(Music) Micah Beckwiths upset victory.

Jennifer McCormick's pick for running mate.

Plus, another hurdle for medically complex children and more from the television studios at WFYI, it's Indiana Week In Review for the week ending June 21st, 2024.

Indiana Week in Review is made possible by the supporters of Indiana Public Broadcasting stations.

This week, self-proclaimed Christian nationalist Micah Beckwith scored a stunning upset to become the Indiana Republican Party's nominee for lieutenant governor.

Beckwith defeated gubernatorial nominee Mike Braun's pick for running mate at the state GOP convention, in what Braun is calling a bump in the road.

Braun likened having a running mate who wasn't his first choice to dealing with feisty employees or customers in his business.

And he says it's clear that he's in charge, Right, my running mate can say whatever he wants.

If it doesn't make sense, if it doesn't resonate.

Remember.

I'm going to be the governor.

Beckwith says he looks forward to working with Braun.

He says he's not going to be divisive or a flame thrower.

I want to be a unifier.

I want to extend an olive branch.

I want to make sure that, you know, people are.

That are heard.

I think the conservative movement, the grass roots movement that I'm a part of.

I believe they feel unheard.

Beckwith built his campaign on the idea of being a check and balance to the governor.

He beat state lawmaker Julie Maguire for the nomination by 63 votes out of more than 1700 cast.

How does Beckwith nomination change the governor's race?

It's the first question for our Indiana Week in Review panel.

Democrat Ann Delaney.

Republican Mike O'Brien.

Jon Schwantes, host of Indiana Lawmakers.

And Niki Kelley, editor in chief of the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

I'm Indiana Public Broadcasting Statehouse bureau chief Brandon Smith.

Ann, does Beckwith nomination create an opening for them?

Oh, I think it absolutely does.

I mean, it shows how out of touch with voters the Republican Party is.

The Indiana Choice Coalition just did a poll.

And not only did people repudiate the near-total ban, the Republicans have imposed, but they want a ballot initiative by almost 80% of the voters.

They want a ballot initiative which Republicans are denying them.

When you look at this, and I urge everybody to go to the Indiana Historical Society exhibit about the Klu Klux Klan, its 100 year anniversary since the Klan elected the Republican governor, Ed Jackson.

And when you listen to the rhetoric and it's posted on the walls there of what the Klan was saying in the 1920s, denigrating immigrants, trying to restrict academic freedom, trying to tell everybody that they had to be Christian.

You know, the only thing they've changed in this is taking it from white nationalists to Christian nationalists, but it's the same demographic.

When you look at the rhetoric and you look at the fact that they say the Democrats who disagree with them are Marxist and they're there and they hate the country.

And all of the really hateful demagoguery that the Klan indulged in in the 1920s.

There is no worth of difference between what they're saying in 2024 as Republican statewide candidates and what the Klan was saying in the 1924 election.

And that should be frightening.

The only difference between the two is the statewide candidates in 2024 don't wear sheets and don't burn crosses, but otherwise, that rhetoric is exactly the same.

And that is not what Hoosiers want.

I really regret suggesting to Ann and Ed Delaney that they read a book about the 1920.

Which I had.

That is a good book.

Great book though.

Braun, obviously in the immediate aftermath, was spinning the line.

I'm the one in charge.

I'm going to be the governor.

He can say and do what he wants, but I'm the one in control here.

Is he the one in charge and in control?

Well, we don't we've never elected a governor because of the the running mate.

You know, I mean, the the the ticket.

Yeah.

I mean, to bring it bring us some some profile and it matters to some people, but largely we're electing we're we're electing the governor and this is their running mate.

And in this case it didn't work.

So we're on to plan B. and I think I think the convention goers, I mean, I was, I was helping and kind of the days leading up to the convention just kind of work through lists of uncommitted delegates, people, you know, I knew and, and a lot of those people you could tell in the conversation on the floor was a lot of people were waiting to just kind of hear from, Bowles.

To his credit, Mike Braun got up and nominated Julie McGuire.

He did exactly what he needed to do, which was make it very clear that this is the person that he wanted, and didn't, like, try to hedge or, you know, have it both ways, not really know what the outcome was going to be.

Although in the days.

But Mike, in the days but in the days leading up there was a lot of well, if Micah wins, that would be great too.

So was there hedging?

Maybe not at not there.

Not know that when he was talking to these not ends before they went to went to vote.

So to his credit he didn't.

He needed to.

