Category Archives: Local Government

An Intriguing New Non-Party

I’ve frequently posted about the multiple negative effects of Indiana’s extreme gerrymandering. One of the most pernicious of those effects has been voter suppression–the tendency of Democrats and Independents who live in “safe” Republican districts to stay home on election day. If you think the result is foreordained, why bother?

In Indiana, the Democrats’ decision not to bother running candidates in many of those “safe” districts has only increased that disengagement. When there is no competition, we shouldn’t be surprised when there is minimal turnout. And Indiana has long had depressingly low voter turnout–last time I looked, we were near the bottom of all states.

This situation has produced a depressingly widespread opinion that progressive candidates (even moderately progressive, as in not committed crazies or Christian Nationalists) have no chance in Indiana. Donors who support Democrats send their dollars elsewhere; discouraged Democrats don’t bother casting ballots.  (Worse still, in many rural districts, many faithful longtime Republican voters who are unhappy with incumbent officials nevertheless cannot bring themselves to vote for a Democrat.)

A new organization has decided that the basic problem in the Hoosier State is that lack of competition. 

The folks who have organized Independent Indiana looked at the data, and discovered that during the last couple of election cycles, over 200 candidates had run for offices in Indiana as Independents. Of that number, 52% won their races, an astonishing percentage. (In contrast, Democrats won 36% of theirs…)

The goal of Independent Indiana is to encourage and support Independent candidates–and to give voters in those gerrymandered districts a choice. 

The organization recently held an informational meeting, and I attended. After introductory remarks from Nathan Gotsch, the Executive Director, and the introduction of board members and a recent operations hire, Nathan introduced a panel consisting of three mayors who had won their elections as Independents. Their comments were enlightening. 

Tom Saunders had formerly been a Republican state representative; he is now an independent on the Lewisville Town Council. As he explained,
“I felt like my party was leaving me, and I wasn’t happy…Toward the end, my conscience wasn’t agreeing with me. I wasn’t sleeping at night, and it was time to come home.” (Many former Republicans can underscore his discomfort…) As he said, “I think I could have run as an independent and gotten elected to the legislature, but my advisors and the people who gave me money said no.” 

Saunders ran for his city council and won. He also had some harsh words for Republicans who are proposing a mid-cycle gerrymander.

“The worst thing that’s happened to the state is the supermajority where we don’t hear the other side’s concerns.”

“If redistricting happens, I think it does open it up [for independents]. If I was 20 years younger, I would [run for a larger office as an independent. My wife might divorce me, but I would.”

“Republicans need to go back 30 years and look what happened the last time they tried this. Democrats walked out, the plan backfired, and Republicans lost seats. I think it’s a mistake.”

Richard Strick, another panelist, is an Independent who has been mayor of the Republican stronghold of Huntington since 2020. As he told the gathering, “We don’t just need independent candidates. We need independent thinking in both parties — left and right officials who know when to put party aside to do what’s needed. At the end of the day, especially at the local level, it’s about delivering and getting results. People will give you a chance if they think you’re sincere and have their best interest at heart.” He enumerated the benefits of independence, noting “you don’t have to be married to an ideology. I’m 100% responsible for what I say and do.”

The third panelist was Shawna Girgis, who served as the Independent mayor of Bedford from 2008 to 2019. She pointed out that the first time she’d run, Republicans quietly told her they were glad she was in the race. “By my second and third campaigns, people were open about supporting me because they saw the results.” She also noted that running against extremists and ideologues can be a bonus: “Sometimes having people work against you is the best thing that can happen. They’re the wrong people with the wrong message, doing the wrong things consistently. That only helps you.”

You can see a video of the entire event here.

As the new Operations director noted, Independent candidates do best in states where there’s no competition–where there’s one party rule. Even people in the dominant party feel unrepresented. 

That sure describes Indiana, where polls reflect that even most Republican voters are unhappy with the Christian Nationalists and culture warriors who currently dominate our government.

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Soft Secession

I recently came across a lengthy Substack post from The Existential Republic, titled “It’s Time for Americans to Start Talking About ‘Soft Secession.”  It was fascinating–and (assuming the accuracy of the reporting) immensely comforting. If even half of the sub-rosa efforts reportedly underway really are underway, the resistance is far more robust than I had imagined.

Evidently, Blue state leaders have been “war-gaming” a variety of scenarios.

For many state Attorney Generals and Governors, the legal briefs are already drafted. The strategy sessions have been running since December. “We saw this coming, even though we hoped it wouldn’t,” former Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum told The 19th days after Trump’s inauguration.

This is what American federalism looks like in 2025: Democratic governors holding emergency sessions on encrypted apps, attorneys general filing lawsuits within hours of executive orders, and state legislatures quietly passing laws that amount to nullification of federal mandates. Oregon is stockpiling abortion medication in secret warehouses. Illinois is exploring digital sovereignty. California has $76 billion in reserves and is deciding how to deploy it. Three sources on those daily Zoom calls between Democratic AGs say the same phrase keeps coming up, though nobody wants to say it publicly: soft secession.

