DCCC drops first IN ad—Debate night—Braun on SCOTUS
Plus: All the President's Hoosiers.
FIRST IN IMPORTANTVILLE: The DCCC released its first ad in Indiana’s 5th Congressional District this morning, as part of a half-million-dollar reservation— attacking Republican Victoria Spartz’s professional conflicts of interest.
The ad focuses on the state senator’s work on repealing regulations on wetlands, which her family owned and developed. “Victoria Spartz has a history of conflicts of interest, especially when it could have benefited her family,” the ad argues.
“Victoria Spartz is just another shady, self-interested politician who uses her political position to personally benefit,” DCCC Spokesperson Courtney Rice said in a statement. “Hoosiers deserve someone who will put their interests first, like access to affordable health care and rebuilding the economy – not increasing her and her family’s wealth.”
Spartz and Democrat Christina Hale will square off tonight at 7 p.m. in a debate by Indiana Town Halls and WFYI Productions. You can stream it here.
The closely watched race, situated in northern Indianapolis and its surrounding suburbs, could decide control of Congress.
Good Tuesday morning, and welcome back to IMPORTANTVILLE. Down the homestretch of the Election, we’ll be publishing more frequently. Click below to make sure you get all the updates and scoops.
South Bend’s Amy Coney Barrett, a finalist to replace Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, was at the White House yesterday, according to multiple reports. President Trump has said he will announce his nominee Friday or Saturday. Florida’s Barbara Logoa is also said to be under consideration.
Indiana Sen. Mike Braun has said he supports a vote for confirmation before the Election and is speaking with reporters later this morning on the matter. Sen. Todd Young has so far kept his powder dry, and not issued a statement yet.
AROUND IMPORTANTVALLE
Nearly 60 grassroots Indiana for Joe Biden supporters joined a Zoom call last night, featuring appearances from Rep. André Carson and former Pete for America campaign manager, Mike Schmuhl. “Our goal is to lift up the campaign throughout the state,” Jenny Okamoto said. The group says it is distributing some 10,000 yard signs statewide.
INSIDE INDIANA’S 3RD CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
Indiana’s second-largest city, Fort Wayne, and Allen County, where it is located, are the population, economic and employment hub of the 3rd District. More than a third of the district’s residents live in Fort Wayne, which has welcomed sizable populations of refugees or immigrants from around the world for generations. Students in Fort Wayne Community Schools report more than 70 languages spoken in their homes. More than half the 3rd District’s population is in Allen County. In 2015, more than 24,000 workers who lived outside Allen County commuted to Allen County for employment, because there are more jobs in a wider range of fields than are available in the more rural surrounding counties. Thousands of people find work in two large hospital networks with headquarters in Fort Wayne, and thousands more work in insurance, higher education, construction, finance, transportation and retailing. But throughout the 3rd District, including Allen County and Fort Wayne, manufacturing is the big employer — bigger than any other type of business, and a larger part of the economy in the 3rd District than anywhere else in the United States. An analysis in 2015 found that 23.3% of jobs in the district are in manufacturing, compared with 8.8% in the U.S. as a whole.
Even with all that industrial employment and output, the 3rd District is predominantly rural. In several counties, farms occupy more than 80% of the land area. Even in Allen County, with its sprawling residential and commercial development, two thirds of its land is in farms. Still more voters in the district are only a generation or two removed from the farm or have relatives or friends who still farm. The 10,500 or so farms in the 3rd District and their proprietors wield outsize clout in the politics and culture of the region.
Incumbent Republican U.S, Rep. Jim Banks’ experience helps show how strong the Republican inclination is among voters here. His first general election, in 2016, was a gimme for the candidate, who had been a county councilman and then a state senator before running for Congress. Democrat Tommy Schrader was a frequent candidate and intermittent resident of the district who’s openly discussed his spotty employment history and problems with mental illness. On primary election night, the Democratic Party chairman lamented the outcome and congratulated Banks. Banks won with 70 percent, more than a 3-1 trouncing of his Democratic opponent.
2018 was a better test of Banks’ appeal. He faced Courtney Tritch, a Democrat who knew the district well through several years’ work in regional economic development. She hit the campaign trail in mid-2017 and campaigned frequently and energetically throughout Fort Wayne and small towns across the district. She raised about $860,000 for the campaign, enough that she wasn’t swamped by Banks’ fundraising of just under $1 million. Banks won, 65-35%.
This year, Banks faces Chip Coldiron, a high school science teacher. Coldiron, a veteran who served two tours in Afghanistan, is new to politics, but unlike many novices running for this office, Coldiron started campaigning for the general election the week after the June primary. It’s clearly going to be an asymmetrical run for the office. Banks has raised more than $777,000 as of June 30, with more than $263,000 still on hand. Coldiron raised less than $10,000, with less than $5,000 still on hand.
