Democrats appear to have a smoother road ahead of their July 13 convention, but gubernatorial candidate Jennifer McCormick has not yet offered up a candidate and recently told State Affairs that “nothing’s off the table,” including selecting a Republican running mate. 

Beckwith’s push

Beckwith, pastor of Life Church’s Noblesville campus, told State Affairs he would be campaigning daily for the next five weeks. 

“We’re going to try to hit two counties in a day — one in the morning, one in the afternoon. We’ll just be going to county chairs and delegates and letting them ask all the questions,” he said.

He has run for formal office in the past, finishing third in the 2020 Republican primary for the state’s 5th Congressional District. The seat was ultimately captured by Rep. Victoria Spartz. 

Beckwith is also a podcast host and may be best known for a tumultuous tenure on the Hamilton East Public Library Board of Trustees, where he pushed for an audit of children’s books. The unpopular plan ultimately collapsed, and the trustees who pushed for it soon left the board. 

Beckwith went public with his lieutenant governor candidacy as he left the board and has since barnstormed the state hoping to court potential delegates. His website stresses he is seeking to give Republicans another choice. 

Some 1,600 Republican delegates were selected in the May 7 primary election. Every county is represented by a different number of delegates relative to its population, with some fielding only a handful while larger counties field more than 100 each. 

Most delegates are elected, but party leaders must sometimes fill vacancies to reach the 1,800 number. 

Beckwith said some 400 of the 1,600 newly elected delegates had already pledged to support his bid. 

Though Braun selected McGuire, the nominee said last week he welcomed competition for the spot as his running mate. 

He told IndyStar: “I think that we’ll win that competition, and if by chance that doesn’t work, which I think is very slim, I’ll deal with it.”

McGuire fits recent trend

McGuire, a one-term legislator from Indianapolis, fits into a recent trend of Republican lieutenant governors: women with legislative backgrounds who represent a different geographical part of the state from their running mate. 

Former Lt. Govs. Becky Skillman and Sue Ellspermann and outgoing Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch each fit that description. 

McGuire defeated state Rep. John Jacob, a staunch anti-abortion activist who clashed with party leadership, in the Republican primary on her way to winning election to the Statehouse in 2022. 

She authored one bill signed into law this past session centered on voiding parental rights over children sexually abused by a parent. She co-authored several education bills. 

McGuire may be best known as the former author of a proposed bill to block a new tax district in downtown Indianapolis meant to pay for city services. A compromise was ultimately reached to allow the plan. McGuire removed herself as the bill’s author and voted against it. 

Braun’s campaign and McGuire did not respond to requests for an interview. 

Braun told IndyStar that he recruited McGuire due to her knowledge of health care policy and that he would campaign on her behalf with delegates. 

Two state constitutional officers threw their support behind McGuire on Monday: state Treasurer Daniel Elliott and Secretary of State Diego Morales. 

“Indiana Republican Convention delegates will have their choice as to who they will support, as do I,” Morales said in an X post. “I will be supporting Julie for Indiana lieutenant governor.”

“Delegates will have a choice at this convention, and I encourage them to choose Julie McGuire as our Republican nominee for lieutenant governor,” Elliott said in a similar post. 

Not the first contested race

This year’s competition harks back to the ’90s, when Republican delegates last oversaw several contentious lieutenant governor nomination processes. 

In 1996, GOP gubernatorial nominee and Indianapolis Mayor Stephen Goldsmith left the selection entirely up to delegates. 

Four years earlier, Attorney General Linley Pearson, the Republican nominee, nearly quit the convention over nominations for lieutenant governor and attorney general that he did not agree with. 

Both tickets ended up losing in the general election. 

In the ’80s, the GOP experimented with the idea of allowing voters to select the lieutenant governor nominee. John Mutz won a five-way primary in 1980 and eventually served two terms. 

