He’s at it again.
I don’t know how many pixels I’ve wasted on discussions of Indiana’s ridiculous Attorney General, Todd Rokita. When I took a look at the history of this blog, I realized that reports of his problematic behaviors began while he was still in Congress, and accelerated when he became AG.
Rokita’s self-importance isn’t matched by even a modicum of self-awareness, a lack that has led to admonitions of him from Indiana’s all-Republican Supreme Court. His tireless efforts to play to the craziest fringes of MAGA (and those are some fringes!) have led to his efforts to smear the IU Ob-Gyn who performed a legal abortion on a ten-year-old rape victim, a recent request that the Trump administration send federal troops to Indiana, and his maintenance of an unvetted list of school teachers who are reportedly sharing “woke” positions in their classrooms.
Rokita’s sustained assault on public education has erupted again, via a bizarre lawsuit Rokita has filed against Indianapolis’ Public Schools for failure to assist ICE in terrorizing students. IPS has had the nerve to demand legal authority before allowing ICE agents into its classrooms.
As the Indiana Capital Chronicle reported, Rokita “filed suit against Indianapolis Public Schools — with help from a conservative think tank — accusing the state’s largest public school district of ‘thwarting’ federal immigration enforcement.”
In response, the IPS board re-affirmed the district’s commitment to “ensuring safe, supportive, and welcoming learning environments for all students.” (It isn’t difficult to picture the eye-rolls that must have accompanied the response–and the “here he goes again” sighs…) Per IPS,
As has always been the case, we will continue to uphold the law while keeping these commitments,” the board added, before knocking Rokita’s intentions.
While IPS takes all legal obligations seriously, we respectfully hope that all concerned parties will recognize the heavy burden that silly litigation and political posturing places on students, families, and taxpayers,” the statement continued. “Every dollar spent on defensive legal posture is a dollar not spent on instructional support, teacher development, student services, or enrichment. In this case, Mr. Rokita prefers those dollars go to fight gratuitous political battles, as has too often been the case.
A very tactful way of saying “we really don’t want to pay for his incessant grandstanding.”
IPS requires that officers have a warrant signed by a judge unless there is an emergency situation, and the school system’s legal counsel must authorize the access. That policy certainly appears reasonable; after all, school systems are legally charged with acting in loco parentis, and with safeguarding the children in its care. Rokita, however, argues that the district should allow individual employees to “voluntarily comply” with ICE demands.
Rokita’s office began “investigating” (harassing) IPS in February, and communications have evidently gone back and forth since, with Rokita’s most recent demanding immediate changes. As the IPS response noted,
Unfortunately, despite taking six months to craft his opinion on IPS’ policies, Mr. Rokita permitted only five business days from the time IPS received his review to respond, and then refused IPS’ request for any additional time….Yet, these important issues deserve thoughtful, deliberative weighing of important legal rights — not impulsive, superficial efforts for political gain.
Board members also criticized Rokita’s use of the term “aliens” for noncitizen children and their families, accusing him of “willfully dehumanizing” them.
Assisting Rokita in this effort at bullying the system is something called the America First Policy Institute. (I guess a name really does say it all…) The institute says the Indiana case is part of its mission to hold “rogue” government entities accountable. Evidently, it’s “rogue” to protect children from being terrorized without legal authority.
In the wake of the suit, the Indiana State Teachers’ Association affirmed its belief that “every child in Indiana, regardless of background or immigration status, has the right to a safe and welcoming public school.” The organization confirmed the professional and moral responsibility of educators “to protect the wellbeing of their students and ensure schools remain places of learning, trust and stability….Turning schools into extensions of immigration enforcement threatens that trust and undermines the learning environment every student deserves. Our focus must remain on educating and protecting students, not politicizing their safety.”
A local immigration attorney interviewed by WTHR believes the lawsuit is part of an effort to increase ICE’s presence in Indianapolis, and characterized it as fear mongering playing to the base….”the idea of federal agents often masked and in full uniform and flak jackets going into schools is just diabolical.”
It would be nice if Rokita would stop his constant pandering to MAGA’s looney-tune fringe and spend some time doing the job he was elected to do, but I’m not holding my breath…
Oy. Not sure which is worse: Rokita doing his job, or *not* doing his job. He is another (insert your own descriptive) who just needs to go away. How did these people become so awful, let alone so powerful?!
