next two years, I’m going to work hard every day to make my case to Hoosier voters that I’m best prepared to be their conservative Senator in Washington.”
U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Noblesville, expressed interest before Daniels explored a bid, and might do so again. Informed and reliable sources close to Attorney General Todd Rokita tell Howey Politics Indiana/State Affairs that he likes his current job and will likely seek reelection in 2024.
In addition to Spartz, the other potential factor in the race is Gov. Eric Holcomb, who said in December that he has not ruled out a Senate bid, but such a determination would not come until the Indiana General Assembly sine die expected in late April.
Holcomb was a Senate candidate in 2016, facing then-U.S. Reps. Todd Young and Marlin Stutzman, when Gov. Mike Pence selected him to finish the term of Lt. Gov. Sue Ellspermann, who resigned to become president of Ivy Tech. Holcomb went on to win a gubernatorial caucus by the Indiana Republican Central Committee when Donald Trump chose Pence to be his vice president nominee.
Gov. Mitch Daniels with then-Indiana Republican Chairman Eric Holcomb at City Market in Indianapolis. (Credit: Brian Howey)
Asked about a potential Senate candidacy in mid-December, Holcomb responded, saying, “We’ll see.”
“I’ve been involved in some campaigns that have been 16 months, and I thought that was early. And then I’ve been involved in some that took about 106 days, and I thought that was rushed,” Holcomb said. “I’m going to do the job I’ve got. That’s somewhat liberating. I’m very comfortable with that.”
On the day that Daniels announced his decision, Trump endorsed Banks. “Jim Banks is running for the United States Senate from the Great State of Indiana. I know Jim well, have seen him tested at the highest and most difficult levels, and WIN!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Jim Banks is respected by all, will never let you down, and has my Complete & Total Endorsement!”
This is the same Trump who had dinner last December with an anti-semite neo-Nazi, suggested the U.S. Constitution be “terminated” to let him back into the office he lost by 7 million votes in 2020, and called Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine a fit of “savvy genius.”
In his statement, Daniels said, “I’ve likewise tried to keep in mind President Reagan’s observation that some people seek public office to be something, others to do something.”
Banks will run in the Trump lane, but there are a number of Daniels-type Republicans in Indiana who will be searching for a non-Trump alternative.
Mitch Daniels, then president of Purdue University, is pictured with author J.D. Vance at a Purdue Presidential Lecture Series event on Jan. 30, 2017. Now-Sen. Vance, R-Ohio, recently endorsed Rep. Jim Banks for Senate after Daniels opted out of the race. (Credit: Brian Howey)
Vance endorses Banks
U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, endorsed Banks for Senate in Indiana after Daniels’ announcement on Tuesday. “We need more leadership in Washington like Jim Banks. Jim puts the interests of our own country first, like working to secure our border from illegal immigration and illicit drugs and fentanyl, standing up against Big Tech censorship and fighting for America First trade policies that support working families with job creation right here at home,” Vance said. “Jim Banks will be the conservative force against Joe Biden’s woke, inflationary agenda that wants to make mass amnesty a grim reality, make our communities less safe and harder for middle and working class families to put food on the table. Jim is a product of the American Dream, like me. He represents the new wave of young conservative leadership of the Republican Party, and I look forward to working with him in the U.S. Senate.”
“I am honored to have Senator Vance’s support in our campaign to bring conservative values to the U.S. Senate,” Banks said. “I supported J.D. early on in his campaign last year because he understands the needs of the working class and what must be done to revitalize communities across the midwest and America. His support means a lot to me, and I look forward to partnering in the United States Senate to advance the pro-worker, pro-America agenda our country deserves.”
Header image: Mitch Daniels waves during a stop on the campaign trail. (Credit: Brian Howey)
He spent his freshman term learning about defense sector, and then came leadership
The adjective “ambitious” has long accompanied Jim Banks. He’s had it since he was president of the IU College Republicans, as Whitley County Republican chairman, as a county councilman, as a state senator, and then in Congress.
Throughout his political career, he has solidified his conservative bonafides, but when I caught up with him during a Blackhawk helicopter tour of Camp Atterbury and Muscatatuck Urban Warfare Center in August 2017, I found not an emerging firebrand, but a public servant pressing his nose to the grindstone.
Many thought that when he was elected to the U.S. House in 2016, he would follow his predecessor Marlin Stutzman into the arch-conservative Freedom Caucus. Instead, he explained, “I’m trying to learn about Indiana and fully utilize the position that I have as a freshman congressman on the committee today, and perhaps in a decade from now I’ll be much more of a tenured leader on Armed Services and do much more to rebuild the defense industry in our state.” The only caucus he sought membership in was the Republicans.
The initial prize wasn’t the Freedom Caucus bully pulpit, but the House Armed Services Committee.
In the Sept. 5, 2017, edition of Howey Politics, I observed: “At times, Banks seemed restless and potentially reckless, as early in his Indiana Senate tenure he seemed to foment leadership change.” By the time he ran for Congress, Senate President Pro Tempore David Long was an early and emphatic backer. Banks won a six-person primary, edging out farmer Kip Tom and State Sen. Liz Brown with 34%. From the start, his campaign had been well-funded and organized. “Banks comes off as thoughtful and less a firebrand than many had forecast. Banks is in study mode these days,” HPI reported.
These days, Banks has become a conservative firebrand and a key defender of Donald J. Trump. Getting into House leadership during the tumultuous Trump era will do that. Three years after arriving in Congress, he followed Mike Pence, Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise as chair of the Republican Study Committee.
U.S. Rep. Jim Banks (Credit: U.S. Government)
“I am honored to be chosen by my colleagues to lead the Republican Study Committee in the 117th Congress,” said Banks. “As the heart and soul of the conservative movement in the House, RSC is stronger than ever as we lead the fight for conservative values and push back against the radical socialist wing that controls the Democrat Party today. We will have our work cut out for us, but I won’t back down from the fight.”
Earlier this month, he formed the “anti-woke caucus,” explaining at the Claremont Institute, “This utterly un-American doctrine would be comical were it not so powerful and it is powerful because it is enforced not only by every major national institution. It is promoted and funded by the federal government itself.”
Now, in a move that will either be seen as excessively reckless or the kind of gamble that could forge a future governor or president, Banks has announced for the open Indiana U.S. Senate seat. In the next several days or weeks, we’ll find out whether this places him on a collision course with Mitch Daniels, or whether he will be ascendant.
Daniels is, arguably, the most cunning and influential Hoosier Republican of the 21st century. After turning down Gov. Robert Orr’s offer of Vice President-elect Dan Quayle’s Senate seat in 1988, he defeated a Democrat incumbent governor on the way to two transformational terms. After the GOP failed to retake control of the Indiana House in the 2008 election that saw him win in a landslide, Daniels rectified that by setting in motion a strategy that not only had Republicans retaking the House majority in 2010, but redrew maps the following year that have resulted in Republican super majorities since 2014.
Banks didn’t just announce his aspirations for higher office; he did so with a punch to Daniels, with a Club for Growth TV ad designed as a preemptive strike to keep him out of the race. The ad derided the former governor as a politician with “no fight left,” describing the former Purdue president as “an old guard Republican clinging to the old ways of the bad old days.”
Describing Daniels as a public figure with “no fight left” had the former governor’s allies shaking their heads in disbelief.
In declaring for the Senate seat, Banks described the U.S. as “at a turning point,” adding, “We need conservatives in Washington who are not afraid to fight back against radical socialist Democrats who are trying to change America.”
The DC influence
Banks arrived in Washington at the same time as President Trump did. But in 2017, he was cautious about Trump. Following Trump’s praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin that June at the controversial Helsinki summit, HPI asked Banks if he was disturbed by the two presidents meeting alone, with no readout. “Director (of National Intelligence Dan) Coats was chosen by this president to oversee one of the most important intelligence agencies overseeing the broader intelligence agencies on behalf of our national security,” Banks responded. “It is disappointing he was not in the room and aware of what these discussions were about. None of us know what they talked about in private.”
In September of that year, Trump was threatening a government shutdown. “The discussions about the shutdown are reckless and completely avoidable,” Banks told HPI. “I was greatly disappointed in the president’s tweets this morning and I’ve expressed that on my own Twitter account, that tying the debt ceiling debate to the debt ceiling issue is not draining the swamp. It’s quite the opposite. This business as usual is the type of thing the American people want us to move away from.”
By October 2022 when he was expecting a GOP congressional wave to produce an emphatic 30- to 40-seat majority, Banks had a different take on the debt ceiling. “It’s a major leverage point for the House Republican majority to use to control spending,” Banks told Robert Costa of CBS News. “We’ve seen the national debt now surpass $31 trillion. It is a key driver of inflation. We have to use a moment like that to do things that the administration wouldn’t otherwise do, the Democrats don’t support.”
Of course, the huge political cataclysm in Banks’ tenure on the Hill occurred on Jan. 6, 2021, with the U.S. Capitol insurrection. He was one of 126 House Republicans to sign an amicus brief supporting a Texas lawsuit that challenged the election outcome in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia. He was among the 147 or so House Republicans who objected to the Electoral College vote count.