Mike McDaniel, a former state GOP chairman who served as Mutz’s campaign manager and chief of staff, said the party returned to the convention system in 1984 because leaders believed a lieutenant governor primary wasted campaign money. 

McDaniel, a previous delegate of some 15 state and national conventions, supports the tradition of selecting the gubernatorial candidate’s choice for lieutenant governor.

“I think that’s important because the governor has to serve with this person for four or maybe eight years, and you want somebody you can trust, work with and be part of a team with to get things done,” McDaniel said. 

McDaniel called Beckwith’s campaign, launched well before the gubernatorial race came into focus, “very, very unusual.” He said Braun will be the party’s new leader at the convention, so backing his choice is a sign of unity. 

“If [Braun] has a preference, we should give him his preference,” McDaniel said. 

Holcomb weighs in

More recently, delegates have shown themselves willing to break with the gubernatorial candidate on selections for other constitutional offices. In 2022, the convention chose Diego Morales over Gov. Eric Holcomb’s pick, Holli Sullivan, for the secretary of state nomination. 

Holcomb, who briefly served as lieutenant governor under former Gov. Mike Pence, weighed in on this year’s competition on Tuesday, telling reporters that delegates should be the ultimate decision-makers on the nominee. 

“And we have a history in Indiana of some tickets being blessed and some not,” he said. “And so that’s very instructive going into this convention and [it’s] incumbent upon the gubernatorial candidate to make their pitch to the convention delegates of their preference. And so I’ve been there, done that. And it worked out OK for me.”

What does a lieutenant governor do? 

Whomever the voters select in November will have a role to play in the Legislature and within state agencies. 

The lieutenant governor presides over the Indiana Senate and may cast a tiebreaker vote if needed. The position also fills in for the governor if the latter becomes incapacitated or dies.

The lieutenant governor oversees four state agencies: the Indiana State Department of Agriculture, the Indiana Housing & Community Development Authority, the Indiana Office of Tourism Development and the Indiana Office of Community & Rural Affairs. 

Finally, the position chairs the Indiana Mental Health Roundtable, the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Task Force and the Civics Education Commission.

Democrats prepared to back McCormick’s pick

Delegates for the Indiana Democratic Party are preparing to support their nominee’s pick for governor, Chairman Mike Schmuhl told State Affairs. 

“It really falls to [McCormick] to make that selection over the next few weeks,” Schmuhl said, adding that both parties have typically backed the governor’s selection and that Republicans are “upending tradition” with Beckwith’s candidacy.

“We really do envision it as the pick of the gubernatorial nominee,” he said. “Not only is it a convention pick, but it’s also who the governor wants as a governing partner if elected. It’s a pretty serious responsibility.” 

Asked about McCormick possibly backing a Republican for the Democratic lieutenant governor nomination, Schmuhl said he could not comment on her process directly. 

“I think my recommendation is when you’re picking someone for this spot, you want to find somebody who expands your appeal and your campaign’s reach,” Schmuhl said, “and who doesn’t limit you or harm you in any way.”

Contact Rory Appleton on X at @roryehappleton or email him at [email protected].

Q. What sort of cases does the Court of Appeals hear?

A. We hear really everything except death penalty cases. If there’s a death penalty case,  it goes straight to the [state] Supreme Court. Otherwise, we get it. 

I’ve had to publish an opinion on a traffic court case. About 65% of our cases are criminal. Every, everything under the sun: murders, rapes, robberies, child molestation.

Then there are civil cases. We do medical malpractice suits, traffic accidents, you name it. Complex business litigation? Our court was involved.

Q. How does the appeals process work? There’s not a new trial, right?

A. I’ll give you an example. Let’s say you got a murder case and the defendant gets convicted and gets 65 years, which is the max for a murder conviction. Everybody in the state of Indiana has got an automatic right to appeal. Not everybody takes that right, but most criminal defendants do. 

Somebody will write his brief for him. That attorney will find three issues that they think will result in a new trial if we rule in their favor. That’s really what the appellate process is: Are the errors committed at the trial court level significant enough to warrant a new trial? 