Micah brought a lot of energy and a lot of people that I talked to with the delegates leading up to that said, yeah, and I understand you have like Mike Braun, I know that he wants Julie, but man, I've known Mike a long time.

He's like, I don't really know what I'm going to do.

There are a lot of those kind of conversations because this is like how Diego, when the when the primary before.

Well, he spent like a decade and a half meeting everybody that was in the room, you know, and that's and that's a very similar dynamic here.

Are we about if Mike come back with if Mike Braun wins and then Mike Beckwith becomes lieutenant governor, are we about to see the role of the governor in Indiana change significantly?

We're seeing a lot of things change, I think significantly.

I know on paper this is the way things can work.

You can work the delegation, you can develop those, forge those relationships, and you can come from nowhere and win.

But this is not the way it works in my memory.

And I mean, it was always the, the, you know, the Bo and or ticket.

It was always the then the or mud stick in the mud goldsmith.

I mean, you go right down the line, people are added as running mates to be additive to plug a gap, or to bring geographic representation, or to bring gender balance or to bring business smarts.

If somebody if the other half of the ticket is spent a career in government, for instance, and people traditionally deferred to.

I mean, that's just again, I know we could find examples and exceptions, but this is a dramatic departure and you can't really paint it as anything in the old days.

I mean, there was a sense of like, oh, you know, what's that guy's turn to be the lieutenant, to be the running mate?

Right?

It's because the lieutenant governor became the governor, but picked the high profile person to run because.

Because the way we used to do is lieutenant governor become the governor.

And last time that happened was Eric Holcomb.

But he was lieutenant governor for like five minutes.

Yeah.

The best example, I would say, was the best example of what you're talking about was when when Frank O'Bannon was seen as he had been, you know, the rightful heir, perhaps because of his age and his experience to the gubernatorial nomination.

But Evan Bayh was there, and they.

But but it wasn't done at the convention.

It wasn't done at the convention.

It was done before.

And that's the difference.

Yeah.

Niki, ultimately, what do you think Beckwith on the ticket will end up changing the outcome?

Oh, I don't know.

I certainly think it will end up changing the Braun campaign.

I think he's pushing some issues that they're going to have to face.

Like for instance, you know, and that's one thing that when I talked to a bunch of delegates this week, they said that Micah Beckwith was talking to them about things they cared about, not about economic development or growing the economy.

They wanted to know, what are you doing to help my area?

How are you going to protect farmland?

How about these property taxes?

And he is discussing those things.

And to be fair, Mike Braun isn't discussing those things, so maybe he'll push him that way a little more.

In terms of the question you asked about seeing Lieutenant Governor duties change, I've heard some sort of chatter in the background.

I think that would be hugely kneejerk and reactive.

If a supermajority Republican, you know, legislature suddenly removed a bunch of duties from, you know, from a, an elected position and that that would not be no doubt about.

The actions that he did.

That was pretty egregious, right?

It wouldn't just be.

But he comes out, he and he can speak out.

And, you know, he's going to advance the anti-abortion agenda.

You know, he's going to advocate for a total ban on abortion and on and limit gay rights and everything else.

You know, he's going to do that in one of question.

I think.

It's a question about.

How effective he is.

He will not he will not.

He's he's going to have to adopt that.

In fact, he said that he and Beckwith are in agreement on all of these issues.

So yeah, I think it's going to be pretty awkward.

Brauns line.

Brauns line on the stage was everything you believe I have to, yeah.

To make you raise a great question about how effective Michael Beckwith will be, and this will be this weird scenario where you have Democrats shining a light on the opposing running mate of the gubernatorial candidate saying, look at this guy.

Pay attention.

I mean, it's.

Why you need to because if you're your model holds forward it when Braun steps down, if he winds up winning, he's going to be.

Nominee.

Another departure.

It's not typical that the party on on the Democratic side would try to well, you don't gender candidates.

You don't ever have a candidate a street typical anymore.

Yeah that's.

True I gave that.

Up.

Okay.

But when was the last time we had a candidate who said that God talked to him and told him that the January 6th was his doing?

When do we have a candidate who basically said that God is repealing the fifth commandment?

Thou shalt not kill.

Go right ahead, as long as its for Trump.

Whether we're gubernatorial candidates, but.

That there's time now for viewer feedback.

Each week we post an unscientific online poll question, and this week's question is, will Micah Beckwiths nomination for lieutenant governor help or hurt Mike Braun's campaign?

It will help.

B it will hurt or c it will have no effect.

Last week we asked you whether you support the IEDCs LEAP District in central Indiana.

