(Music) The loan debate between Attorney General candidates.

Mike Braun weighs in on a coal plant conversion.

Plus, state officials question voters citizenship and more.

From the television studios at Wfyi.

It's Indiana Week in Review for the week ending October 18th, 2024.

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

This week, the lone debate in Indiana's attorney general race was a contentious one, as Republican Attorney General Todd Rokita regularly interrupted and argued with Democrat Destiny Wells.

Indianapolis TV stations Fox 59 CBS four hosted the Sunday morning debate with questions about immigration, social media, and abortion.

Rokita regularly sought to tie Wells to national Democratic policies, many of which he's fought as attorney general.

He was also asked about the Supreme Court reprimand he received last year for his conduct, and he said while his remarks were ill timed, he wouldn't change a thing.

I agreed with the Supreme Court to settle the matter so we can stop it from being a distraction.

That's what that was about, okay.

Wells says Rokita can't keep himself within the rules of professional conduct.

Taxpayers are having to pay over 100,000 over $100,000 just to defend him in front of the disciplinary commission.

Asked at the end of the debate to say something nice about each other, Rokita called Wells a fighter, and Wells said Rokita stays in it for the long haul.

Will the debate have an impact on the attorney general's race?

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

Democrat Lindsay Haake.

Republican Chris Mitchum, Jon Schwantes, host of Indiana Lawmakers.

And Niki Kelly, editor in chief of the Indiana Capitol Chronicle.

I'm Indiana public broadcasting statehouse bureau chief Brandon Smith.

Chris Mitchum, will this debate have an impact?

I think unless you are really locked into Indiana politics, like the wonderful viewers of this program, you'll have a hard time being pressed to know this even happened, in my opinion.

I mean, it was Sunday morning, 20 minutes long.

and, you know, I would say it wasn't really covered of that much.

just because, again, it was 20 minutes, I think, you know, you could spend 20 minutes on one of the issues that they discussed, let alone, you know, the four that they went over.

And I do think credit has to go to Attorney General Rokita for accepting the debate, because I think he knew walking in that a third of the debate was going to be about his record, was going to be about the disciplinary records.

And I think he handled that as well as he could, knowing what he was walking into, you know, giving his side, and something that Hoosiers can relate to.

So, when it comes to impact, I mean, again, I'm not sure really locked in and wanted to kind of glean as much information as you could.

I thought, you know, Destinee Wells did a good job of presenting her point and kind of her view for the attorney General's office.

But when it comes to, you know, a big blow up oops moment by the over to campaign, you didn't get that here.

Yeah.

It didn't seem like there were any of those moments that were going to break into the wider sphere.

Right?

I didn't sense that either.

I also give him credit for coming to a debate, although that seems to be a rather low bar lately for, for a statewide race.

I do think it was emblematic, his constant talking over of the Candidate of Destiny was really, unsurprising to me, frankly.

But also just just just that lacked tact, lacked tact, like manners, just, totally just threw him into that, threw him into, the category that I just wouldn't ever want to be part of.

And that's just lacking any sort of decorum whatsoever, which is really emblematic of his time in office, if you think about it, which is as your point, you know, running on your record is one thing.

I'm glad he was there to defend himself.

but that's not a record that I think that Hoosiers are going to agree with us here.

To that end, I was a little surprised that Rokita just constantly talking over interrupting Destiny.

Wells every time she tried to give an answer, I felt like for more than a half of it.

Oh, yeah.

If you're trying to appeal to the voters who are undecided.

So probably not hardcore.

partizans in either direction.

If you're trying to appeal to any voters out there who might be undecided, why go that route?

Because he's not trying to of them.

I mean, he's appealing to hardcore Republicans who see him as a fighter and see him not putting up with any guff, you know?

And so that's the tack he ran.

I think it was okay.

I do wish we had heard something new about, weather.

Like, for instance, what would they do different in the office, you know, and that can come from Destiny, who wants to take over the office?

Or it could also come from Todd, who's had for years and maybe something he would like to change or add to something, but instead we focused a little too much, I would think, on immigration, which is not really.

A part of office.

That office.

And so that was my only disappointment, is I wish there were some more questions about the actual running of the office and what they might do differently.

And I think it's tough to have a debate between attorney general candidates because you're not relatively you're not supposed to be debating policy, right?

That's not your role.

You're not a policy implementer.

You're supposed to enforce the laws of the state of Indiana.

So it's tough to, you know, really talk about what you would change in that role whenever your, your, your job is defined in code.

To that end, though, I mean, the obvious limitation of 20 minutes is going to be a big part of this, to be fair.

But we saw, I mean, the Wish and Fox CBS gubernatorial debates almost entirely about policy, which we really enjoyed.

I think.

Why not focus, try to focus at least a little bit more in this one on that.

Well, again, you're dealing with 20 minutes.

Good thing I wasn't moderating.

I barely would have gotten through the introductions in the first question.

I mean that I leave a minute left after that, but it's, you're only so much you can do.

And they both came with a predetermined message.