Coldiron’s modest funding steers him toward personal appearances, social media posts and “virtual town halls” on Zoom. He repeatedly highlights Banks’ support for withholding funding from schools that don’t start with in-person teaching this year. He’s also seized on the misfortune of residents in the small town of Andrews, where the water supply has been contaminated, apparently by improperly disposed of industrial waste. Coldiron presents the problem as a lesson in the risks of government growing too lax in regulation and oversight.
Working a grassroots, social-media campaign leaves Coldiron at even more of a disadvantage against Banks than he would face against some incumbents. Banks has played a pretty solid social media game for many years, but during his time in Congress, he’s become a frequent guest on Fox News shows, including appearances with hosts Lou Dobbs, Trish Regan and Tucker Carlson. He’s also appeared on PBS Newshour, NBC News, National Public Radio, and CNN. He doesn’t need to rely on retweets on Twitter when he can reach voters through national news and commentary broadcasts.
Early on, Banks kept some distance from President Trump, openly raising questions sometimes, particularly on issues of national security. More recently, he’s become a reliable defender of the president. He voted against both articles of impeachment against President Trump. For his part, the president personally endorsed Banks on June 2, when Banks faced a primary challenge from the right by a well-funded opponent. That endorsement is displayed at the top of his campaign Twitter feed.
—Bob Caylor, The Indiana Citizen
ALL THE PRESIDENT’S HOOSIERS
Of the many Hoosiers who stock the Trump administration, perhaps none had the moral conscience of former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats. At least that’s how Bob Woodward, the famous chronicler of White House power, portrays the affable and “gentlemanly” former Indiana Senator in his latest Trump-era tome, Rage.
Coats, featured as a do-gooder protagonist throughout Woodward’s narrative, is just one of four Hoosiers that play a supporting role in Rage. Here’s how each fare in the sure-to-be New York Times bestseller.
Also in the book, among Indiana angles: Revelations that Trump bragged about protecting Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after the brutal murder and dismembering of Jamal Khashoggi, The Washington Post journalist who studied at Indiana State University in Terre Haute.
"I saved his ass," Trump said. "I was able to get Congress to leave him alone. I was able to get them to stop."
Last September, Sen. Todd Young and Angus King of Maine were the first lawmakers to meet with the crown prince in 18 months. “During our meeting, we pressed Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman firmly on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and he took ultimate responsibility as the leader of Saudi Arabia,” said Senator Young. “I’m glad to see that he has answered our urgent call to come forward publicly to take responsibility as the nation’s leader."
An aide to Young said he had no statement about the revelation, but pointed to his past remarks and actions on Khashoggi's killing.
“I haven’t read the book,” Young told Fox 59's Dan Spehler Sunday. “I suspect I’ll hear about everything in the book between now and Election Day, and that will be edifying, I’m sure.”
IMPORTANTVILLE HISTORY DEPARTMENT
Indiana has often been called the northernmost Southern state and, more pointedly, the South’s middle finger to the North. But the state contributed greatly, in man and material, to the Union cause during the Civil War. In August, Gov. Eric Holcomb used a statewide address to declare that “Black lives matter.” The Republican governor talked of “another kind of virus that’s equally voracious, and it’s in turn forcing us to a reckoning as a state and nation – one that’s built on “equality for all.”
“Thankfully,” Holcomb said in the speech, “the Union perspective – our side, our state, our Founding ‘written’ principles prevailed—but that hardly leveled the playing field, even here, for years to come.”
Holcomb offered a series of proposals to reverse those trends.
“Much too little, much too late,” Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dr. Woody Myers, the only Black gubernatorial candidate in the nation, said in a response to the governor’s proposal.
Indiana for much of the mid-1800s, while adverse to slavery, did not view Black Hoosiers as citizens nor wanted them to move into this state. In 1851, Indiana adopted a new state constitution. At the convention formed to draft the new document, Article 13 was proposed to bar Blacks from moving into the state, after the constitution was adopted, and would void any contract made with a Black person that would cause that person to move into the state. These provisions would be termed as “Black Laws.” Additionally, in Article 2, which concerned elections, only white males over the age of 21 could vote, and Blacks were singled out in another section to be disenfranchised.
What’s worse: How the constitution was ratified. At the polls, the electorate did not approve the whole constitution as one measure. Instead voters were given two questions to vote on, the first being the approval of the entire constitution except Article 13, and the second being just Article 13. Both questions were approved by the voters, but the question pertaining only to approval of Article 13 was approved by a far greater number than the question to approve the rest of the constitution. Following ratification, the General Assembly would enact laws to implement Article 13’s provisions. These constitutional provisions would be invalidated by the courts in the 1860s and repealed by the electorate in 1881.