Now I will note we got more than double the usual number of responses to this question, with 12% of you saying yes and 88% saying no.

If you'd like to take part in the poll, go to WFYI.org/IWIR and look for the poll.

Well, speaking of running mates, former state lawmaker Terry Goodin is Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jennifer McCormick's pick for running mate and McCormick choosing the conservative Democrat is rankling some in the party.

Goodin most recently worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

He's a former school superintendent and ten term state lawmaker at the state House.

He voted to ban gay marriage in 2011 and was a regular vote against abortion access.

Now, he says his gay marriage vote was wrong and that the U.S. Supreme Court's reversal of abortion rights was an all out assault.

We must do everything we can to restore the rights of women to make decisions about their own body.

McCormick, a former Republican, waves aside concerns about discontent among Democrats.

We are a huge tent, and in that big tent comes a lot of ideas and a lot of opinions and a lot of big hearts and a lot of big personalities.

And just like a family, we will come together.

Goodin will have competition for the nomination.

At the Indiana Democratic Party convention, two others, Bob Kern and Cliff Marseglia, have also filed to run for lieutenant governor.

Mike O'Brien does McCormick choosing Goodin hurt more than it helps?

It clearly hurts more than it helps.

Yeah, but what was really hurting was she was on her fifth six, seventh person that she asked and was told no up until Terry, good news, who wanted to run in 20, reentered the rear of the fray.

And it's a it's a speaking of you know, it never used to be this way.

While the Democratic nominee for governor didn't used to previously run Republican and the lieutenant governor nominee, he wasn't a member of the NRA and pro-life until like yesterday, I think.

so there's a lot I mean, there's a lot of explaining to do, especially in that room sheets of and talked about, you know, the extreme right in the, in the Republican convention.

All.

Well, who do you think runs for delegate.

It's not moderate.

You know, outstate people that they're.

Moderate Republicans anymore.

I'm sitting right here.

And you're.

Saying we haven't.

Seen a delegate.

But but.

That that room for Democrats is the scene and that we share that is largely representative of the further left, the for the right people that.

In terms of where a lot of the country is politically, it's, you know, in the middle for the all those people who don't vote and then the people who vote in the general elections are a little further out, and then the people who vote in primaries a little further out than that delegate.

Mary is.

All right.

Even further than that for the party.

People like like me and the.

Doesn't this pick.

I mean, I get how Terry Goodin is going to appeal to rural, Hoosiers.

He's going to try to appeal to Republicans, for sure.

He certainly speaks their language.

But is Jennifer McCormick now going to have to spend time and more importantly, perhaps, resources trying to convince Democrats to back her?

I think he's going to have to do that.

And I think he will do that.

And, you know, there's nobody, including those at this table whose positions over the years have involved.

Okay.

When Terry Goodin was in the legislature from a very conservative southern Indiana district, you know, that was one attitude.

But the attitude toward, both the the question of, a ban on abortion and gay rights has changed.

It's changed dramatically over the last 20 years.

And so Terry Goodin is going to need to convince the left of the party that that he is with Jennifer McCormick on all these issues.

And if he does it, I don't see a big problem.

I really don't.

and he will appeal, to a lot of the southern Indiana that Democrats have had difficulty winning in the last few statewide elections.

So, you know, he may bring something to the ticket in terms of people.

She asked before the whole dynamic of this race changed when Beckwith became the lieutenant governor nominee.

If that had happened a week or two earlier, it would have been it could have been a different story.

Heading into.

Why the why didn't you do that?

You had all week?

Well, why don't you revisit some of the top, the higher tier?

Because she thinks she.

Thinks that he's a sincere Democrat, having changed his opinion and that he can convince voters of that.

I want to ask, heading into the GOP convention, there was I mean, I don't think anybody thought Michael Beckwith couldn't win.

I think there was a lot of people thought this might happen, including, I think, you who on this show.

But heading into the Democratic convention, which is still a few weeks, three weeks away, does Terry Goodin feel like a much safer bet?

I think he does, depending on whether Senator JD Ford, who has announced that he's weighing a bid in the Richard, if he would get in, I think it would be a little more, you know, interesting because you would have a direct, you know, progressive Democrat choice versus a more and.

More well known, certainly progressive Democrat.

Correct.

And so that I think, would put the party in a little bit of a different position.

And then I think Goodin would really have to work for it.

I mean, most of it struck me that a lot of yesterday's press conference with Terry Goodin and Jennifer McCormick was Terry Goodin basically spending time going, I don't believe the things I once believed as opposed to.

