AG Candidates Give Preview At Dinner To GOP’s Convention
AG Candidates Give Preview At Dinner To GOP’s Convention
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David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
AG Candidates Give Preview At Dinner To GOP’s ConventionNORTH WEBSTER – While all four Indiana attorney general candidates spoke at the Kosciusko County GOP Lincoln Day Dinner Thursday, it was the speeches by incumbent Curtis Hill and candidate Todd Rokita, former Indiana secretary of state, that indicated the Republican convention this summer may get a little hot.
Due to restrictions on large gatherings because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Indiana Republican Party announced that the 2020 Indiana Republican State Convention will shift to a virtual format. It will be livestreamed June 18 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. During the convention, the Party will choose its candidate for attorney general for the fall.
Rokita was the keynote speaker at the dinner. Kosciusko Republican Party Chairman Mike Ragan said Gov. Eric Holcomb had agreed to be the dinner’s keynote speaker when it was scheduled for April 16. Rokita was supposed to introduce Holcomb. After the COVID-19 pandemic “ensued,” Ragan asked Rokita to be keynote speaker if Holcomb couldn’t attend, which he agreed to, and Ragan said he didn’t know Rokita would be an attorney general (AG) candidate until the night before Rokita announced.
Before Rokita’s approximate 12-minute keynote speech, the other three candidates were given five minutes to speak.
Decatur County Prosecuting Attorney Nathan W. Harter said he was running for AG because “we must retain the office of Indiana attorney general, to be a partner with the legislature and with the governor at his executive branch agencies.”
After a rundown of his background, Harter said, “I think it is critically important that we nominate this summer a conservative who can win the fall, pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, local perspective, someone who has won elections, someone who has managed an office. And I would submit to you that it is also important that for an office that is designed to litigate in a courtroom, in defense of the governor and the legislature, it is important that we nominate a trial attorney who has tried cases, picked a jury, gone into court and delivered evidence ... To lead an office of litigators, it is critical that we nominate a litigator.”
John M. Westercamp said he is a “pro-life, private sector conservative with real-world experience. I represent many small- and medium-sized businesses in my practice. I’ve spent a lot of time representing churches. I’ve seen first hand the effect of government overreach on my own clients. I want to bring that perspective to the office of the attorney general.”
Hill started his time by declaring, “I AM the attorney general.”
He said he wasn’t going to “stand up here and give you rhetoric about what I will do if I am elected.” He said he didn’t need to because he was elected and has a record.
“I have a record that is very thorough and very extensive. I am the attorney general for the state of Indiana who protects life and demonstrates it by going into the state of Illinois and retrieving 2,411 aborted babies, bringing them to the state of Indiana and presiding over their burial in a dignified and humane manner,” Hill said, which drew applause.
He said he was the AG who protects religious freedom by “recently engaging in two letters: one to the Allen County health commissioner and one to the mayor of Indianapolis demonstrating their practices in regard to COVID-19 enforcement of church practices was discriminatory and needed to be stopped and both have now stopped that practice.”
Then he said he was the AG who protects the Second Amendment “and through this COVID-19 process, sent a letter to the Howard County commissioners when I found out that the Howard County commissioners were going around the county closing the gunshops. My letter pointed out that under the Constitution, under the executive order and under the statutes of Indiana, a pandemic is not an exception to the Constitution.”
Hill also said he is the AG who fights federal overreach every day. “And the biggest federal overreach that we’ve seen in this country is Obamacare, and I joined with 19 other AGs across this country and filed a lawsuit against Obamacare and got it declared unconstitutional in the state of Texas, it was upheld in the Court of Appeals and next term it goes before the United States Supreme Court to once and for all, unlike what Congress was able to do, defeat Obamacare forever,” he said.
He discussed working with the White House and support President Trump “shoulder to shoulder” on “a number of issues.”
Hill said he did agree with the two prior candidates in one respect. “You want to send the strongest candidate to the attorney general’s office. You want to send a proven winner to the attorney general’s office. You want to send a proven conservative to the attorney general’s office. And you want to send someone who knows how to stand strong. Who knows how to take a punch. Who knows how to fight. ... You have seen that I can take a punch and keep standing,” he said.