And then the attorney general in the criminal cases will write a brief in opposition, then the appellant or the defendant can file a reply brief as well. 

We sit and read transcripts and their briefs and do our own research and come to a decision as to whether or not there was error at the trial court level that warrants a new trial.

Q. How many of the 2,000 cases your court receives a year, how many are taken up by the Indiana Supreme Court?

A. It is rare. You start with the proposition that trial courts throughout the state are doing about 2+ million cases a year. That’s everything. We do 2,000 opinions a year. I think the Supreme Court writes about 60 opinions a year. That’s what their taking of ours. 

But we’re considered an error-correcting court, whereas that’s really not their role. Their role is more jurisprudential. It’s “should we look at changing in this regard or changing precedent.” 

It’s really an inverse pyramid, with the trial courts, I always say, doing the heavy lifting. 

Our turnaround time is very quick. It’s about three months. Some states require oral arguments in every single case, but we don’t. 

If you ask for an oral argument, we will sometimes grant that. We do a lot of oral arguments, but most of our oral arguments are traveling oral arguments. We travel all over the state and do live arguments. And we do those in front of high schools, small colleges, bigger schools. 

We answer questions or ask questions like we normally would do, and then once we’re finished, then we have a question and answer session with the students.

Q. One thing we heard about at the State of the Judiciary is there’s an attorney shortage in the state, particularly in rural areas. How has that affected your work?

A.  I think we’re seeing more pro se litigants, people representing themselves, and that can be difficult because we hold them to the same standard that we would hold a lawyer to. It can be really difficult for them. So in that regard, it has hurt.

We’ll go to traveling oral arguments in some rural county, and the bar association will host a lunch for us. We’ll go and there’ll be six lawyers in the room and I’ll say to somebody, “So how many people are in the bar?” And they’ll say, “Well, you’re looking at it.”

That access to justice is a really difficult thing that I think the state of Indiana is dealing with now. The Supreme Court has just set up a task force to look into how we can improve that. I believe law schools are looking at incentivizing young kids to go practice in rural areas. 

It’s a real issue. I think a lot of it stems from the low bar passage rate of the last 10+ years. It’ll be interesting to see what the task force thinks. 

Q. How has technology impacted the court?

A. Technology has been huge. All our work is done online now. The briefs are filed online. 

The technology that we have to keep an eye on, and we’re already looking at, is artificial intelligence. What impact is that going to have on the courts, especially our courts? 

You can punch a button and write an opinion. It’s probably not going to be very good, but as technology improves, it’s going to be. We’re kind of leery of that. 

But at the same time, from a research standpoint, it’s been a very valuable tool. We’ve been using AI in that regard for researching for some time now, with Westlaw and Lexus as they’ve come out with those kinds of tools.

Q. There have been changes in how the world views mental health. How has that impacted the court?

A. I see it primarily in the sentencing arena. Before every defendant is sentenced by a trial court, a pre-sentence investigation is prepared on them. And so that’s where you see a lot of that because it discusses their entire background, and the number of people with mental health issues coming through has really increased greatly.

I think the pandemic had a lot to do with that as well. But again, the mental health issues are very much creeping into the system, and one of the things that we’re constantly working on trying to be aware of and trying to, to the extent we can with alternatives to incarceration, assist people. 

Q. Are there any other challenges facing today’s judiciary?

A. I guess not necessarily my court, but courts in general. It appears to me that Congress is broken. They’re not passing laws. 

So, what are we doing? We have to rely on the other two branches of government to kind of take up the slack, and that’s why you’re seeing tons of executive orders. 

That’s not traditionally their job, and then you’re seeing the courts being called upon to determine whether or not those regulations are enforceable. 

I see that as a long-term problem that we’ve got to get corrected. 

Contact Rory Appleton on X at @roryehappleton or email him at [email protected].