And he also was talking about education will be big for him as well as a former superintendent.

speaking on agriculture issues will be huge for him and someone who's who's both been in farmland for basically his whole life and then work for the Biden administration in the USDA.

But do you think Democrats will believe him when he says, I'm sorry I voted against gay marriage?

I you know, I have a spotty record on voting for abortion, but these are the things I believe.

Did they believe Joe Biden and Evan Bayh when they had similar evolutions in their thinking?

yeah, I've ands right about that now.

You know, it used to be flip flopping was seen as a negative.

I think that's largely gone out the window.

But there's also this is.

Also there's also a difference that I don't think people acknowledge enough between flip flopping and growth.

And I'd say, again, I'll use Joe Biden as an example.

I'll use Evan Bayh as an example, you know, these iconic figures in the Democratic Party.

So I don't think that necessarily here's I think the notion of having another educator, this really puts the stamp of education in education reform and putting public schools first.

You know, that that is a selling point.

I think the fact that he's from Caruthersville he might have been raging liberal and for Caruthersville standards, I don't know.

But, I'm teasing about that.

But, maybe not, maybe not far off the mark, but, keep in mind also, you do talk about Democrats being unhappy or disaffected.

Where are they going to go?

They're not going to go to bed.

They're not going to go to the other party.

No.

And they're already.

They're probably not voting libertarian.

The problem is, are they going to come out?

Yeah, because they're already going to come out because they're already going to come out for the presidential race.

Right.

Maybe it's not like they're going to say, yeah.

But what are they going to come out.

For Trump or they're anti-Trump.

There's not this like surge pro-biden that everyone's like excited to know that they to.

Trump the.

Faction that motivates.

The faction that thinks that this pick that Terry Goodin is too conservative is anti-Trump Trump and they're going to go to the polls for that reason.

They hold their nose for what they perceive as holding their nose, because they're not going to go over and vote for it.

Back with I would.

One thing that might actually help, Terry, good to know in terms of that southern Indiana, I mean, his brother, who is an incredibly popular sheriff, a Democratic sheriff in southern Indiana, which I mean, even rarer than, you know, a Democratic lawmaker in southern Indiana at this point, that name is going to mean something to folks down there.

But that seems it's an interesting choice.

All right.

There are less than two weeks before Indiana implements a major change to the two way Medicaid program in Indiana, public Broadcasting's Abigail Ruhman reports families of medically complex children say the state has thrown them another 11th hour curveball.

For the Family and Social Services Administration recently updated a two month old document.

The change requires some families to abruptly shift how they utilize Medicaid services.

The state's update relates to care provided under two services prior authorization Home Health Services and the new Structured Family Caregiving Program.

Now, one paid caregiver will no longer be able to provide both services.

Jennifer DeWitt as a mother and caregiver of a medically complex child, she says both services require specific types of training that family caregivers won't have enough time to complete before the July 1st deadline.

Many times, families were intending on one person doing both, and now they are scrambling to get that second person trained.

However, if you are a single parent, you have to choose one or the other.

We're left without options to do both, DeWitt said there was no communication in advance of the change.

Jon Schwantes, does this accomplish anything other than, pardon my French, potentially screwing over these families?

That may be the upshot.

I don't think that's the intention.

I absolutely agree with that.

this is one of those classic situations where you have a lot of, unwelcome circumstances.

You have a budget gap or whatever you want to call it, the mistake.

the shortfall of $1 billion in that arena, heading into this budget cycle.

So that's weighing on people.

And then you have, a situation where these caregivers and these children who desperately need help, and are very sympathetic as an audience.

it shows how interwoven the regulatory climate is, because if you tweak this here, you tweak there, there are implications.

That's just everything is so closely bound.

And if in fact, this brings the state perhaps into compliance with federal, law in a way that maybe it was not quite getting the message correctly before.

Sure, it makes the state look bad, but at what point.

Do you know what it has.

To do?

There's no there's no there's no winner here.

It's just bad circumstances.

Is this again an issue with really communication that's plagued this the whole time?

Possibly.

Now, I do want to be fair and say that Medicaid insists there was no change, and I have not yet been provided anything that showed they could do this once, and now it says they can't.

So there appears to be some sort of confusion whether they were told that or not, whether it was ever in an official document.

The point is where we are, where we are, and some of these families a don't have a second person to get to provide these services or be even if they do like that, they can get approved for skilled nursing hours.

But if there are no nurses to give them, yeah, it's not helpful.

So I'm not necessarily sure who's right or wrong here.