Soft, because we aren’t looking at secession Civil War style. This time around–again, according to the post–Blue states are building parallel systems and withholding cooperation. They are creating “facts on the ground that render federal authority meaningless within their borders.”

The infrastructure for this resistance already exists. Twenty-three Democratic attorneys general now gather on near-daily Zoom calls at 8 AM Pacific, which means the East Coast officials are already on their third coffee. They divide responsibilities and share templates for lawsuits they’ve been drafting since last spring.

Yale Law Professor Heather Gerken calls this “uncooperative federalism,” an approach that doesn’t require states to actively resist, merely refuse to help. And as the article points out, without state cooperation, much of the federal government’s agenda becomes unenforceable.

Eight states have already enacted State Voting Rights Acts that exceed federal protections. Twenty-two states have implemented automatic voter registration. Colorado has created what election security experts call the gold standard: risk-limiting audits with paper ballot requirements.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, who successfully sued Trump during his first term, promised she’s “ready to fight back again.” During Trump’s first term, Democratic attorneys general led more than 130 multistate lawsuits against the administration and won 83 percent of them…

Pritzker has his staff exploring how to force Apple and Google to disable location tracking for anyone crossing into Illinois for medical procedures, preventing any digital trail that could be subpoenaed. Multiple governors are studying whether they can legally deny federal agents access to state databases, airports, and even highways for immigration enforcement. The discussions, according to sources, have gone as far as evaluating state authority to close airspace to federal deportation flights. States are creating pharmaceutical stockpiles, climate agreements, immigration policies. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact has secured 209 electoral votes. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative’s 11 states have reduced emissions by 50% while the federal government rolled back climate regulations. The U.S. Climate Alliance’s 24 governors represent 60% of the American economy.

California doesn’t wait for Washington anymore. Neither does New York. Or Illinois. They’re building functioning governmental systems that operate independently of federal authority.

I strongly encourage you to click through and read the rest of the lengthy post, which has multiple examples of the ways in which “the same constitutional structure that allows red states to ban abortion permits blue states to stockpile abortion pills. The same Tenth Amendment that lets Texas deploy its National Guard to the border prevents Trump from commandeering state police for deportations.”

Of course, as we repeatedly see, constitutional restrictions mean nothing to our Mad King, and our rogue Supreme Court has signaled a willingness to overrule many of the eminently correct decisions of the lower federal courts. Nevertheless, I found the extent of the coordinated activities of America’s Blue states to be immensely hopeful, especially since the majority of Americans live in those states–and since (as the article also documents) the country’s Red states are economically dependant on Blue state taxpayers.

As the post concludes:

The phrase “soft secession” makes Democrats nervous. They prefer “resistance” or “federalism” or any other euphemism that doesn’t acknowledge what’s happening. But when democracy fails, when fair elections become impossible in certain states, when federal funds are withheld as political punishment, states don’t have many options left.

The infrastructure is built. The legal precedents are established. The money is there. Blue states have spent two years sharpening these tools…

As blue states prepare to deny federal agents access to their databases, their highways, maybe even their airspace, the soft secession isn’t coming. It’s here.

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Indiana’s “Christian” Soldiers…

Elections have consequences–and in Indiana, those consequences are potentially frightening.

Thanks to gerrymandering and the refusal of rural voters to cast a ballot for anyone who doesn’t have an R by their name, the state is currently “governed” (note quotation marks) by  a slate of pathetic wanna-bes and Christian Nationalists. We have a governor who is clearly more interested in the title (and in staying in Trump/MAGA’s good graces) than in policy; an Attorney General who evidently skipped his law school class on ethics, and who has turned the office into a performative culture war outpost; a Secretary of State who was elected despite obvious incompetence and corruption and has continued to exhibit both.

And then, of course, there is our Lieutenant Governor, Micah Beckwith, who consistently displays his ignorance of the Constitution and Bill of Rights while working to turn Indiana into a Christian theocracy.

The Statehouse File recently reported on meetings Beckwith has been having with others in the Christian Taliban.

At a closed-door meeting in April, Micah Beckwith and members of what the Indiana lieutenant governor called his Anti-Woke Advisory Committee laid out an aggressive strategy to expand conservative influence in public schools and push back against what the group identified as “woke policy creep.”

The committee detailed plans to launch conservative student clubs, reshape teacher training programs, and identify school districts where diversity and pro-LGBTQ+ policies are in place, according to meeting notes obtained by The Indiana Citizen and verified as authentic by a person familiar with the committee. Many of the discussion topics were aimed at ramping up political pressure on school boards.