In 2018, four women – three Democrats and one Republican – accused Hill of inappropriately touching them at a downtown Indianapolis bar. Earlier this month, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled Hill’s license would be suspended for 30 days, finding that Hill violated two professional conduct rules.
Thursday night, Hill continued, “When people like you go in to vote for President Trump, recognizing that President Trump has had his issues. He was investigated by a special prosecutor and cleared. Guess what? So was I. President Trump was impeached ... I say that’s a wound. Well, guess what? I’ve had a few problems myself, we’re not perfect.”
He said he was the attorney general and was prepared to do battle.
After an introduction by former Republican Party Chair Jean Northenor, Rokita said, “We have a lot to talk about. There’s a lot of serious things going on. The first of which is the attorney general’s race, and we’ll get to that.”
First, he reminded the Republican crowd that over a decade ago, the state was known nationally and internationally as a “backwater” state. He said the GOP was a minority party, “ruled by the likes of Frank O’Bannon and Joe Kernan and others.” Members of the Republican Party got together and decided that the most important thing at that time was to keep the secretary of state’s office in the GOP’s hands.
“Because there were things we needed to do if we weren’t going to be a minority party anymore,” Rokita said. “And we did it. And we worked together and we got it done.”
The first “mission” was to get a photo ID law, and that was done. Two years later, the party attracted Mitch Daniels and he became governor.
After “working at it, working at it and working at it, pretty soon we went from a backwater state to first in class. We went from being a minority party to being one of the strongest in the nation,” Rokita said.
Over 80% of Indiana’s counties are Republican now, he said, and the party has supermajorities in both the state House and Senate.
“And now there is only one way, literally one way, that we can start losing again and losing quickly: And that’s through the attorney general’s office,” Rokita said. “The Democrats are running a strong character, a great fundraiser. He looks like Evan Bayh, he votes like Hillary Clinton. I know personally because when I was secretary of state, we had glorious, beautiful battles over photo ID. Thank gosh I didn’t write a letter about it or we still wouldn’t have it. We took action.”
Rokita continued, “How far are we going to go to put all of our legacy and all the work that we have to do over one man in a very important office?”
He said the thing that Northenor taught him was that the office was bigger than any one person. “These offices have to be bigger than the selfishness of mistakes made and not apologizing for,” he said.
He said Indiana voters want conservatives, they don’t want office holders spending money on office chandeliers and being flagrant with vehicles.
Shortly after he was sworn in as state government’s top lawyer in 2017, Hill asked for a raise and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to renovate his Statehouse office, including adding new furniture and reclaimed chandeliers, according to a December Associated Press story. But Hill doesn’t spend much time at that downtown Indianapolis office, The Journal Gazette reported. Instead, he’s used taxpayer dollars on a satellite office in the northern Indiana city of Elkhart, where he lives.
Rokita said he won’t do that when he’s AG, and he’ll “keep the trust of the November voter and taxpayer.”
He also said he’s 100% pro-life, no exceptions, has an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association and “everyone knows where I stand.” He said he has the same record as Hill “or better” and knows how to treat an office.
“We represent 6 million people. And that means you have to act a certain way, that means you have to behave a certain way. And, yes, we’re human and when we mess up, we have to own it,” Rokita said. “All I’ve heard about the incumbent so far, including tonight, is defiance and not responsibility for any of it. And Hoosier voters are not stupid. They won’t tolerate that in November. Nor should they, especially from the Republican Party and especially from conservatives. And I’m simply not going to sit around and let conservatives own this mess.”
After Rokita’s speech, and the dinner ended, Hill responded to Rokita’s comments by stating, “I’m not running against anything. I’m running for attorney general, based on my record and service, which is very complete, very full. I based it on my electability: It’s proven as a winner, proven as a conservative, proven as a fighter. So I’ll let the record speak for itself.”