Banks voted against the second impeachment of Trump six weeks after the insurrection, saying in a Facebook posting, “Right now, I’m headed to the House floor to vote against impeachment. The Democrat party is dividing America when we should be doing everything we can to unite the country.” He told WPTA-TV, “I and many others have called for a bipartisan commission to study the activities of what happened a week ago on Jan. 6 … why security was so weak at the Capitol that allowed it to happen and find out who’s responsible and then we can take action from there.”
Rep. Jim Banks and his wife Amanda pose with former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in a photo posted to Banks’ Instagram account on March 5, 2022. (Credit: Rep. Jim Banks/Instagram)
Then-Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who criticized Trump for instigating the insurrection, had initially signed off on a bipartisan commission to investigate Jan. 6. But he shifted course, meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago a few weeks later, signaling he had absolved the disgraced, losing president. He chose Reps. Banks and Jim Jordan as Republican members. Then that summer, Speaker Nancy Pelosi stunned Washington, booting Banks and Jordan off the House Jan. 6 committee.
“The violent domestic attack on Congress on January 6th was the worst assault on the Capitol since the War of 1812 and the worst domestic assault on American Democracy since the Civil War,” Pelosi said. “We are facing a radically new threat in the kinds of forces that combined to attack our government on January 6th. The future of our democracy is on the line. Monday evening, the Minority Leader recommended five Members to serve on the Select Committee. I have spoken with him this morning about the objections raised about Representatives Jim Banks and Jim Jordan and the impact their appointments may have on the integrity of the investigation. With respect for the integrity of the investigation, with an insistence on the truth and with concern about statements made and actions taken by these Members, I must reject the recommendations of Reps. Banks and Jordan to the Select Committee. The unprecedented nature of January 6th demands this unprecedented decision.”
“Make no mistake, Nancy Pelosi created this committee solely to malign conservatives and to justify the Left’s authoritarian agenda,” Banks said in a statement.
But the House Jan. 6 committee that included Republican Vice Chair Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, found traction, with almost all the damning testimony featuring Trump appointees and many conservative, Republican allies.
Following the first nationally-televised primetime hearing of the committee last June, Banks was asked about the hearing by PBS Newshour host Judy Woodruff. “Well, sadly, last night was no different than what we have seen before,” Banks responded. “It was a political exercise, truly a political witchhunt that was focused more on the Democrats’ obsession with Donald Trump than anything at all about Capitol security or investigating the events that led up to Jan. 6, so we can prevent something like that from ever happening again.”
Asked whether Trump bears any responsibility for the Jan. 6 insurrection, Banks responded, “What you saw was a series of selectively edited interviews. They recorded all of these interviews, but they didn’t present the American people with any evidence that actually shows that Donald Trump directed the attack on the Capitol. They didn’t present it because they don’t have it. I mean, I can’t get over the fact that, in the president’s speech that day at the White House, he told his supporters to go down to the Capitol and patriotically and peacefully make your voice heard. And there’s never been any evidence brought forward that shows that he did anything other than that. He didn’t direct the attack. He didn’t tell people to attack the Capitol, to break into the Capitol, cause violence toward Capitol Police officers. There’s no … no evidence to show that he did that.”
Banks was asked: Do you agree there was no significant fraud in the 2020 election? He responded, “I based my vote to object on how states conducted their election without the approval of their state legislatures. And that’s a serious constitutional question that I believe deserved greater scrutiny and debate. I have never once talked about a — quote — ‘stolen election.’ It wasn’t about that to me. It was about the way that states, because of — using COVID as an excuse, went to all mail-in ballots, changed their election laws and how ballots were collected on Election Day without the approval of their state legislature.”
Cheering on a ‘transformed’ GOP
The other significant Banks move in 2022 was his Republican Study Committee memo in which he advised the GOP break with corporate America and court blue-collar workers, formerly union workers who began shifting toward the GOP as “Reagan Democrats” three decades ago. “In the last five years, the GOP has undergone a coalitional transformation and is now the party of the working class,” Banks explained. “We should embrace that. Not fight it. Both parties are undergoing coalitional transformations,”
Banks added, “When Eli Lilly and several other corporate PACs blacklisted me” for objecting to the certification of Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, “I reached out to individual donors, explained the situation, and asked for their support. Once my supporters learned that liberal corporations blacklisted me because I refused to cave to their demands on Jan. 6, they were happy to make up the difference. That’s how, in the first quarter of this year, I regained every penny of the $241,000 I lost in corporate money through individual donations.”
“There is an embittered and loud minority in the GOP that finds our new coalition distasteful, but President Trump’s gift didn’t come with a receipt,” the Banks memo said. “Our electoral success in the 2022 midterm election will be determined by our willingness to embrace our new coalition. House Republicans can broaden our electorate, increase voter turnout, and take back the House by enthusiastically rebranding and reorienting as the party of the working class. Republicans are pro-business and pro-worker, not pro-corporation.”
That House Republicans ended up with a mere four-seat House majority, and Democrats actually increased their Senate majority by a seat either revealed the faulty logic in the Banks memo, or the 2022 mid-terms were impacted with a greater weight by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, or voters seeking to protect democracy following the Jan. 6 insurrection. Polling shows those two issues gaining strength with likely voters during the homestretch of the 2022 cycle.
The fact that Trump’s anointing fringe, celebrity Senate candidates like Dr. Oz and Herschel Walker, didn’t initially phase Banks. “Donald Trump remains a very popular figure in the Republican Party in each corner of the country,” Banks told “Fox News Sunday” following the Nov. 8 election. “I believe that Donald Trump was a very effective president for our country. I believe he could be a very effective president for our country again.”
During his Senate campaign kick-off video, Banks called Trump “the strongest president of my lifetime.”
Asked by Politico if he would support Trump in 2024, Banks said, “If President Trump runs, he has my support. And he helps us draw out Trump voters which helps us win in November in the midterm. He’s more popular than he’s ever been before.” But The Daily Beast reported that Banks is backing off, quoting him as saying, ‘I’ll save my endorsement for another place and time for the 2024 race.”
Banks told DailyMail.com that he wants Trump to campaign alongside him in the Indiana Senate race, following five such rallies in 2018 that propelled Mike Braun’s upset win over U.S. Sen. Joe Donnelly. “I’d be very glad to have his endorsement, and I hope he comes and campaigns with me, too,” Banks said.
If there is a Banks vs. Daniels fight, described by multiple reporters and pundits as a “showdown for the soul of the Indiana and American Republican parties,” Banks can be expected to run in the Trump lane.
Brian Howey is managing editor of Howey Politics Indiana/State Affairs at StateAffairs.com/pro/Indiana. Find Howey on Facebook and Twitter @hwypol.
Header image: Rep. Jim Banks listens during a tour of Camp Atterbury and Muscatatuck Urban Warfare Center in August 2017. (HPI photo by Brian Howey)
Welcome to the Kansas Daily News Wire, your daily roundup of top state and political stories from newsrooms across Kansas. — Hawver’s Capitol Report/State Affairs
STATE
Regents authorize $273.2M funding request for 2026 after warning by top budget official: The Kansas Board of Regents on Wednesday authorized $273.2 million in funding requests for the 2026 budget cycle. But the state’s top budget official issued a not-so-veiled warning — cautioning state agencies against overspending, which also extends to carryover funding from the prior fiscal year. (Resnick, State Affairs)
Officials celebrate Kansas’ ‘economic transformation’ at new soybean plant: While this southeast Kansas town’s population peaked more than 100 years ago, the opening of the region’s largest ever economic development project means its best days are ahead, Lt. Gov. David Toland said Thursday. (Kansas Reflector)
Women administrators win Topeka police gender discrimination lawsuit: A federal court jury ruled last Thursday that Topeka’s city government discriminated against two female police administrators when it passed them over for promotion in favor of a male candidate those women said was less qualified and had credibility issues they didn’t have. (Topeka Capital-Journal)
Former Sedgwick County commissioner collapses at retirement party: A longtime Sedgwick County administrative assistant, who is also a volunteer emergency medical technician, participated in a rescue at her own retirement ceremony when one of her former bosses collapsed in the audience. (The Wichita Eagle)
Wichita extends drought restrictions; begins fines: The City of Wichita is extending its drought restrictions beyond September because the water level at Cheney Lake continues to drop. The city also plans to start issuing fines to people who violate the restrictions. (KSN)
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jennifer McCormick unveiled her plan to lower Hoosiers’ utility bills, and Attorney General Todd Rokita declined to intervene in a lawsuit claiming the state’s Medicaid program lost millions of dollars through fraud. More news below. — Howey Politics Indiana/State Affairs
Attorney general’s office passes on whistleblower Medicaid lawsuit: The Indiana attorney general’s office has decided to stay out of a whistleblower lawsuit in which two former state officials claim several hospitals and insurance companies defrauded hundreds of millions of dollars from Indiana’s Medicaid program. (Davies, State Affairs)
Holcomb joins GOP governors pushing back against clean energy mandates: Saying some renewable mandates are ideological statements not based in reality, Gov. Holcomb joined nine other Republican governors to push back against clean energy mandates. (Kelly, Indiana Capital Chronicle)
Crouch to speak at UN Science Summit: Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch announced in an email to Howey Politics Indiana/State Affairs that she will join other U.S. state leaders for a discussion on mental health during Brain Days at The Science Summit, part of the 79th United Nations General Assembly in New York.
