Larrison Wins Spot on Council

Jason Larrison
Photo: Jason Larrison for Council Facebook

City-County Council candidate Jason Larrison described himself as a "failed" blogger and comedian to the Indy Star's Amelia Pak-Harvey in an apology for inflammatory old blog posts.

Now, he can describe himself as City-County Councillor.

By a social-media-reported margin of one vote, Larrison has been elected to the City-County Council in a caucus of 23 party precinct officials over Karla Lopez-Owens and Francine Lee.

Larrison will now serve out the unexpired term of Blake Johnson. The next Council election will be 2023 (barring some change at the state level to move municipal elections to an even year).

Larrison had been backed by Mayor Joe Hogsett and his inner circle who spent a lot of political capital in defending Larrison. City-County Councillors and community members raised concerns about Larrison's fitness for office after the controversial blog posts resurfaced.

Those opposed to Larrison's candidacy rallied around Karla Lopez-Owens, a Mexican native, naturalized citizen and immigrant activist. The 12th District on the Council has the city's highest Latinx/Hispanic population of any Council district. Lopez-Owens would have been the only Latina on the Council had she won the caucus.

How we proceed from here will certainly be interesting to watch. There are people who are straight up mad about this, and it remains to be seen if that anger subsides. Twelve sitting Councillors had sent Hogsett a letter endorsing Lopez-Owens and asking for Larrison to leave the race. The Mayor needs to certainly smooth things over with them, if he can.

My feeling is that this will not go away for Larrison, and his margin for error on the Council will be extremely small. The Mayor also is in the middle of a dire time. He's receiving renewed pressure from those on the right and the last thing he needs is a fight from the left. He's brought this one on himself.

Never a dull moment in Indy!

District 12 Race May Be Inflicting Damage to Hogsett's Relationships with Council

Joe Hogsett
Photo: indy.gov

One of the rules of being a political leader is knowing when to punt.

Joe Hogsett is holding on to the ball on 4th and 15, and a near majority of the City-County Council is chasing after him.

Twelve members the Council Democratic Caucus sent Hogsett, his senior staff and candidate Jason Larrison a letter expressing support for Karla Lopez-Owens and asking Larrison to leave the race. Larrison, Lopez-Owens and Francine Lee are locked in a tight caucus battle to replace Blake Johnson on the Council in District 12.

Hogsett has backed Larrison and continues to back him despite Indy Star reporting from Amelia Pak-Harvey detailing blog posts Larrison penned several years ago. Blog posts that could conservatively be described as anti-immigrant, misogynistic and homophobic. Unbelievably, the blog still is live. You can read it here. Larrison apologized in the Pak-Harvey article calling his posts, "unacceptable."

So, if they were unacceptable, why is Hogsett continuing to back Larrison's candidacy? Why did he issue a defense in the Pak-Harvey article. I get that people change and that we aren't the people we were 10-15-20 years ago, but these posts were, in my opinion, so inflammatory that they would affect Larrison's ability to be a successful Councillor. It's also clear that the entire situation has the potential, whatever the outcome, to drive a wedge between the Mayor and his Council caucus as well as other community leaders. Why not just urge Larrison to step aside and allow Lopez-Owens or Lee to represent the district in the Council? If Larrison refused to step aside, at least the best thing politically for Hogsett would be to distance yourself from him more strongly.

The damage may already be done, though. I don't get it. I wonder what advice the Mayor is getting these days.

Larrison's Past Blog Posts Provide District 12 Caucus Eve Surprise

When Blake Johnson was elected to fill out the unexpired term of Dan Forestal, who resigned from his District 100 post in the Indiana House, it set off a race to replace him on the City-County Council

Many community leaders and several City-County Councillors have come out in support of Karla Lopez-Owens to replace Johnson. Mayor Joe Hogsett has backed former employee Jason Larrison for the spot. So, as you might imagine, the caucus has taken a turn and has become a bit of a proxy battle between the Council and the Mayor. Francine Lee, who has supporters of her own, is also in the race to become a Councillor as well.

Well, this race took a turn this evening. Call it a "Caucus Eve Surprise" if you will.

Tonight, the Indianapolis Star published an article by Amelia Pak-Harvey detailing blog posts written in 2006 and 2007 where Larrison had made insensitive remarks about undocumented immigrants, women and members of the LGBTQIA+ community. 

For his part, Larrison apologized without any confusion. After explaining to the Pak-Harvey that he was unsuccessfully attempting to be a blogger and a comedian at the time he penned the posts, he said, "I made bad jokes that were completely unacceptable and I am not the sort of person to make excuses when I screw up."

That's a definitive apology, and I credit him for taking responsibility. He didn't go the wishy washy way of saying that he was apologizing if he offended someone. He said he was clearly wrong. 

The apology, though, in my opinion is not enough. The posts were unacceptable, as he stated, and they were disqualifying. Larrison should drop out of this race before the caucus on Tuesday. I believe that no matter his contrition, the posts were written and that will damage his ability to effectively serve his constituents. District 12 has, according to the Star, the highest percentage of Hispanic and Latinx individuals in our city.

That's not all, though. I'm also disappointed in Mayor Hogsett, who, according to the Star piece, condemned Larrison's past posts but continues to support his candidacy. I think that's incredibly unfortunate, and it has the potential to strain the relationships between the Mayor and the Latinx community in Indianapolis.

I agree with the Councillors and community leaders backing Karla Lopez-Owens. She should be given the opportunity to lead the 12th District on the Council. She appears qualified and ready to lead the district forward.

UPDATE: After having read some of the posts in question (found them on a Facebook post of a friend), I think Joe Hogsett needs to answer as to why he is continuing to support Larrison's campaign at all. The posts are definitely disqualifying.