Attendees at the meeting included the Executive Director and Education Director of the far-ritht Indiana Family Institute, Former Attorney General Curtis Hill ( you will recall his law license was suspended over groping allegations),  Jay Hart, a Morgan County conservative who unsuccessfully challenged state Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray in a 2024 Republican primary, State Senator Craig Haggard, a Republican from Mooresville, and several other Christian Nationalist activists.

The committee was formed by Beckwith, who self-identifies as a Christian nationalist, and the Statehouse File reports that the meeting focused on “specific steps to launch conservative clubs in schools and target teachers, education colleges, and programs they see as promoting pro-LGBTQ+ content or “leftist ideology.”

Beckwith’s animus toward the gay community and his efforts to marginalize the members of that community are longstanding, and the committee spent considerable time focusing on potential anti-gay measures. Participants noted that some teachers continue to display LGBTQ+ flags and classroom décor to signal inclusion, which they described as a way to “push agendas.”

I guess it’s only an “agenda” when it isn’t consistent with your effort to “Christianize” the state, an effort that somehow isn’t an “agenda.”

The committee extended its focus beyond classrooms to nonprofit organizations, recommending audits of groups with state-issued specialty license plates to ensure they were in compliance with what they called “anti-DEI executive orders.” The Indianapolis Youth Group, which provides services and support to LGBTQ+ youth, was specifically named for review.

The linked report also documents Beckwith’s relationships with figures of several national far-right groups.

During the meeting, members proposed a quarterly “Woke Radar Report” to track what they consider “problem districts” and suggested mechanisms that would give Beckwith a platform to pressure local school boards. According to the article, the institution of such a report “would function both as a watchdog tool and a political instrument, spotlighting schools where progressive policies are growing.”

The article has much more–all pretty terrifying, and absolutely none of it consistent with the job description of the office of Lieutenant Governor. That office is charged with heading up the Indiana State Department of Agriculture, the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority, and the Office of Community and Rural Affairs. (I believe it also heads up efforts to increase tourism.) Nowhere does that portfolio include the Christianizing of the schools.

Of course, the Lieutenant Governor also becomes Governor if the sitting governor dies, resigns, or is otherwise unable to serve. I’m no fan of empty suit Mike Braun, but I certainly hope he’s healthy…

These sorry excuses for state “leadership” sure don’t make me proud to be a Hoosier….

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Texas

Coverage of the horrific floods in Texas has dominated the media for several days–first, with videos and descriptions of the devastation and reports of the growing numbers of dead and missing, and more recently, with emerging evidence of governmental failures that undoubtedly cost lives by delaying both effective warnings and responses.

According to numerous media reports, local officials had been told repeatedly over a number of years that the area needed a better warning system, including sirens. But this was Red Texas, which–like Red Indiana–is a state governed by lawmakers congenitally allergic to taxation and dismissive of the common good. Local and state officials refused to spend tax dollars to pay for improving the warning system.

Worse, according to the Washington Post, the county had technology to turn every cellphone in the river valley into a blaring alarm, but local officials didn’t use it before or during the early-morning hours of July 4 as river levels rose to record heights. County officials did eventually send text-message alerts that morning, but only to residents who had registered to receive them.  According to the Post’s review of emergency notifications that night, county officials did not activate a more powerful notification tool they had previously used, even as federal meteorologists were warning of catastrophic flooding.

As usual, the cuts made by DOGE–ostensibly to “waste and fraud”–were also implicated in the tragedy. Thanks to indiscriminate cuts by people who had no understanding of the systems they were devastating, the National Weather Service was short-staffed. Its forecasting evidently remained accurate, but the job of “warning coordination,” the position responsible for transmitting  information from the forecasts to relevant local officials — was vacant.

FEMA’s reduced staffing–including terminated contracts for call-center operators–also deepened the crisis by delaying relief efforts for several days. Phone calls weren’t answered–indeed, according to media reports, response rates declined from nearly 100% to just over 5% on July 7.

And then there was the further delay caused by Kristy Noem, one of the members of Trump’s inept cabinet (appointees who confirm the accuracy of my favorite protest sign: “IKEA has better cabinets.”) According to CNN, Noem recently enacted a sweeping rule requiring every contract and grant over $100,000 to obtain her personal sign-off before any funds can be released–a rule displaying a total lack of understanding of the agency’s function and mission.

For FEMA, where disaster response costs routinely soar into the billions as the agency contracts with on-the-ground crews, officials say that threshold is essentially “pennies,” requiring sign-off for relatively small expenditures.

In essence, they say the order has stripped the agency of much of its autonomy at the very moment its help is needed most.

“We were operating under a clear set of guidance: lean forward, be prepared, anticipate what the state needs, and be ready to deliver it,” a longtime FEMA official told CNN. “That is not as clear of an intent for us at the moment.”