IEDC announces $38.3B in committed investments, beating previous record: The Indiana Economic Development Corp. said Thursday it has secured $38.3 billion in committed capital investment from 124 companies through the third quarter of this year. (Brown, Inside Indiana Business)
Proposed Citizens Energy LEAP pipeline approved for $325M in state loans: The Indiana Finance Authority approved $325 million in loans to support the proposed extension of the Citizens Energy system to provide 25 million gallons of water per day to the LEAP Lebanon Innovation District and surrounding Boone County developments. (Charron, IBJ)
Planned Parenthood expands gender-affirming care capacity at statewide clinics: Planned Parenthood has expanded its capacity to offer gender-affirming care services in Indiana, stating it hopes to meet the need of transgender Hoosiers seeking care. (Smith, WFIU-FM)
State agrees to transfer vacant women’s prison to Indy for redevelopment: In a victory for Indianapolis eastside neighbors, the state has agreed to transfer ownership of the long-vacant Indiana Women’s Prison site to the city. (Benson, MirrorIndy)
More than half of Indiana counties under burn ban: The latest U.S. Drought Monitor shows most of Indiana under “moderate drought” while some areas of the state are in “severe drought.” (Herrick, WIBC-FM)
LOCAL
Fort Wayne mayor, controller unveil balanced budget, possible 5% local tax cut: The City of Fort Wayne would invest nearly $48 million in neighborhood infrastructure improvements — and the tax rate could drop — under a 2025 budget proposal. (The Journal Gazette)
Record tourism year for Terre Haute: Mayor Brandon Sakbun says the city’s tourism revenue for 2024 is already ahead of last year by 18%. (Reeves, WTHI-TV)
Monroe County council lowers jail tax rate: Monroe County income tax will go up 0.175% on Jan. 1 to help pay for a new jail that will likely be built along State Road 46 between Bloomington and Ellettsville. (Lane, The Herald-Times)
I-69 expected to be ‘game changer’ for Bargersville: Johnson County and Bargersville are getting ready to grow as the Interstate 69 innovation corridor develops. (Kennett, Daily Journal)
Monday: Pension oversight study committee to meet — A notice announced the Interim Study Committee on Pension Management Oversight will meet at 1 p.m. in Room 156-A at the Statehouse. (Howey Politics Indiana/State Affairs)
CONGRESS
Young joins Senate GOP letter claiming VP Harris mismanaged $42B broadband initiatives: U.S. Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., announced he joined eight Republican senators in a letter to Vice President Kamala Harris claiming she mismanaged federal broadband initiatives by adding “partisan, extralegal requirements” to the process. (Howey Politics Indiana/StateAffairs)
Banks joins Carson, Yakym to vote down continuing appropriations legislation: Unlike his fellow Hoosier House Republicans who supported the measure, Rep. Jim Banks voted against yesterday’s failed continuing resolution bill, explaining he did so because it “didn’t cut a single cent in federal spending,” according to an email to Howey Politics Indiana/State Affairs. Indiana Democratic Reps. André Carson and Frank Mrvan also voted nay.
Bucshon legislation seeks to modernize recycling infrastructure: U.S. Rep. Larry Bucshon, R-Ind., introduced bipartisan legislation to tackle plastic pollution and improve the sustainability of plastic packaging materials by modernizing the nation’s recycling infrastructure and increasing the use of recycled material, according to a news release. (Howey Politics Indiana/State Affairs)
Banks letter calls on Biden to enforce laws, sanction Iran: Rep. Banks sent a letter to President Joe Biden stating the administration failed to enforce two laws regarding the sanctioning of Iran. Banks’ MAHSA Act required the administration to take action by July 23, according to a news release. (Howey Politics Indiana/State Affairs)
Pence speaks in opposition to minimum nursing staffing rule: U.S. Rep. Greg Pence, R-Ind., announced he urged members of a markup committee to overturn a mandatory nursing staff ratio rule proposed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, claiming the rule would lead to nursing home closures in hard-to-staff rural areas. (Howey Politics Indiana/State Affairs)
Houchin admonishes Democrats for opposing proposed immigration policies: In response to Democrats’ concerns that proposed immigration legislation would lead to federal funding cuts to states, U.S. Rep. Erin Houchin, R-Ind., said, “I think letting 10 million or more illegal immigrants flooding into the country is doing the most to undermine public health, public safety and undermining our cities.” (Darling, WIBC-FM)
Congressional schedule: The House will meet at 9 a.m. Agenda items include consideration of bills addressing presidential security, “sanctuary cities” and proposed rules for vehicle emissions. The Senate is out.
Libertarians protest snub of Rainwater for televised debate: Indiana Libertarians are objecting to gubernatorial candidate Donald Rainwater not being invited to participate in the first of three planned televised debates between Republican Mike Braun and Democrat Jennifer McCormick. (Davies, State Affairs)
NATION
Mitch Daniels op-ed: America is racing toward a fiscal apocalypse — “With debts already about to surpass the nation’s entire GDP, and adding close to $2 trillion more this year, only a dwindling number of denialists doubt that a cataclysmic reckoning, including double-digit damage to Americans’ income growth, lies ahead,” former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels wrote in an op-ed published in The Washington Post.
White House schedule: President Joe Biden will host a reception in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month at 5 p.m. Vice President Kamala Harris will deliver remarks at campaign events in Atlanta and Madison, Wisconsin.
The political day in Raleigh Thursday was dominated by news and speculation surrounding the gubernatorial campaign of Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who addressed the issue of a potential withdrawal from the race in a defiant video release on the social media platform X.
“We are staying in this race. We are in it to win it,” Robinson said in the video, which was released mid-afternoon. “And we know that with your help, we will.”
Robinson tells viewers that they have already seen “half-truths and outright lies” in campaign advertisements attacking him and that now CNN is releasing a story based on what he calls a leak by the campaign of his opponent, Attorney General Josh Stein.
Robinson dismisses the CNN story as “salacious tabloid trash” and compares himself to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who he said was also the victim of a “high-tech lynching.”
On the campaign trail, Robinson has long encouraged voters to ignore attack ads and negative media reports about him.
”Let me reassure you the things that you will see in that story, those are not the words of Mark Robinson,” Robinson said. “You know my words, you know my character and you know that I have been completely transparent in this race and before.”
By 9 p.m., Robinson’s video had garnered more than 3 million views.
Unknowable at this point, however, is how many views the allegations contained in the CNN story garnered as it appeared on news sites and social media platforms around the country. Many headlines featured the allegation that Robinson had referred to himself on a porn web site as a “Black Nazi.”
Stories early in the day based on anonymous sources said Robinson was getting pressure to withdraw from the race by people associated with the campaign of former President Donald Trump.
Robinson spokesman Michael Lonergan called that false. “You can quote me directly on this: That is complete fiction.”
FULL REPORTING
CNN Report: (Gary Robertson, The Associated Press, 9/19/24) The CNN report describes a series of racial and sexual comments Robinson posted on the message board of a pornography website more than a decade ago. CNN reported that Robinson, who would be North Carolina’s first Black governor, attacked civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in searing terms and once referred to himself as a “black NAZI.”
CNN also reported that Robinson wrote of being aroused by a memory of “peeping” women in gym showers when he was 14 along with an appreciation of transgender pornography. Robinson at one point referred to himself as a “perv,” according to CNN.
The Associated Press has not independently confirmed that Robinson wrote and posted the messages. CNN said it matched details of the account on the pornographic website forum to other online accounts held by Robinson by comparing usernames, a known email address and his full name.
CNN reported that details discussed by the account holder matched Robinson’s age, length of marriage and other biographical information. It also compared figures of speech that came up frequently in his public Twitter profile that appeared in discussions by the account on the pornographic website.
Trump Campaign: (Gary Robertson, The Associated Press, 9/19/24) Trump’s campaign appears to be distancing itself from Robinson in the wake of the report. In a statement to the AP, Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the GOP nominee’s campaign “is focused on winning the White House and saving this country,” calling North Carolina “a vital part of that plan.” Leavitt went on to contrast Trump’s economic record with that of Harris, not mentioning Robinson by name or answering questions as to whether he would appear with Trump at a Saturday campaign rally in Wilmington, or had been invited to do so.
State law says a gubernatorial nominee could withdraw as a candidate no later than the day before the first absentee ballots requested by military and overseas voters are distributed. That begins Friday, so the withdrawal deadline would be late Thursday. State Republican leaders could then pick a replacement.
Republican Response (Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan, The News & Observer, 9/19/24; Gary Robertson, The Associated Press, 9/19/24) A top-ranking North Carolina Republican says the news of the latest scandal involving Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who is running for governor, is “not a shock to me.” North Carolina’s Republican State Treasurer Dale Folwell said “it seems like anyone who’s ever come in contact with (Robinson) has been fleeced. And this is just the latest example of the taxpayers and the donors getting fleeced.” Folwell, a longtime elected official who also served in the General Assembly, ran unsuccessfully against Robinson in the Republican gubernatorial primary. “His consultants, who have made hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars off him, are laughing all the way to the bank,” Folwell said in an interview Thursday with The News & Observer.