You could have asked a question about, you know, the, the how you hire attorneys from in-state versus out-of-state, etc., etc.

and they still would have said, well, that's a good question.

But the real question here is and then just pivot.

So it really didn't matter what questions were asked.

They came and you know, any more, I don't think because of the time of day, because of limited audience, because of the time limitations.

What both sides, I think are banking on is trying to get the other side to say something that can be turned into a quick spot or maybe get some earned media coverage.

But, short of having some sort of debacle as some sort of total brain fade, you're not going to get, any kind of ad huge significance.

Although, to be fair, just on this race, because of the nature of this race and the year it's running in, just making people aware that it's on the ballot and these are the two candidates.

That's a great point because you've got such a low information designed voter here.

The whole systemic problem of that, it goes to that point.

Exactly.

And also aside from the whole, I want to make sure I do and Lady Justice and say that gerrymandering and our, our, our work here to to degrade, voter turnout is the thing.

But when you do have that, vigorous debate out there, at least the campaigns can do something with it.

Right?

And I do think there was a, a moment where Todd, where Attorney General Rokita, lost it.

He started to, to talk about Tik Tok and pole dancing, and it was just out of left field.

And he was.

Asked about it.

He was asked about it.

I just want to know that I signed up for Tik Tok and did not learn how to pole dance within 30s.

That's all I'm saying.

Apparently you're not child like enough.

Yes.

Let the Hoosiers be.

Feel safe.

I have not, don't have a TikTok account, so there's no threat of my learning the pole.

It's not that you were alarmed at the time.

Now, for viewer feedback, each week we put an unscientific online poll question.

And this week's question is who will win the race for Indiana Attorney general?

A Republican, Todd Rokita, or B Democrat Destinee Wells.

Last week we asked you whether Indiana should get rid of the death penalty.

64% of you say yes, 36% say no.

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

The Indiana Capitol Chronicle reported this week that Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Braun is urging the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission to reject a utility's request to convert a coal fired power plant to natural gas.

AES Indiana is asking the IURC for approval to convert two units at its Petersburg generating station from coal to natural gas by the end of 2026.

Braun sent a letter to the IURC asking the agency to reject that request.

He raises concerns about energy reliability amid increasing demand.

He also notes that while federal rules around coal fired generation are being held up in the courts, they still wouldn't require a yes to transition until the next decade.

In a statement to the Capital Chronicle, AES said it's not retiring the units, it's repowering them and it says doing so is the most affordable, reliable and sustainable option for our customers.

Lindsay is Braun right to be worried about energy reliability.

Sure.

I mean, we're all worried about reliability, especially when it comes to, well, let's remember, first of all, utility's legal obligation is to provide reliable service.

That's their literal only job.

And so when you throw something like this into the mix, or you have a letter specifically outlining a transition to natural gas from a coal plant, you have to remember that that sacrifices reliability.

That puts that puts reliability at the very end of the list of those five pillars that we keep saying are our top issues for, for energy policy in the state.

So and at the same time, with this policy that, that Braun's proposed, you would essentially throw out affordability and sustainability to go out the window.

So you throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I it's just it's nonsensical to me.

I think it's anti-free market.

And I think let utilities, utility.

Republicans have been on the side of utilities at the legislative level, certainly in in the governor's office for a while now.

we're starting to see that shift, but only when it comes to coal.

Yeah.

Is that Anti-Free market does that fly in the face of what Republicans claim to stand for?

no, I wouldn't say that.

And I would actually argue that, you know, Braun's letter here actually tries to put reliability at the forefront, because the whole point of the coal plant, right, is it's, you know, the reliable energy that is the most energy efficient source.

Right.

But I will say to Lindsay's point, coal just naturally in the dark forces is coming out of the money, right?

It's it's becoming.

To go renewable.

They simply.

Are.

So, you know, I think the question here is, you know, how much does a letter from, you know, potential future governor impact the ICRC.

And I think, you know, you can look at it that way.

But I look at it from, you know, who appoints I you ask commissioners, you know, if you're in this making a decision, you're getting a letter from a potential future governor.

You know, that could certainly be a swing a certain way.

If you know that somebody is coming in with a certain opinion that might appoint you your job.

Yeah.

Is this a preview of doesn't matter what utilities want to do under if Mike Brown is governor, it doesn't matter what utilities want to do in terms of moving towards renewables.

Nope.

Mike Brown's not going to let that happen.

Well, you could read that.

It certainly.

And there's some hint of that, but it's not an entirely, you know, unprecedented position.

We've seen a number of Republican committee chairs and lawmakers in the General Assembly who have powerful positions on these issues.

A utility regulation and the environment and the intersection of those two who have made a similar argument that that you have to have reliability.

It's not long ago we had the so-called moratorium on the change, the conversion of a lot of, facilities that had been proposed, on an expedited timetable by utilities to move to, to renewable resources.

So what you have is this conflict between market forces, which would be the traditional Republican orthodoxy that clearly, that market will determine what's needed.

