Top 9 IN political stories of the 2010s

The 2010s were unlike any decade in Indiana’s political history.

By Adam Wren and design by Kris Davidson

The 2010s were unlike any decade in Indiana’s political history. From scandals to veepstakes, Indiana often found itself at the center of the political universe.

That’s not all that happened here in the 2010s. Two years ago, on the eve of clinching the Republican nomination in Indiana, then-candidate Donald Trump stood at a rally in South Bend and told an audience: “Now Indiana is becoming very important … you folks belong where you belong; it's called Importantville, right? I love it.” Trump said. Now, the mayor of that city—Pete Buttigieg—is a top-tier candidate for the presidency.

Trump was right: Indiana was the political crossroads of America in the 2010s. (There’s still a year left in the decade, according to the Farmer’s Almanac, the official decade definer of this Midwestern newsletter—all of which is why I’ve selected only nine stories).

Here are the political storylines that defined the decade.

9. Indiana House Democratic walkout (2011)

For almost six weeks, Indiana Democrats halted the legislative process over a right-to-work bill, fleeing the state for neighboring Illinois. The walkout forced State Rep. Ryan Dvorak, then a shoo-in South Bend mayoral candidate from a prominent South Bend political family, to campaign remotely for a time. Meanwhile, a young former McKinsey consultant and state treasurer candidate, Pete Buttigieg, won the five-person Democratic primary—and later, the general election.

8. The fast rise—and fall—of Tony Bennett (2013)

Former Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett became a national poster boy of the education reform movement in 2011. By 2012, Indiana voters drove him from office, selecting Glenda Ritz—a stunning upset driven by frustrated teachers. After reporting showed Bennett intervened in Indiana's state's A-F grading system, Bennett resigned his position as Florida’s state education commissioner under Gov. Rick Scott. A bipartisan ethics commission found no major violations. Officials found that the changes to the grading system benefitted by traditional public schools and charters. Marion County Prosecutor declined to file criminal charges.

7. Todd Young defeats Evan Bayh (2016)

In a historic victory, Sen. Todd Young, then a three-term Congressman, kept Indiana political giant Evan Bayh from reclaiming his former Senate seat held by a retiring Republican Sen. Dan Coats—a race that will live forever in Hoosier political lore. Young overcame a 20-point margin. He would later become chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, only the second Hoosier to hold the position, behind Sen. Richard Lugar. No current senator is better positioned to be the heir to Lugar’s towering foreign policy legacy than Young. And few Republicans could chart a path for a post-Trump GOP as effectively as Indiana’s senior senator.

6. Scott County HIV outbreak (2015)

The outbreak tested not only then-Gov. Mike Pence, but it also tested then-state Health Commissioner Jerome Adams (now U.S. Surgeon General). It also signaled a sea-change in the opioid epidemic. “As the largest HIV/AIDS outbreak in Indiana’s history roils this Hoosier hamlet, it reflects the changing face of the epidemic in the U.S., as a disease that once primarily afflicted gays and minorities in deep-blue cities rises in rural red states,” I wrote that year for POLITICO Magazine. “This new evolution of HIV is also forcing a new generation of Republican policymakers to confront its orthodox opposition to remedies such as government-funded needle-exchange programs.”

5. RFRA roils Indiana politics (2015)

It cost the state 12 conventions, $60 million and ruined Pence’s 2016 presidential aspirations. In a counterfactual version of history, one could argue RFRA led indirectly to a Trump presidency. Had RFRA never seen the light of day in 2015, and had Pence run for president in 2016, he might have been able to unite business GOPers and conservatives early on in the primary against Trump in a way a Republican like Sen. Ted Cruz never could. The RFRA hangover made Cruz’s May 2016 push in Indiana’s primary seem dissonant in the donut counties—he campaigned on North Carolina’s bathroom bill at his first stop here. In that alternate history, if Pence could’ve hung on until his home state’s May primary, he could’ve been a favorite son candidate. Instead, Pence became V.P. And RFRA is still very much in the political ether: Pence lobbied Trump for a similar federal religious freedom measure recently, and Trump responded: “Mike, isn’t this the shit that got you in trouble in Indiana?”

If this list were Indianapolis-centric, RFRA could arguably be the No. 1 biggest political story of the decade. Consider this: One of the first things Indianapolis voters learned about Republican mayoral candidate Jim Merritt’s campaign earlier this year was his RFRA support. RFRA also played a role in galvanizing Indianapolis civic institutions—from the Indy Chamber to Visit Indy—in a way no other issue could.

4. Daniels explores presidential run, then backs out (2009, 2011)

Mitch Daniels was the 2012 cycle’s will-he-or-won’t-he presidential candidate. Planning for a potential run began in 2009, after his historic re-election victory as Indiana governor.

3. Death of Bayh, Lugar (2019)

Sen. Birch Bayh and Sen. Dick Lugar, two Hoosier farm boys born four years apart, died within weeks of each other this past spring. Bayh authored the 25th Amendment, outlining presidential succession, and the 26th Amendment, lowering the voting age to 18. Lugar ushered Unigov, leading to modern Indianapolis, and his Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, which helped to deactivate more than 7,500 nuclear warheads in the former Soviet Union. The state—and perhaps the nation—will likely never see such accomplished senators again. What’s more, Lugar’s 2012 loss in the Senate signaled a coarsening—and a hard right turn—in Republican politics that ultimately led to Trump. Here’s my “Why They Mattered” piece on the two senators for POLITICO Magazine.

2. Pete Buttigieg surges from virtual obscurity (2019)

It reads like a tabled Parks & Rec script, deep-sixed because of its improbability. But in 2019, the mayor of Indiana’s fourth-largest city, Pete Buttigieg, became a frontrunner in the Democratic presidential contest, raising more than $51 million—the first Hoosier in the history of the modern presidential campaigns to lead polls of Iowa and New Hampshire.

This time last year, when my Indianapolis Monthly profile of Buttigieg hit newsstands and inboxes, people told me I was crazy for raising the question of whether the mayor of Indiana’s fourth-largest city could become a “dark horse” in the 2020 Democratic primary. Some thirteen months later, here we are: Buttigieg’s political rise in 2019 is among the most remarkable of its kind in American political history. He is only the third Hoosier in modern caucus history to make a serious run in Iowa, joining Birch Bayh (he finished 3rd) and Dick Lugar (he finished 7th). With four weeks to Iowa’s caucuses and little recent reliable polling, it’s anyone’s guess how this chapter of his story ends. But no matter the outcome, Buttigieg has already won: He’ll be a player in Democratic politics for a long time to come.

1. Donald Trump rescues Vice President Mike Pence from a tough re-election bid, tapping him as his vice president (2016).

It’s a “political shotgun wedding for the ages.” Indiana has now produced six vice presidents—second only to New York. Truth is, no storyline defined the decade in Indiana politics more than this one. At one point in 2019, four Hoosiers were serving in President Donald Trump's Cabinet, filling nearly 20% of its seats: Vice President Mike Pence; Seema Verma as administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; Dan Coats as director of national intelligence; and Alex Azar at the secretary of health and human services. That’s not to mention the dozens of Hoosiers who landed spots at federal agencies. Their experience in D.C. could shape Indiana’s politics for decades to come.

Will Pence be his party’s nominee in 2024?

What stories did I miss? What rankings did I get wrong? Let me know in the comments below.

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