The CNN report is “concerning,” said Rep. Richard Hudson, a North Carolina member of Congress who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee, in a statement sent by a spokesperson for the NRCC. “The allegations involving Lt. Gov. Robinson in this new report are concerning. I am hoping Mark can reassure North Carolinians that each of these specific allegations are not true,” Hudson said. Similarly, Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Budd said in a statement through a spokesperson: “The comments reported in the article are disgusting. Mark Robinson says they are not from him. He needs to prove that to the voters.”
The North Carolina Republican Party defended Robinson in a statement on X, saying that despite his denial of CNN’s report, it wouldn’t “stop the Left from trying to demonize him via personal attacks.” The party referred to economic and immigration policies as the predominant election issues North Carolinians will care more about instead.
“The Left needs this election to be a personality contest, not a policy contest because if voters focused on policy, Republicans win on Election Day,” the party said.
Ed Broyhill, a North Carolina member of the Republican National Committee, said he spoke to Robinson Thursday afternoon and still supports him as the nominee. In an interview, Broyhill suggested the online details may have been fabricated.
“It seems like a dirty trick to me,” Broyhill said.
Folwell recalled Robinson saying in a speech “that anybody who criticizes him, God’s going to come down on a white horse and exercise His vengeance.” “I guess there’s going to be a lot of white horses,” Folwell said. As treasurer, Folwell serves on the 10-member Council of State with Robinson and other statewide elected officials.
Folwell said that when it comes to dropping out of the race for governor, the only people who can make that decision are Robinson, former President Donald Trump and Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley, who previously led the NC Republican Party, because “they’re the ones that selected him to start with.” Trump has endorsed Robinson, and brought him on stage with him briefly during a campaign rally in Asheboro in August. However, Robinson was not at a rally this week with Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate.
Scott Lassiter, a Republican candidate for state Senate, is calling for Robinson to end his campaign and let another Republican take his place. Lassiter said that “no one should feel obligated to support a candidate solely due to party affiliation,” and called for Robinson to step aside. Robinson said even before the CNN report came out that he will not leave the race, and denies the allegations.
Democratic Response: (Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan, The News & Observer, 9/19/24) Robinson’s opponent in the governor’s race is Attorney General Josh Stein. “North Carolinians already know Mark Robinson is completely unfit to be Governor. Josh remains focused on winning this campaign so that together we can build a safer, stronger North Carolina for everyone,” Stein’s campaign said in a statement. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, at an event-naming ceremony for the Lenovo Center, was asked about Robinson ahead of the CNN story publishing. “So there is something special that has happened? I think every day could be a reason for him to have dropped out of the race. You know, he’s the wrong choice for North Carolina,” Cooper told reporters.
Attorney General and Democratic nominee for Governor Josh Stein meets with Republicans who say they will support him in November. (Credit: Clifton Dowell)
Democratic U.S. Rep. Jeff Jackson, who is running for attorney general against Republican U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop, sent out a news release about the CNN story with photos of Bishop and Robinson together, asking if Bishop regrets his endorsement of Robinson. “Is he still “proud” to give Robinson his support? … Or are Robinson’s comments on Nazis and slavery a bridge too far, even after all the other controversy?” Jackson wrote. Other Democrats were already sending out fundraising emails off the Robinson news, including Democratic state House candidate Nicole Sidman, who is running against Republican N.C. Rep. Tricia Cotham.
Democratic Governors Association spokesperson Izzi Levy called it “just the latest proof that Mark Robinson is unhinged, dangerous, and completely unfit to be governor.” Avi Bajpai and Chip Alexander contributed to this story.
Republicans for Stein: (Clifton Dowell, State Affairs Pro, 9/24/24) Calling GOP candidate Mark Robinson a fringe candidate who would be bad for North Carolina, a group of Republicans on Thursday announced their support for Democrat Josh Stein to be the next governor.
Introduced at a news conference organized by the Stein campaign, the group — termed “Republicans for Stein” — included former North Carolina state Sen. Richard Stevens, Winston-Salem attorney David Daggett, and consultant and businesswoman Parker Wilson.
In a news release, the campaign said more than 50 North Carolinians had signed on so far, including former state Sen. Jim Davis and former state Reps. Chuck Neely, Charles “Chuck” McGrady, David Guice and Will Neumann.
A spokesman for the Robinson campaign declined to comment on the news conference.
Parker Wilson, a consultant and longtime Republican, said she supports Democrat Josh Stein in November’s election for governor. (Credit: Clifton Dowell)
Wilson said that Robinson’s views on women were objectionable and that the state would suffer in terms of business recruitment with him at the helm.
“I’m both a woman and a business leader, and Mark Robinson is bad for both,” she said. “He holds no regard for women, whether we carry the title of CEO or sexual assault survivor. In his narrow view, none of us were called to lead or warrant sharing our story.”
Daggett said as a friend of Stein’s father — civil rights attorney Adam Stein — he had watched the younger Stein grow into a decent person.
“I’m a longtime Republican,” Daggett said. “I believe in character, honor, decency, respect and care for all people. Mark Robinson does not represent those values.”
While Robinson — like GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump — were described as a “fringe” candidate,
Wilson and Stevens said it is difficult to dismiss candidates such as Robinson and GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump as “one-offs,” given the makeup of the current Republican Party.
“I’m not sure how much longer I can call myself a Republican,” Stevens said.
Legislative Office: (Clifton Dowell, State Affairs Pro, 9/24/24) The lieutenant governor no longer has offices in the 2100 quadrant of the Legislative Building after being asked to give up the space several weeks ago. Robinson rarely appeared to preside over the Senate this year, but with fewer than 10 potential session days scheduled, the impact will fall mainly on future lieutenant governors.
The official office of the lieutenant governor is located in the Hawkins-Hartness House on Blount Street, near the Legislative Building. Lauren Horsch, a spokesperson for Senate leader Phil Berger, said the decision resulted from a review of space allocations at the legislative complex.
“As part of the preparations for the next biennium, Senate leadership is evaluating the space allocations in both the Legislative Building and the Legislative Office Building,” she said in a statement. “Since the Lt. Governor has a formal office within walking distance of the legislature, it was determined that his designated space in the Legislative Building could be converted to a meeting space for legislators. The Lt. Governor’s staff was notified weeks ago and did not raise any concerns about the space being repurposed.”
Robinson’s staff moved out of the Legislative Building last week, Horsch said.
For questions or comments, or to pass along story ideas, please write to Clifton Dowell at [email protected] or @StateAffairsNC on X.
“I guess there’s going to be a lot of white horses.”
Republican State Treasurer Dale Folwell, who recalled Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson once saying that God would descend on a white horse to silence Robinson’s critics. (The News & Observer, 9/19/24)
Robinson Campaign
The political day in Raleigh Thursday was dominated by news and speculation surrounding the gubernatorial campaign of Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who addressed the issue of a potential withdrawal from the race in a defiant video release on the social media platform X.
Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson hosts an award ceremony honoring law enforcement officers on July 10, 2024. (Credit: Clifton Dowell)
“We are staying in this race. We are in it to win it,” Robinson said in the video, which was released mid-afternoon. “And we know that with your help, we will.”
Robinson tells viewers that they have already seen “half-truths and outright lies” in campaign advertisements attacking him and that now CNN is releasing a story based on what he calls a leak by the campaign of his opponent, Attorney General Josh Stein.
Robinson dismisses the CNN story as “salacious tabloid trash” and compares himself to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who he said was also the victim of a “high-tech lynching.”
”Let me reassure you the things that you will see in that story, those are not the words of Mark Robinson,” Robinson said. “You know my words, you know my character and you know that I have been completely transparent in this race and before.”
By 9 p.m., Robinson’s video had garnered more than 3 million views.
Unknowable at this point, however, is how many views the allegations contained in the CNN story garnered as it appeared on news sites and social media platforms around the country. Many headlines featured the allegation that Robinson had referred to himself on a porn web site as a “Black Nazi.”
Stories early in the day based on anonymous sources said Robinson was getting pressure to withdraw from the race by people associated with the campaign of former President Donald Trump.
Robinson spokesman Michael Lonergan called that false. “You can quote me directly on this: That is complete fiction.”
CNN Report: (Gary Robertson, The Associated Press, 9/19/24) The CNN report describes a series of racial and sexual comments Robinson posted on the message board of a pornography website more than a decade ago. CNN reported that Robinson, who would be North Carolina’s first Black governor, attacked civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in searing terms and once referred to himself as a “black NAZI.”
CNN also reported that Robinson wrote of being aroused by a memory of “peeping” women in gym showers when he was 14 along with an appreciation of transgender pornography. Robinson at one point referred to himself as a “perv,” according to CNN.
The Associated Press has not independently confirmed that Robinson wrote and posted the messages. CNN said it matched details of the account on the pornographic website forum to other online accounts held by Robinson by comparing usernames, a known email address and his full name.