I receive Todd’s email updates, and this one caught my attention as well, due to the organization, America First Institute. It’s another dark money network funded by the Oligarchy. The Board shows an oil magnate and a philanthropist from Florida. Trump’s PAC also gives it money. Based on the players’ former involvement, who are now serving (kissing Trump’s ass) in Washington, it’s a MAGA White House in waiting. The Democrats have one of those as well. Blinken headed it before he became SoS.
Our IRS needs to eliminate these classifications that protect donors from scrutiny. If these “think tanks” are working with government workers or officers to craft policy, we need to know who is paying for their salaries.
By the way, Linda McMahon was the Chair of the Board of AFPI. They are just like ALEC, but MAGA-related. They are using Todd Rokita to establish a model for all other MAGA-supported states. The advisors are Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, indicating that Saudi Arabia and Israel are indirectly funding this organization.
Politicians like Rokita are a dime a dozen and beg to have the help (and finances) of these organizations. Todd’s goal is probably to get a job with them and then serve in Washington as a pigeon.
Indiana’s AG is a bully, with a small army of lawyers and zero concern about the cost to us taxpayers of pursuing his personal political agenda. Good for IPS for pushing back as forcefully as they did. Here’s hoping the case is quickly dismissed and IPS pursues sanctions, perhaps creating a predicate for another disciplinary complaint. But wait, us taxpayers will pay to defend that one, too.
Anything to degrade our public school system. I wish we could recall him. He’s a terrible human being and represents nothing I believe in.
The Republicans who continue to nominate people like Rokita and Morales and even Braun are responsible for the waste of taxpayer money and legislators’ time. When the Republicans decided Beckwith would be a better choice than Braun’s hand-picked lieutenant governor, we saw Braun was powerless. Bruan’s lack of creative problem solving for issues facing Indiana are indicative of a stale Republican party. When David Macintosh is essentially getting another shot at power (see front page Indy Star where the organization Macintosh heads is donating for redistricting), it’s same old same old in Indiana. Then there is not just Rokita but Jim Banks. The Republicans have some options for candidates with chops but instead they nominate people like Morales and Rokita with impunity. It would not surprise me if MAGA will put up a candidate against Young. ALEC has been running our state legislature for years but we don’t see enough about this dreadful “nonprofit” so people understand. Ok too much response but redistricting special session is a joke when the GOP already has a stranglehold on every decision in the legislature and they deny Dems positions on committees etc. Ask JD Ford about that.
Love Todd Rokita. Best AG we’ve had. He gets things done and that makes people on the opposing side mad. The silent majority of us here in Indiana applaud and are very pleased with our active AG
As a former Public School educator( not in IPS), I applaud the IPS stance against Mr. Rokita.
Mr. Rokita is a bully playing to the lowest common denominator of the public, as are many of our highly placed politicians. IPS stands on firm legal and moral ground, terrorizing kids should never be ok by anyone. It takes a small, mean mind to justify this.
One wonders if Mr. Rokita’s zeal to “root out aliens” extends to voucher schools?
Kudos to the IPS Board for their rebuttal and commitment to the safety of their students.
I am not sure when Indiana’s traditional “Conservatism” turned so callous and ugly that we would tolerate much less elect such sad people to run our State government and represent us in Washington.
I’m sorry, folks, but I have to put this out here. Todd Rokita does NOT just “play to the craziest fringes of MAGA”. He plays to the whole rotten Republican Party in the State of Indiana. They have elected this horror of a human being to state office over and over again, and then take him to the State Supreme Court knowing how powerless that bunch really is. No, it isn’t the fringes, it is the vast majority of our fellow Hoosiers. And they don’t care how it reflects on this state as long as through Rokita they can show all those liberals who is in charge.
If only we didn’t have those pesky little things like Constitutional rights, or checks and balances, governing would be a piece of cake. Evidently, so easy even a moron could do it.
I remember an old SNL skit about a new group that was protecting the rights of stupid people. It seems as if MAGA Republicans took that seriously.
Just disgusted, I thought my state had more hard right problems.
LETTEER LEWIS, the problem is that we have two sides, and you are an example of why division may serve some politicians but doesn’t serve the people in charge of government. BTW, that’s all of us, not the DC Cheeto and all of his crumbs in DC and state capitols.
BTW, when this heartburn is over and the Constitution rules again, I don’t think there will be a MAGA party ever again because we, the people, learn from our mistakes.
We also demonstrate peacefully in support of these intentions, and more people are already joining those demonstrations than those who carried Cheeto over our ex-VP.
Woke is what built this country and what will restore it.
Some people just see themselves as “Sooooo Special!”
Simple: No warrant no access! What a waste of our tax dollars!