Muni Elections Sure to Get Nasty This Season

We're just a little over a month away from the Municipal Election Primaries, and voters are just now waking up and taking a look at the races for Indianapolis Mayor and City-County Council. It could get quite interesting.

On the Democratic side, you have incumbent Joe Hogsett. He's got a gaggle of opponents which includes longshots like community activist Larry Vaughn and perennial candidate Bob Kern among others. Also opposing him is State Representative Robin Shackleford. Shackleford, a veteran lawmaker, is making the rounds touting her legislative experience as her inside route to success on the 25th floor of the City-County Building. Hogsett is out talking about his efforts to rein in crime and the city's crumbling infrastructure which, let's face it, had been largely neglected for years under previous administrations, R and D.

Over on the GOP's side of the aisle there are also a handful of candidates, but it appears that the two leading candidates have different backgrounds. One one hand, you have the sometimes controversial and never-quiet attorney and radio talk show host Abdul-Hakim Shabazz pitted up against the quiet but extraordinarily wealthy businessman and former City-County Councillor Jefferson Shreve. Shreve has already spent a chunk of change on cable and over-the-air TV ads which specifically go after Mayor Hogsett's record. Shreve has experience on the Council, but he was largely an anonymous backbencher in the GOP caucus. 

This General Election season will be a huge referendum on Democratic Party rule of Indianapolis. The Dems have a huge majority on the City-County Council and sit in the Mayor's Office, so it's easy to pit every ill that the city has experienced, rightly or wrongly, on the Dems. Hogsett is trying to turn back the "third term jinx" which has befallen incumbents like Steve Goldsmith and Bart Peterson. Greg Ballard flirted with running for a third term, but he ultimately declined. The only successful post-Unigov third termer was Bill Hudnut.

After redistricting and the way population has changed in Marion County, the Dems are probably going to lose a few seats on the City-County Council. It was just nearly impossible to draw 20 safe Democratic seats. 

I expect this race for Mayor to get nasty and VERY expensive over the next few months. It's something we haven't seen in years.

Young Signs Term Limits Pledge After 34 Years in General Assembly?

District 35 Candidates: Mike Young (R) and Pete Cowden (D)
Campaign Photos

One of the bellwether races to show national folks how Indiana might swing might just be Indiana's 35th Senate District race between long long long longtime incumbent Mike Young and first-time candidate and combat veteran Pete Cowden.

The 35th District encompasses a large part of Southwestern Marion County in Wayne and Decatur Townships and then shoots out west into Hendricks County picking up Plainfield and other communities nearby. It's very clearly gerrymandered to protect Young, and he's electorally done quite well keeping it close in Marion County and winning handily in Hendricks. 

Term limits have become an issue in this race with mailers showing up in District 35 mailboxes. Surprisingly it's Cowden being targeted by the negative mailers even though he's never been in office before. 

Instead, Young, a man who has been in the Indiana Senate nearly 20 years and who has served in the General Assembly since 1986, is being endorsed by this out-of-state term limits group who is now sending mailings on his behalf. I was 11 when Young was first elected to the Indiana House. I'm now 45.

Did you get that? A man who has been in the General Assembly for 34 years is now being supported by a term limits group based in Florida. Suddenly, Young has seen the light on term limits after his long and undistinguished career in office? Something smells fishy here.

Cowden, for his part, said in a Facebook video that he strongly supports term limits but did not respond to the group's bullying tactics and thus did not sign the group's pledge. 

Mike Young's 34-year legislative career is not what I would call spectacular. For example, if you're interested as to why your vote takes so long to count if you voted absentee, you might be interested to know that Young was the author of 2013's Senate Bill 621. That bill robbed Marion County of its four at-large City-County Council seats, took several appointments from the City-County Council, reduced the size of the township advisory boards and created a central count for absentee ballots in only two counties...Lake and Marion. No one asked for that bill. Even Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard pretended to be surprised by it.

That's just one greatest hit in a long line of head scratchers for Senator Young. In 2017, Young argued against adding fertility fraud as a felony for fertility doctors who use their own sperm or eggs in fertility clinics. In 2020, Young was caught making what many considered to be inappropriate and homophobic remarks about Pete Buttigieg on Facebook. Young also has sought to override the decision of local prosecutors on marijuana charge prosecutions. Young co-authored a bill to send children to the Department of Corrections instead of the juvenile justice system. Young voted yes on Right to Work. He tried to make it more difficult for workers to collect pay owed to them. Young also tried to grandstand on Indiana colleges and universities declaring themselves sanctuary campuses...even though none of Indiana's higher learning institutions did.

There are more instances. Feel free to Google Senator Young for yourself. 

I've seen a lot of laughable things in politics, but a term limits group campaigning against a first-time candidate running against a legislator who's been in office nearly 35 years is right at the tops. Don't buy this crap and dump the mailers you may receive in the nearest recycle or trash bin.