CNN reported that details discussed by the account holder matched Robinson’s age, length of marriage and other biographical information. It also compared figures of speech that came up frequently in his public Twitter profile that appeared in discussions by the account on the pornographic website.
Trump Campaign: (Gary Robertson, The Associated Press, 9/19/24) Trump’s campaign appears to be distancing itself from Robinson in the wake of the report. In a statement to the AP, Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the GOP nominee’s campaign “is focused on winning the White House and saving this country,” calling North Carolina “a vital part of that plan.” Leavitt went on to contrast Trump’s economic record with that of Harris, not mentioning Robinson by name or answering questions as to whether he would appear with Trump at a Saturday campaign rally in Wilmington, or had been invited to do so.
State law says a gubernatorial nominee could withdraw as a candidate no later than the day before the first absentee ballots requested by military and overseas voters are distributed. That begins Friday, so the withdrawal deadline would be late Thursday. State Republican leaders could then pick a replacement.
Republican Response (Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan, The News & Observer, 9/19/24; Gary Robertson, The Associated Press, 9/19/24) A top-ranking North Carolina Republican says the news of the latest scandal involving Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who is running for governor, is “not a shock to me.” North Carolina’s Republican State Treasurer Dale Folwell said “it seems like anyone who’s ever come in contact with (Robinson) has been fleeced. And this is just the latest example of the taxpayers and the donors getting fleeced.” Folwell, a longtime elected official who also served in the General Assembly, ran unsuccessfully against Robinson in the Republican gubernatorial primary. “His consultants, who have made hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars off him, are laughing all the way to the bank,” Folwell said in an interview Thursday with The News & Observer.
The CNN report is “concerning,” said Rep. Richard Hudson, a North Carolina member of Congress who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee, in a statement sent by a spokesperson for the NRCC. “The allegations involving Lt. Gov. Robinson in this new report are concerning. I am hoping Mark can reassure North Carolinians that each of these specific allegations are not true,” Hudson said. Similarly, Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Budd said in a statement through a spokesperson: “The comments reported in the article are disgusting. Mark Robinson says they are not from him. He needs to prove that to the voters.”
The North Carolina Republican Party defended Robinson in a statement on X, saying that despite his denial of CNN’s report, it wouldn’t “stop the Left from trying to demonize him via personal attacks.” The party referred to economic and immigration policies as the predominant election issues North Carolinians will care more about instead.
“The Left needs this election to be a personality contest, not a policy contest because if voters focused on policy, Republicans win on Election Day,” the party said.
Ed Broyhill, a North Carolina member of the Republican National Committee, said he spoke to Robinson Thursday afternoon and still supports him as the nominee. In an interview, Broyhill suggested the online details may have been fabricated.
“It seems like a dirty trick to me,” Broyhill said.
Folwell recalled Robinson saying in a speech “that anybody who criticizes him, God’s going to come down on a white horse and exercise His vengeance.” “I guess there’s going to be a lot of white horses,” Folwell said. As treasurer, Folwell serves on the 10-member Council of State with Robinson and other statewide elected officials.
Folwell said that when it comes to dropping out of the race for governor, the only people who can make that decision are Robinson, former President Donald Trump and Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley, who previously led the NC Republican Party, because “they’re the ones that selected him to start with.” Trump has endorsed Robinson, and brought him on stage with him briefly during a campaign rally in Asheboro in August. However, Robinson was not at a rally this week with Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate.
Scott Lassiter, a Republican candidate for state Senate, is calling for Robinson to end his campaign and let another Republican take his place. Lassiter said that “no one should feel obligated to support a candidate solely due to party affiliation,” and called for Robinson to step aside. Robinson said even before the CNN report came out that he will not leave the race, and denies the allegations.
Democratic Response: (Dawn Baumgartner Vaughan, The News & Observer, 9/19/24) Robinson’s opponent in the governor’s race is Attorney General Josh Stein. “North Carolinians already know Mark Robinson is completely unfit to be Governor. Josh remains focused on winning this campaign so that together we can build a safer, stronger North Carolina for everyone,” Stein’s campaign said in a statement. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, at an event-naming ceremony for the Lenovo Center, was asked about Robinson ahead of the CNN story publishing. “So there is something special that has happened? I think every day could be a reason for him to have dropped out of the race. You know, he’s the wrong choice for North Carolina,” Cooper told reporters.
Attorney General and Democratic nominee for Governor Josh Stein meets with Republicans who say they will support him in November. (Credit: Clifton Dowell)
Democratic U.S. Rep. Jeff Jackson, who is running for attorney general against Republican U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop, sent out a news release about the CNN story with photos of Bishop and Robinson together, asking if Bishop regrets his endorsement of Robinson. “Is he still “proud” to give Robinson his support? … Or are Robinson’s comments on Nazis and slavery a bridge too far, even after all the other controversy?” Jackson wrote. Other Democrats were already sending out fundraising emails off the Robinson news, including Democratic state House candidate Nicole Sidman, who is running against Republican N.C. Rep. Tricia Cotham.
Democratic Governors Association spokesperson Izzi Levy called it “just the latest proof that Mark Robinson is unhinged, dangerous, and completely unfit to be governor.” Avi Bajpai and Chip Alexander contributed to this story.
Republicans for Stein: (Clifton Dowell, State Affairs Pro, 9/24/24) Calling GOP candidate Mark Robinson a fringe candidate who would be bad for North Carolina, a group of Republicans on Thursday announced their support for Democrat Josh Stein to be the next governor.
Introduced at a news conference organized by the Stein campaign, the group — termed “Republicans for Stein” — included former North Carolina state Sen. Richard Stevens, Winston-Salem attorney David Daggett, and consultant and businesswoman Parker Wilson.
In a news release, the campaign said more than 50 North Carolinians had signed on so far, including former state Sen. Jim Davis and former state Reps. Chuck Neely, Charles “Chuck” McGrady, David Guice and Will Neumann.
A spokesman for the Robinson campaign declined to comment on the news conference.
Parker Wilson, a consultant and longtime Republican, said she supports Democrat Josh Stein in November’s election for governor. (Credit: Clifton Dowell)
Wilson said that Robinson’s views on women were objectionable and that the state would suffer in terms of business recruitment with him at the helm.
“I’m both a woman and a business leader, and Mark Robinson is bad for both,” she said. “He holds no regard for women, whether we carry the title of CEO or sexual assault survivor. In his narrow view, none of us were called to lead or warrant sharing our story.”
Daggett said as a friend of Stein’s father — civil rights attorney Adam Stein — he had watched the younger Stein grow into a decent person.
“I’m a longtime Republican,” Daggett said. “I believe in character, honor, decency, respect and care for all people. Mark Robinson does not represent those values.”
While Robinson — like GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump — were described as a “fringe” candidate,
Wilson and Stevens said it is difficult to dismiss candidates such as Robinson and GOP presidential nominee Donald J. Trump as “one-offs,” given the makeup of the current Republican Party.
“I’m not sure how much longer I can call myself a Republican,” Stevens said.
Legislative Office: (Clifton Dowell, State Affairs Pro, 9/24/24) The lieutenant governor no longer has offices in the 2100 quadrant of the Legislative Building after being asked to give up the space several weeks ago. Robinson rarely appeared to preside over the Senate this year, but with fewer than 10 potential session days scheduled, the impact will fall mainly on future lieutenant governors.
The official office of the lieutenant governor is located in the Hawkins-Hartness House on Blount Street, near the Legislative Building. Lauren Horsch, a spokesperson for Senate leader Phil Berger, said the decision resulted from a review of space allocations at the legislative complex.
“As part of the preparations for the next biennium, Senate leadership is evaluating the space allocations in both the Legislative Building and the Legislative Office Building,” she said in a statement. “Since the Lt. Governor has a formal office within walking distance of the legislature, it was determined that his designated space in the Legislative Building could be converted to a meeting space for legislators. The Lt. Governor’s staff was notified weeks ago and did not raise any concerns about the space being repurposed.”
Robinson’s staff moved out of the Legislative Building last week, Horsch said.
Insider Event
State Affairs Pro, 9/20/24
The panel is set for our Insider subscriber event on Wednesday, Oct. 9. The discussion will feature Senate Majority Leader Paul Newton and House Deputy Democratic Leader Cynthia Ball and be moderated by Colin Campbell, Capitol Bureau Chief for WUNC. Please plan to be our guest for delicious food and drink, great company and an interesting political conversation. Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024, from 5:30-7 p.m. Caffe Luna, 136 E. Hargett St., Raleigh. A registration link will be sent to subscribers Friday afternoon.
Sales of Digital Instants, instant-win games played exclusively on the North Carolina Education Lottery website or mobile app, continue to exceed anticipated targets.
More than 248,000 users have played since Digital Instants’ launch in November. Since then, the games have generated just over $200 million in gross general revenue, exceeding targets by 9%. In July and August alone, more than $400 million in sales for Digital Instants was reported, generating a little over $50 million in gross general revenue.
“We assume that we’re still in growth mode with these Digital Instants only nine and a half months in,” said Randy Spielman, the North Carolina Education Lottery’s deputy executive director of product development and digital gaming, Wednesday during a meeting of the commission.