But I do think that since we're talking about such fragile children, I don't understand why FSA hasn't said, okay, you know what we don't want to mess with, you know, children, we don't want to get anyone hurt.

Can we at least do like a 60 day, you know.

Push this down, right.

So that we make sure everyone is on the same page?

I don't think that's out of the realm.

Is that at this point, the only thing that makes sense?

Well, at least pushing it back a little bit.

I think seeing what Medicare Medicaid actually requires would also add some, some light to the, to the, to this issue.

But you've got to allow the time to train somebody else, and you've got to make a you've got to have some other provision if there isn't somebody else.

I mean, we're talking about the most vulnerable part of our society and the fact that they have to make up $1 billion mistake on the backs of these kids and their parents is incredible.

I mean, this is supposed to be the pro-life administration, okay?

They're supposed to really want life.

Well, that shows that after birth you're on your own.

If they do this kind of thing, they can at least delay it.

Not 60 days, 90 days, 120 days.

If they've been out of compliance this long, another six months isn't going to matter.

Is it?

Seems like entire this entire time with this shift in the in the type of care you can receive for these families, a major part of the problem has been there simply doesn't exist.

The workforce needed to fill these roles.

If parents can't do them on their own, there's no short term solution for that, is there?

No there's not.

And one, they're not on their own.

There's a $20.5 billion a year agency that's designed just to service.

But these these people and almost 2 million other people in Indiana.

and so any time you make a change, they're going to pivot out of this and go right into bringing the pathways program online, which this deals with medically fragile children, that deals with medically fragile elderly people.

So I mean, we're but it's so I'm not going to say they're doing their best, but they're certainly not intentionally screwing these people or trying to cause certainly cause any harm to kids.

It's like moving.

It's like moving the needle at DCFs.

It's like really hard, but it's really important to try to do everything you can to get it right.

Whether they can delay the timeline or give some flexibility.

right now is, you know, the right question, I think.

Yeah.

Because I mean, fundamentally, come July 1st, are things about to get really bad?

I don't I mean, I think in some cases what will happen is these children will have to go into some sort of home facility or home where they can get care.

And guess what?

That's more expensive.

For the state of the state.

Than helping them in their home.

All right, well, finally a sports record was set in Indianapolis this week.

It's more than 22,000 people gathered in Lucas Oil Stadium, which normally homes houses football, to watch the 2024 U.S. Olympic Swimming trials.

That is the largest crowd ever for a swim meet.

Michael Bryan.

Is Indianapolis increasingly becoming a sports capital in this country?

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, we are on that path for a very, very long time here.

I'm I was kind of stunned.

I'm just like, not a swimming guy.

You know, I'm kids.

I, I was stunned with like how many people are showing not just how many people are showing up to it, but it's just like kind of exciting.

It is.

You know, it's it's that's incredible.

Thinking ahead, when it was coming, I'm like, oh, that's probably not gonna be much to watch, but think about Caitlin Clark.

The Pacers go into the Eastern Conference finals, the Indianapolis 500 and now the swim trials on top of hosting the coveted NCAA tournament, the Super Bowl.

I kind of everything else.

See tournament games in both men's.

Development.

And that was on TV.

You just recited it sequence.

I think you're going tonight to.

Yeah, I think it's great.

And for them, the idea that they could put an Olympic or two Olympic sized pools inside that facility as a temporary measure is literally incredible.

When you look at the visuals on TV, between the swimming here and the diving in in Tennessee, it is like night and day.

There's a couple hundred people down there in this little tiny facility.

It's great diving, but complete contrast.

It's a solidification.

I think we were already yeah, yeah.

Capital.

As far as if anything, we maybe we had somehow slipped in some areas because of some of the controversy surrounding certain sanctioning bodies that were based here.

but I think this shows full well that we're we know how to do it.

We're back.

And, You know, I just want to know where the water from the pool is going to go after they're done.

And if it's going to be shipped up to the leap district, that's all I.

Can put my life on.

Would be for in gallons.

They're going to load it in trucks, set.

It up there.

All right.

That's Indiana Week in review for this week.

Our panel is Democrat Ann Delaney, Republican Mike O'Brien, Jon Schwantes of Indiana Lawmakers and Niki Kelly of the Indiana Capitol Chronicle.

You can find Indiana Week In Reviews podcasts and episodes at WFYI.org/IWIR or on the PBS app.

I'm Brandon Smith of Indiana Public Broadcasting.

Join us next time because a lot can happen in an Indiana week.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the panelists.

Indiana Week in Review is a WFYI production in association with Indiana's public broadcasting stations.