For example, as central Texas towns were submerged in rising waters, FEMA officials realized they couldn’t pre-position Urban Search and Rescue crews from a network of teams stationed regionally across the country.

Noem didn’t authorize FEMA’s deployment of Urban Search and Rescue teams until some 72 hours after the flooding began. 

Of course, the overall lack of preparedness, both locally and nationally, was enabled and abetted by the GOP’s widespread denial of the reality of climate change. (What’s that saying? “Reality doesn’t care if you believe it or not…”)

I wonder whether those MAGA Texans who enthusiastically supported Trump are delighted with the administration’s destruction of that hated “deep state,” filled with “elitists” who actually knew what they were doing. Are they applauding the substitution of lily-White ignoramuses for those despised (and credentialed) “DEI hires”? 

And predictably, In the wake of this enormous tragedy, Texas Republicans are adding insult to injury. Rather than exacting consequences for the glaring ineptitude of various state and federal officials, Texas has moved to further protect them from any possible voter retribution. Governor Greg Abbott has announced that mid-decade redistricting will be taken up during the state’s upcoming special session. The move is in response to White House pressure; Texas Republicans have been urged to redraw the state’s congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterm election in order to protect the party’s slim majority in the House–a majority delivered via the GOP’s previous gerrymandering.

Welcome to MAGA’s version of democracy. Are we great yet? 

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Our Pathetic Indiana Government

Today, I’m taking a detour from the depressing state of the nation in order to indulge in a very personal rant about the equally depressing performance of my state’s government.

How many times have we all heard some self-important “Captain of Industry” pontificate about running government like a business? And how often have we responded–calmly and logically–by explaining the multiple and substantial differences between government and business enterprises? When I am engaging in these discussions, however, I routinely add a statement to the effect that we do have a right to expect that government will be businesslike, meaning that government agencies should operate in an efficient and professional manner.

I don’t know what people in other states experience, but in Indiana those in charge of the various services we expect government to provide, services we rely upon, are clearly uninterested in either efficiency or professionalism. Our Governor, Lieutenant governor, Attorney General and legislative super-majority are far too engrossed with rewarding their donors and indulging their culture war obsessions to bother with effective administration of the various agencies with which Hoosiers are required to interact.

Permit me to offer a recent example.

A few weeks ago, someone stole my husband’s IPhone and wallet from his locker while he was working out. Anyone who has lost a wallet or had one stolen will immediately understand the nightmare that ensues–cancelling credit cards and getting replacements, figuring out how to get copies of medical insurance and Medicare cards…(we’re still waiting on the Medicare replacement, which we’re told takes some 30 days.)

And then, of course, there’s replacing the “Real ID” issued by the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. (My husband stopped driving a few years ago, but still needs that “real ID” for travel.)

Welcome to the Indiana’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles web page, which hasn’t been updated in who knows how long, and which is demonstrably, wildly inaccurate. The BMV web page lists the locations of branches and self-service “kiosks” located in other buildings. My husband visited at least two of the listed kiosk locations, only to discover that they not only lacked the promised kiosks, but–according to building personnel–had never housed any such structures or anything similar.

The license branch that we have used over the past several years is still listed, with its operating hours. What the website neglects to mention, however, is that it was closed several months ago, when the BMV shuttered a number of locations.

After a couple of wasted visits, as we prepared to travel considerably farther, to a location that is presumably still in operation, I consulted the website to see what sort of documentation the BMV requires to confirm that my husband is both a citizen and a bona fide resident of the state of Indiana, and I discovered a list that was evidently assembled well before the Internet became pervasive and rather clearly hasn’t been reconsidered since.

He can use his passport to confirm identity and citizenship (which is good because I never heard of several of the other “acceptable” items listed). But the BMV wants a minimum of two “original documents” to demonstrate Hoosier residency. The site lists utility bills, bank statements and/or a variety of other bills and statements that people used to receive via the U.S. mail, but that most Americans now now receive virtually, via email or app. (The language on the site is very definite that only original documents are acceptable, so apparently, a printout of a digital statement or bill would not pass muster.)

In all fairness, once we had traveled 45 minutes to the now-nearest branch, the process was efficient and the employees helpful–much better than we’d expected, given the website and branch closures.

If all those Republicans who think government should be “run like a business” actually ran their businesses like this, they wouldn’t be in business very long.

I guess it’s too much to expect that someone in Indiana government might take a break from what they evidently believe are their primary duties: interfering with women’s reproduction, waging war on education, ferreting out that scandalous DEI, hassling Drag Queens, and keeping trans kids out of sports (I think statewide there are two of them)–and spend some time improving the performance of the agencies they are actually employed to manage.

But hey–this is Indiana, where voters regularly elect these culture warriors. Evidently, Hoosier voters don’t connect the dots between our seriously substandard public services and the Christian Nationalist theocrats they elect.

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