The roll-out of upcoming games with progressive jackpots and Halloween and winter holiday-themed games are expected to fuel more growth. In early 2025, potentially January, North Carolina’s first multistate progressive jackpot will be introduced.
“What that allows us to do is generate some progressive jackpots a little bigger than what we can do just by ourselves,” Spielman said.
A display ticket on the North Carolina Education Lottery homepage shows real-time winners for Digital Instants games. Clicking on each game also shows winners that other players can view. Spielman said click-through data for the ticket display should be available in December.
Members of the North Carolina Education Lottery voted to approve a contract with Scientific Games Licensing for the sale of a Monopoly-branded digital game and a scratch-off game. The net gaming revenue for the digital game is expected to generate $1.2 million in revenue a week.
The Carolina Panthers, Carolina Hurricanes, Charlotte Hornets, Charlotte Checkers, Fayetteville Marksmen and Greensboro Swarm are North Carolina Education Lottery sponsors for the 2024-25 season. Twelve universities have sponsorships for the 2024 football season.
Cellphone Policy
Laura Browne, EdNC, 9/18/24
Educators, elected officials, and other stakeholders gathered in Raleigh last week to discuss diverse viewpoints regarding the use of cellphones in schools.
“When we ban things, we create groups,” said state Superintendent Catherine Truitt. “We create groups who are in favor and those who oppose, and then we often attach some sort of morality to that… This is why bans are so problematic. This needs to not be about banning cellphones. It needs to be about creating policies that are right for students and their families and teachers, so that our students can thrive.”
According to the Pew Research Center, about one-third of K-12 teachers in public schools consider distractions from cellphones a major problem in the classroom, with another 20% calling it a minor problem. Nearly three-fourths of high school teachers (72%) say cellphone use is a major problem, according to the data.
Though phones are often seen as distracting, many parents and guardians want their students to be able to have phones in schools, primarily to reach them in an emergency situation.
Lauren Gendill, policy analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures, said at least 22 states have proposed legislation related to cellphone use in schools, and eight states have enacted such legislation since 2023. North Carolina is not one of them — though a bipartisan bill was filed in May that would require a study be done on cellphone policies in school districts.
Cultural anthropologist Mimi Ito said cellphone bans can also lead to inequity, as bans are often unequally carried out, with bans being applied more rigorously in lower-income public schools.
This means that wealthier students, who may already have greater access to technology, are more likely to have a better understanding of how to effectively engage with their devices than their lower-income peers, Ito said.
“There’s a tendency for the rich to get richer in terms of the deployment of technology,” Ito said.
Granville County Schools Superintendent Stan Winborne said his district’s board of education approved a policy last summer requiring cellphones to be “off and away” completely for grades K-8, and prohibiting cellphone use in the classroom for high schoolers. The policy is strictly enforced, and Winborne said it has been a “huge success” for the district.
“We saw our discipline rates drop by more than 10%, our suspensions fell by more than 17%, our academic indicators have improved,” Winborne said. “I can’t draw (a) cause and effect relationship there, of course, but generally speaking, it’s been fantastic, and our teachers are really happy about it.”
In Chatham County Schools, school leaders are working to prevent problems associated with phone use in the classroom while also allowing students to maintain possession of their own devices, which are often expensive.
“What I promised our teachers is that I wanted to give them back their classrooms,” said Superintendent Tony Jackson.
This school year, Chatham County Schools launched a pilot program at some of its schools to mandate the use of Yondr Pouches, which are given to each student. The pouches secure mobile devices through a magnetic lock. [Source]
Save the Date
Please plan to be our guest as NC Insider / State Affairs Pro welcomes subscribers to Caffe Luna once more for delicious food and drink, great company and an interesting political conversation. Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024, from 5:30-7 p.m. Caffe Luna, 136 E. Hargett St., Raleigh. Registration details to follow.
Wilmington Rally
Molly Wilhelm, Wilmington Star-News, 9/19/24
Donald Trump, former President and 2024 Republican presidential candidate, is expected to arrive in Wilmington on Saturday, just five months after Trump missed his scheduled visit to the Port City after severe weather.
The rally will be held on the grounds of the Wilmington International Airport at the Aero Center, located at 1830 Flightline Road, Wilmington. On Saturday, doors at the Aero Center are expected to open at 10 a.m., with the event expected to begin at 2 p.m., according to the event webpage.
Lt. Jerry Brewer confirmed that the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office is coordinating with federal agencies to provide security for the rally. Representatives with the Wilmington Aero Center did not comment on expected security measures on site, citing only that the space has been rented for the rally. [Source]
The Raleigh Centennial Authority, Carolina Hurricanes and North Carolina State University officials unveiled signage for the new Lenovo Center on Thursday afternoon. Alongside Governor Roy Cooper, Lenovo executives and employees also took part in the celebratory ceremony to showcase the venue’s new name.
This celebration comes after Lenovo’s new, elevated partnership with the Carolina Hurricanes, which includes the $60 million, 10-year naming rights deal running through the 2033-34 hockey season. Major renovations are also happening, including a $1 billion mixed-use development plan for the Raleigh Sports and Entertainment District set to start building in December 2025.
This also comes a week after the Centennial Authority unanimously agreed to the name change and N.C. State officials also voted in favor of the name change as well. [Source]
Shellfish Moratorium
Morgan Starling, The Daily News, 9/19/24
The Onslow County Board of Commissioners took action Monday evening in support of a request from the Topsail Shoreline Protection Commission to impose a moratorium on new shellfish leases in Onslow and Pender County waters.
The Topsail Shoreline Protection Commission petitioned the board of each of its municipalities and counties to consider passing resolutions in favor of their request. Those resolutions will then be forwarded to the legislature in Raleigh.
A shellfish farm lease, according to NC State Cooperative Extension, allows shellfish growers to grow and harvest shellfish in a particular area of the seafloor.
Shellfish lease moratoriums are already in place in Core Sound, Bogue Sound, and all of New Hanover and Brunswick County waters south of the Wrightsville Beach Causeway Bridge, according to previous The Daily News reporting.
Reasons cited in the request for a moratorium include the increasing density of these shellfish farms, which has an impact on recreational fishing, the use of small vessels, and the beauty of an undisturbed marsh area.
Additionally, because there are moratoriums to the north and south of Onslow and Pender counties, there’s been an increase in business and activity in local waters.
The state is in favor of shellfish leases, and the commission is also in favor of shellfish farming, according to the board of commissioners’ Monday meeting agenda. However, the commission also believes there should be limits on type and density, as well as considerations for disease control, and impact on other businesses’ use of the same waters.
The board unanimously approved the resolution Monday in support of the commission, which Onslow County Manager David Smitherman will now send to the Raleigh delegation. [Source]
Record Volunteers
Tomeka Sinclair, Laurinburg Exchange, 9/19/24
If you saw an individual or group of people wearing a brightly colored tie-dye t-shirt in Scotland County on Friday, then you may have spotted a fraction of the record 303 volunteers registered to take part in the United Way of Scotland County’s annual Day of Caring.
The number of volunteers represents the most participation ever in the Day of Caring’s several years of running in Scotland County.
“I think the most we’ve had before this was 230-240 so this is amazing,” said Coy Moody, the executive director of the local United Way. Many of this year’s volunteers come from St. Andrews University’s student body. [Source]
Vape Raids
F.T. Norton and Joseph Pierre, The Fayetteville Observer, 9/19/24
A law enforcement operation in Cumberland County targeted at least half a dozen vape shops in the area beginning Tuesday morning and continuing into Tuesday afternoon. “I can confirm search warrants were executed for smoke shops in the Fayetteville area. The investigation is ongoing. There is no additional information to be released at this time,” Fayetteville Police Department spokeswoman Rickelle Harrell said.
At 5 p.m., at Exotic Smoke Shop, 5439 Yadkin Road, officers with the Fayetteville and Hope Mills police departments and Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office were on scene. At least one person was arrested there and placed into a patrol car. At about the same time, plain-clothed officers, one of whom was wearing a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency T-shirt marked Cape Fear Task Force, were at Puff & More Vape & Tobacco.
The DEA referred questions on the raids to the Fayetteville Police Department. The focus of the investigation was not released. [Source]
Walz Visit
Nick De La Canal, WFAE News, 9/19/24
The wife of Minnesota governor Tim Walz is expected to visit Charlotte on Friday. It’s the latest event planned by the Harris campaign in North Carolina, which polls continue to show as a toss up in the November presidential election. Gwen Walz is expected to meet with campaign volunteers and women voters. A time and location has not been shared. [Source]
The Kansas Board of Regents on Wednesday authorized $273.2 million in funding requests for the 2026 budget cycle. But the state’s top budget official issued a not-so-veiled warning — cautioning state agencies against overspending, which also extends to carryover funding from the prior fiscal year.
The board’s Fiscal Affairs and Audit committee forwarded the recommended measure to the full board for approval, but not before Regent Wint Winter expressed several concerns, notably that he was “confused” by dollars allocated for recurring and one-time requests, and how the board arrived at the total. Winter abstained from the vote as the measure passed out of committee.