The policies put into the 1851 state constitution are alarmingly racist but were acceptable to the white male voting population of the time. This abhorrent view of Blacks was exuded by those who were given political power in the state both before, during, and after the Civil War. There was U.S. Senator Jesse D. Bright, a “state-rights” and “strict constructionist” Democrat who ruled over the state party with an iron fist. In the 1850s, as the party began to split on the issue of slavery, Bright would influence the party to throw out members who opposed him on the issue.
Some of these members would go on to help form the Indiana Republican Party. Bright, owning a farm in Kentucky, was a slaveholder. As bitterly repugnant as this man and his politics were, the end of his career was equally as satisfying. In 1861, a letter, written by Bright, introducing a friend to the traitor and “Confederate President” Jefferson Davis for the purpose of selling arms to the Confederates was discovered. Shocked by this, the U.S. Senate investigated and debated what should be done with Bright. In the end the body voted to expel him from the Senate.
He remains the last Senator to be expelled from the upper chamber.
Then there was Vice President Thomas Hendricks. Unlike Bright, Hendricks was a supporter of the Union cause but his views toward Blacks were equally repulsive. As a delegate to the convention that drafted the 1851 state constitution, he led the efforts to place Article 13 into the constitution. While serving in the U.S. Senate from 1863-1869, though he opposed slavery, he voted repeatedly against repealing the Fugitive Slave Act, until slavery was abolished by the 13th Amendment.
He strongly opposed the 14th and 15th Amendments because of his racist views. In the U.S. Senate biography for the Vice Presidents, maintained on the U.S. Senate webpage, Hendricks is quoted saying, “I say we are not of the same race…We are so different that we ought not to compose one political community.” A monument bearing his name and likeness stands on the southeast corner of the Statehouse lawn.
But there were those in government who did stand and pushed to make change. One was Indiana U.S. Representative and Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax. In 1865, 1866, and 1869, Colfax presided over the House when they successfully approved the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to send the states. Colfax even broke House tradition during the vote on the 13th Amendment when he voted for it.
At that time speakers abstained from voting and just presided over the chamber. This event is depicted in Steven Spielberg’s 2012 film, Lincoln. Then there was State Senator and President Pro Tempore Isaac Gray. A future Indiana governor, Gray, presided over the State Senate when he outmaneuvered Democratic members in the chamber from denying the body quorum, by attempting to resign from office, the vote for ratifying the 15th Amendment came to floor. In a masterstroke of parliamentary procedure, Gray had the doors of the chamber locked so none of the Democrats could leave, allow the ratification vote to take place.
This is just a small part of Indiana’s history that has led to the situation today.
Diving into our state’s history not only allows us to learn how we arrived at this point in our state’s existence but also can allow us to appreciate all those that worked to make our home a vibrant and resilient place for all as well as take heed to those whose narrow mindedness cripples our state by separating our people based on the mere vanity of outward appearance. We can be better by accepting our full history and see to it that the wrongs of the past reside forever in the history books.
—Matthew Kochevar is an attorney in Indiana and serves as National Committee Representative with the Indiana Young Democrats and is one of the state’s voting member on the Young Democrats of American National Committee. Twitter handle: @voteforkoach
IMPORTANTVILLE READS
Dan Coats, The New York Times: “What’s at Stake in This Election? The American Democratic Experiment”
We hear often that the November election is the most consequential in our lifetime. But the importance of the election is not just which candidate or which party wins. Voters also face the question of whether the American democratic experiment, one of the boldest political innovations in human history, will survive.
Susan Glasser, The New Yorker: “‘It Was All About the Election: The Ex-White House Aide Olivia Troye on Trump's Narcissistic Mishandling of Covid-19.’”
When I spoke with Olivia Troye on Thursday afternoon, she sounded more than a little scared. She was about to go public with a scorching video, in which she would denounce President Donald Trump and his stewardship of the country during the coronavirus pandemic. Troye, who served as Vice-President Mike Pence’s adviser for homeland security until late July, has witnessed the Administration’s response to the crisis as Pence’s top aide on the White House coronavirus task force. She had seen Trump rant in private about Fox News coverage as his public-health advisers desperately tried to get him to focus on a disease that has now killed some two hundred thousand Americans. She had decided that Trump was lying to the American public about the disease, and that “words matter, especially when you’re the President of the United States,” and that it was time to speak out. She was nervous and scared and worried for her family and her career. But she plunged ahead anyway.
That’s all for today. Thanks for reading and subscribing.