The Division of Budget is slated to review the board’s approved proposal. Gov. Laura Kelly will then ultimately decidewhat requests make her proposed budget for the 2025 legislative session. Regents would also have a small window to appeal any decisions they perceive as adverse to their financial blueprint.
State Affairs obtained a memo distributed to Regents and other state agencies by Adam Proffitt, who serves as the Secretary of Administration and the Director of the Budget. Proffitt’s memo offered a glimpse into how his office would review budgets “so there are no surprises” if new funding requests are rejected.
The memo stated that the Division of Budget will be “very selective” with its recommendations to Kelly as Proffitt seeks to keep shape the state’s budget by keeping it “as close to flat as possible.” Proffitt’s memo noted that the state’s general fund boasted a strong ending balance for fiscal year 2024, but the financial outlook isn’t as bright moving forward.
“[The] ending balance forecast is projected to diminish significantly over the next four years, even with no new spending in future budget cycles,” Proffitt explained. “I do not say this to be an alarmist, but rather to provide some context behind the request.”
Proffitt added that he was not asking state agencies to “short your budgets or underfund critical programs,” but to more closely “scrutinize” their funding requests.
“We must do our best to keep new spending requests to a minimum,” he said.
Concerns broached
During the Regents’ fiscal sub-committee meeting, Winter asked about the allocation of dollars tied to new projects. Elaine Frisbee, the board’s vice president for finance and administration, provided a detailed breakdown, telling Winter that Proffitt’s office views the entirety of $273.2 million as new appropriations requests.
Regent Vice Chair Jon Rolph brushed aside Winter’s concerns, telling him that the new money amounted to a fraction of the total budget. The board, according to Rolph, initially received approximately $650 million in new funding requests collectively from the state’s higher institutions, and ultimately trimmed that amount by $377 million. Of the $273.2 million in appropriations requests, $184.1 million is categorized as “recurring” expenditures, $69 million as “short- to mid-term recurring” expenses and $20 million as “one-time” appropriations. Despite the months of work that Rolph indicated was poured into the budget process, Winter repeatedly reiterated that he did not have a firm grasp of the final proposal.
“The Board of Regents has a statutory obligation to advocate for the best interests of our universities, and I take that very seriously,” Winter said. “And in terms of advocacy — we have to explain [the budget], support it, and go all the way through the legislature with that recommendation.”
Rolph countered that the board has been asking for “investment” from institutions the past few years, indicating the results are undeniable. “Our strategies are working,” he said. “Our enrollments, generally, are looking pretty good for both two- and four-year schools.”
The Regents calculated universities are slated to receive $1.1 billion in funding without the requests in fiscal year 2026. The board said the requests are an increase of $23 million or 1.7% from what universities received from their fiscal year 2025 requests.
Board Chair Carl Ice indicated that he was unfazed by Winter’s concerns.
“As we highlighted, we’ve done a comprehensive review,” Ice told State Affairs, adding that the board’s primary objectives were to “prioritize fiscal responsibility, while at the same time advancing our strategic plan.”
Sizable expenditures?
Some of the board’s notable funding requests — which includes both recurring and one-time expenditures:
$90.1 million for the board’s “Focus on Student Affordability” initiative
$50.1 million for the board’s “Research Excellence/One Health initiative — designed to upgrade research capabilities for the state’s three largest public universities
$21 million for “Regional growth and development” initiatives
$10 million for continued IT infrastructure/cybersecurity at public universities
$10 million for continued IT infrastructure/cybersecurity at two-year colleges
$11.6 million for “continued success” initiatives at two-year colleges
$6.3 million for “continued success” initiatives at public universities
$10 million for the planned $120 million expansion of University of Kansas’ architecture and design school
$8.63 million to expand KU’s Medical Center’s medical student loan program
$7.5 million for Kansas State University’s Next-Gen Animal/Human Health Initiative
$5 million for K-State’s Advanced Manufacturing Institute
$5 million for expansion of science labs at Washburn University
$5 million to conduct a feasibility for Wichita State University’s School of Dentistry
Emporia State University President Ken Hush told State Affairs that he was OK with the board’s budget proposal, but that trepidation remained related to “downward pressures” faced by higher education institutions.
“I think we’re going to have to continue to get leaner and more efficient,” he said. “We’ve tried to narrow our focus to the university’s general enterprise — and what makes the most sense and what doesn’t.”
Hush added that he was concerned by the total dollar figure tied to recurring expenditures. “The need for ongoing requests is nearly 70% of the total ask,” he said. “We need to be able to think about that and explain it well.”
Matt Resnick is a statehouse reporter at State Affairs Pro Kansas/Hawver’s Capitol Report. Reach him at [email protected]
After the Arizona Supreme Court remanded a signature challenge to “determine whether the exhibits prove any duplicate signatures by clear and convincing evidence,” a trial court judge went beyond the 38,000 invalid signatures and weighed in on the mootness of the challenge given the ballot printing deadline and the constitutionality of an underlying statute. That tees up issues much broader than signatures for the case’s return to the state high court. The lawsuit to see the Make Elections Fair Act off the ballot has already unraveled assumptions about signature challenges after the Arizona Supreme Court overturned Superior Court Judge Frank Moskowitz’ decision to exclude evidence allegedly showing more than 38,000 duplicative signatures and sent the issue back to the trial court after the ballot printing deadline August 23. “That threw a wrench into every election lawyer’s understanding about how these cases were supposed to work and the deadline by which they need to be resolved,” a railbird said. “Every election lawyer assumed that the printing deadline was the deadline to decide these cases.” The signature challenge ran up until this morning, when Moskowitz issued his final ruling. Moskowitz adopted a report and concluded that plaintiffs did prove 37,657 signatures were duplicates by clear and convincing evidence. “This Court’s analysis however does not end there,” Moskowitz wrote. He went on to address the constitutionality of “double counting” invalid signatures, which essentially entails applying a percentage of invalid signatures derived from a random sample being deducted twice. “If ‘double counted,’ then the Committee is short of the constitutional minimum number of valid signatures for the Initiative. If not ‘double counted,’ then the Committee has more than the constitutional minimum number of valid signatures for the Initiative,” Moskowitz wrote. He noted an earlier Arizona Supreme Court case, Mussi v. Katie Hobbs, which did not weigh in on the constitutionality of the statue but found the requirement for it to be rooted in and required by state law. Moskowitz took the opportunity to address the constitutionality now, and deemed “double counting” to be unconstitutional as it would “unreasonably hinder or restrict the Initiative and unreasonably supplant its purpose … (and) undermine the integrity of the initiative process.” In terms of a timeline he further found the case should not have proceeded past the ballot printing deadline and roundly found the measure should stay on the ballot. A railbird said the ruling was “strong on conclusions but light on analysis,” and now hands the state supreme court a much broader case to consider than whether there was evidence of duplicate signatures. “Whatever comes out of the Supreme Court, I don’t know who’s going to win, but I know it won’t be Moskowitz,” a railbird said. Though Moskowitz teed those issues up for appeal, the state supreme court may not take up the issue of constitutionality given resolutions available through a more direct path, like mootness. Chuck Coughlin, treasurer of the Make Elections Fair Committee, said they considered the case done. “I can’t imagine the court taking much time with this because I think it’s perilous to put themselves in the position of being seen as meddlesome with an election matter that’s already on the ballot. It would be beyond the pale for them to suggest other than what Moskowitz has found because it would bring into deep question their fidelity to the constitutional principle that permits people to refer matters to the voters.”
The Indiana attorney general’s office has decided to stay out of a whistleblower lawsuit in which two former state officials claim several hospitals and insurance companies defrauded hundreds of millions of dollars from Indiana’s Medicaid program.
The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for Southern Indiana alleges improper payments were obtained for claims including in-patient treatment when the person was at the hospital for less than 24 hours, medical care after the patient had died and duplicate payments for same treatment.
The lawsuit was filed in 2021 but did not become public until a federal magistrate judge ordered it to be unsealed last month. The Indianapolis Star first reported the lawsuit on Thursday.
An updated 77-page version of the lawsuit filed last month doesn’t specify a total amount of the alleged fraud. The Star reported the lawsuit identified as much as $724 million in suspected fraud while acknowledging the claims data could include duplication.
Attorney General Todd Rokita’s office filed a notice with the federal court earlier this year that it would not take up the case, which can continue without the state’s involvement.
“We looked at this case along with the feds, but in the best interest of taxpayers we declined to intervene and directed our resources elsewhere,” Rokita’s office said in a statement Thursday. “And it has paid off — recovering nearly $87 million in Medicaid fraud since taking office.”
The lawsuit alleges state Medicaid officials disregarded information from state contractor IBM Watson Health that was tasked with identifying questionable claims.
“Starting in late 2017, and bowing to political pressure exerted by the health insurers’ and the hospitals’ lobby, a senior executive at Indiana Medicaid improperly directed the Program Integrity team to significantly curtail its efforts to utilize IBM Watson’s analysis and findings to recoup improper Medicaid overpayments,” the lawsuit said.
The Family and Social Services Administration, which oversees Medicaid, did not respond Thursday to messages from State Affairs seeking comment.
State Rep. Greg Porter, D-Indianapolis, called the potential fraud “disappointing, frustrating and downright diabolical” as Medicaid officials are making service cutbacks following the disclosure of a nearly $1 billion error in forecasting the program’s expenses.
“I’m outraged that alleged fraud has exacerbated stressful healthcare costs,” Porter said in a statement. “It’s clear the growth of social programs and waivers is not the real issue. We have to stop blaming Hoosiers who need state support.”
The Star reported that most of the 10 insurance companies and hospitals named as defendants declined to comment or said they were reviewing the lawsuit.
One hospital system named in the suit, Ascension, denied the allegations.
“Ascension cannot comment on ongoing litigation but is committed to vigorously defending the organization and our associates against the untrue allegations in the complaint,” Ascension spokesman Sean Fitzpatrick said in a statement.
The lawsuit was filed by a New York law firm on behalf of James McCullough, who was Indiana Medicaid’s director of program integrity from 2014 to 2017, and James Holden, who was chief deputy and general counsel for the state treasurer’s office for most of the time between 2007 and 2014.
The lawsuit invokes the federal and state False Claims Acts that let private individuals file cases on behalf of the federal and state governments and share in any damages that are recovered.
Holden filed a whistleblower lawsuit in 2020 claiming that then-Treasurer Kelly Mitchell violated state law in awarding contracts worth more than $6 million to firms linked to her political supporters.
A judge found that the awarding of the contracts was appropriate and dismissed the lawsuit in 2022. Holden separately received a $92,500 settlement in a wrongful termination lawsuit over Mitchell firing him in 2014 when she took office.
Tom Davies is a Statehouse reporter for State Affairs Pro Indiana. Reach him at[email protected] or on X at @TomDaviesIND.
During Wednesday’s JLAC meeting, committee members discussed a recent audit of the Dept. of Child Safety’s extended foster care success coaching program, which is meant to provide support and guidance to foster youth as they transition into adulthood. The program was budgeted in 2023 and introduced as legislation by Gress, although the budget lawmakers passed in the recent legislative session defunded the program due to the budget deficit. Gress voted against the budget and called it a “fiscal tragedy” when lawmakers voted on the budget. He said Wednesday he hopes the program’s funding can be restored in next year’s budget. The Auditor General’s report of the program determined that DCS didn’t develop federally required transition plans for 11 of 15 youths that auditors reviewed, which Gress said he was frustrated with the “extensive problem” because DCS pushed back against his initial legislation since it included even more robust transition planning. “It was said in committee ‘you’re already doing this and the legislation that I introduced wasn’t necessary. And then the Auditor General finds out some of these significant problems with the transition planning,” Gress said. “That’s frustrating from my perspective and stakeholder perspective.” Chris Gustafson, the chief legislative liaison for DCS, said the department is still evaluating the program in its early stages and is working to address the transition planning for program participants. “No child should leave the Department of Child Safety without a plan for success and the tools that they need to live a successful life,” Gustafson said. He also said the agency’s primary goal is to reunite children with their parents or get adopted before they age out of care. “I think it’s alarming,” Dunn said of the 11 of 15 youths that auditors found didn’t have a transition plan. Gress said he’s determined to help DCS address the issues with the program found by the Auditor General. “I wish that every program that we started had an auditor general’s review at the beginning,” Gress said. “In my view, it helps sets up that program for greater success.” In last year’s budget, DCS received $26.5 million to run the program. Schwiebert agreed with Gress on the importance of auditing the program, while taking a shot at the Empowerment Scholarship Account program, which Democrats have argued is held without “accountability and transparency.” “Any time taxpayer dollars are involved, we should be making sure those programs are accountable and transparent,” Schwiebert said.
Kavanagh said that he has withdrawn his 1487 request for Mayes’ office to investigate the Surprise City Council’s public comment rules — following the council’s vote on Tuesday to remove their ban on complaints — but noted he is keeping an eye on other boards with similar rules. The council unanimously passed a motion to remove the rule that barred public comment, which levied “charges or complaints against any employee of the city or members of the body.” Stephanie Massie, who was arrested while speaking at a Surprise City Council meeting on August 20, is still facing a third-degree criminal trespass charge. She is suing the city over her arrest, represented by attorneys from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Though Surprise voted to remove its complaint rule, Kavanagh said he is still concerned about how small boards regulate public comment. The Avondale City Council plans to vote to remove the rule during its next meeting on Monday, Kavanagh said, but did not say whether it was because he had brought it to that city’s attention.
NEW BUFFALO, Mich. — Where might Hoosiers gather these days for good times? How about a Friday-night high school football game or a Saturday-afternoon matchup at Assembly Hall or Mackey Arena? Church on Sunday morning? A potluck at Grandma’s that afternoon? Bingo at the Moose Lodge?
Or this, one of the dozens of cannabis dispensaries just miles (if not yards) away in Michigan, Illinois and, perhaps coming soon to Union City, Ohio.
Drive to Mile Marker 1 on Interstate 74 into Illinois and the first dispensary is just on the right. The parking lots are about 75% filled with Indiana-plated cars. Ditto for New Buffalo, where a half-dozen or so cannabis stores have already sprouted, with more under construction. On a recent weekend, these dispensaries were packed with Hoosiers waiting in lines for service. Driving up toward Michigan on I-69 in Steuben County is to be greeted with dozens of cannabis billboards heralding shops in Coldwater, California, Redding and Hillsdale.
In Niles, Hoosier consumers can drive into a parking lot and receive a paper menu and carhop services delivered right to their window. The Lunkquarium in Edwardsburg has been replaced by Dr. A’s Re-Leaf Center. There are the Dude Abides shops in Constantine and Sturgis. In Illinois, Windy City Cannabis is a short drive from Highland, Indiana, to Highwood, Illinois.
Indiana is a legal-cannabis island, with all surrounding states having legalized weed in some form. Even Kentucky will offer medicinal marijuana beginning in January. Marijuana has been easily attainable for decades on the Hoosier black market. Now Hoosiers are driving to neighboring states to purchase product under quality control that hasn’t been tainted by fentanyl.
In all, some 24 states, three U.S. territories and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational cannabis. Five states — Arkansas, Florida, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota — have cannabis referendums on the November ballot.
But outside of Indianapolis, where prosecutors say they will no longer charge defendants for personal possession, an average of 10,000 Hoosiers annually have faced marijuana trafficking, dealing and possession charges. Thus, there’s a pot prohibition industry of cops, prosecutors, trial lawyers, jailers, probationers and urine testers who all have a straw in the action. Indiana has become a cannabis island because no one organized politically to compete against the prohibitionists.
I’ve attempted for years to find the true cost of marijuana prohibition to taxpayers and the workforce but haven’t had much success.
Last April, the Drug Enforcement Administration announced a proposal to reschedule cannabis (currently it is listed as a Schedule 1 drug, along with heroin and morphine). A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Dec. 2 in Washington.
In Ball State University’s 2023 Bowen Center Hoosier Survey, 54.2% of respondents selected, “It should be legal for personal use.” In comparison, 32.2% selected, “It should be legal for medicinal use.” Just 9.8% of respondents selected, “It should not be legal.” In an October 2022 Pew Research Center survey, 88% of U.S. adults said the drug should be legal, either for recreational and medical use (59%) or for medical use only (30%).
Earlier this month, Indiana crossed a political threshold when the Democratic nominee for governor, Jennifer McCormick, announced her “Commonsense Cannabis Legalization Plan.”
“Hoosiers have made it clear — they support adult-use cannabis and are frustrated by Indiana’s outdated prohibition laws,” McCormick said. “Our plan takes a commonsense approach by first introducing a well-regulated medical marijuana industry, allowing us to address potential regulatory challenges and ensure a smooth transition to well-regulated and legal adult-use cannabis.”
McCormick would establish an Indiana Cannabis Commission “responsible for overseeing the legal cannabis industry, including regulation, licensing and ensuring compliance with safety standards.”
She would immediately establish a medical marijuana industry. “This step will allow Indiana to address potential challenges and learn from the experiences of other states before moving to full adult use,” McCormick said.
McCormick added that legalizing adult-use cannabis could generate an estimated $172 million annually in tax revenues for Indiana, dollars that currently are headed out of state or off the books on the black market.
“Indiana is an island of prohibition surrounded by states with legal cannabis industries,” McCormick said. “By taking a responsible, phased approach, we can ensure that our state is prepared for full adult-use legalization while immediately providing relief through medical marijuana.”
Republican gubernatorial nominee Mike Braun appears to be open to dialogue on legalization.
“It’s inevitable,” he told WSBT-TV in May. “Now it’s reaching our own state. It’s been precipitated now to do something more quickly with what the feds have just decided.”
He told Fox59: “The fact is we are surrounded by four states. It’s going to hit all of us. I’m going to listen to law enforcement. They have to put up with the brunt of it. Medical marijuana, I think, is where the case is best made that maybe something needs to change, but I’ll take my cue from law enforcement there as well.”
As with past controversial issues, the people are well ahead of the politicians. In the 1980s, Republican General Assembly leaders refused to pass lottery referendum legislation lifting a constitutional ban. After the House speaker reelection upset in 1986, the General Assembly approved a lottery referendum for the 1988 election.