And if and if we don't have enough, you know, spinning the wheel on the energy generation will bring more in from someplace, you know, the market will demand it versus this notion that it needs to be a controlled landing or transition.

And there is evidence.

So you look at Texas and other states where they didn't have enough of an underpinning, and it could be problematic.

And as you have more of the data center world coming into the Midwest, including Indiana, which are huge, huge draw, huge draws, I mean, that's why we're seeing a resurgence, reemergence, reemergence.

Of residential and commercial.

I mean, that's the that's why we're seeing new look at Wall Street, nuclear, utilities that are involved in nuclear power.

Our street won't finance nuclear.

So.

Well, where's marble when you need it?

Right now there's an old reference.

There's an argument here is we're not reducing the amount of power on the grid.

We are simply replacing where we're getting that.

Actually, in this case, they're they're converting.

They're not retiring the full plant.

They're just switching it to that.

And there's still and there would still be coal fired generation at that plant.

Absolutely.

And I will say though, I think lawmakers are getting ready to go even further.

Recently, Chris Garten asked for an advisory opinion from Todd Rokita, and he issued an opinion saying that the IURC not only has the ability, but the responsibility to block early retirements of these kinds of plants.

And I would be shocked if there is not legislation mandating blocking those in the upcoming legislature.

Which is somewhat related to the notion of reliability and also related to the coal industry.

It will be a huge conversation.

Yep.

Absolutely.

All right.

Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales and Attorney General Todd Rokita are questioning the Citizenship ...

Citizenship of more than half a million registered voters about three weeks before Election Day.

The Republican officials sent a letter to the federal government with voters names and birth dates asking it to confirm their citizenship status.

The more than 585,000 registered voters Morales and Rokita are questioning fall into three categories.

Those who registered without providing a driver's license or social Security number, registered voters located overseas, and those who registered simply without a driver's license number.

Under federal and state law, you can register to vote using a paper form without having a driver's license or Social Security number, and many voters located overseas are members of the military.

If the federal government does potentially flag people as non-citizens, federal law doesn't allow counties to remove them from the voter rolls.

And there are questions about whether Morales and Rokita are allowed, under state law, to share voters birth dates with federal officials.

Niki Kelley, the Capital Chronicle, pointed out.

This is about 12% of all of the people on Indiana's voter rolls.

What purpose does this serve beyond casting doubt on our elections?

I mean, I think that's clearly what it is.

We are the latest state to do this.

Several other states are trying to do the same thing.

All GOP led.

and and I think what we need to remind people here is before 2005, you didn't have to put that information in to register.

So there are a lot of people on that list who are your Aunt Betty and your Uncle Joe, who have literally been registered to vote since 1970, who are clearly citizens of this country.

And so it definitely cast a huge wide net, 12% saying that maybe they're not citizens.

wow, that that's that's a lot.

we haven't seen Diego Morales weaponize his office very much in the now.

More than more than.

No, I don't think we have in the more than.

1264 wasn't a weaponization.

I think that would exist with or without Diego Morales.

we haven't really seen him use his office much beyond the statutory duties of the office.

Is this the first time, Jon, that we're seeing him kind of use that office in a more political way?

I, I won't say I've monitored his office's activities on a day to day basis to see at the margins how it might have tried to influence things.

So I want to address that.

But it's clear to me why these office holders would, would send this letter and so forth.

And that is, I mean, turn on the TV, look at look at what every issue in every race, whether it's dogcatcher or president on the Republican side, immigration seems to be and the crime that it generates and the how it's unfair to you because it's sucking, benefits from disaster, you know, victims and others.

Never mind that that's false, but, clearly the decision was made.

Somebody, reading that the algorithm said this is the potent tissue we're going to run on.

And that's why you have an attorney general, both in the debate talking about, as we mentioned a moment ago, talking about immigration, when it essentially has nothing that office doesn't really have much to do with it.

same with I guess you can make a larger argument for Secretary of State because it is the chief election official, but still, I think this is an attempt to capitalize on the immigration issue and look strong and look proactive, even though they're impotent to do anything on that issue.

Nor do they have responsibility aside from the functioning of of, elective, the running of elector of elections to, to actually weigh in on that issue.

Republicans tell me regularly that Indiana has some of the strongest election laws, in the country.

So Secretary Morales sent out a press release within the last couple of weeks talking about the federally mandated voter roll cleanup that his office underwent last year.

And these are all the people we either removed from the rolls or made inactive on the rolls, which again, that's good.

We need to do that.

It's required now, beyond just being required by federal law, it's a good thing to do to make sure our voter rolls are as accurate as possible.

And now, oh, but we've got all these non-U.S. citizens out there campaigning theater.

Yeah.

Is there any any basis for this?

Yeah.

I think, you know, if you do want to look voters in the face, look at television, camera in the face, whatever you want to do and say, we do have some of the best election security, some of the best election efficiency in Indiana.

You have to do something that, you know, the previous, voter run through was one.

And I think this is the other one.

We could argue, you know, we could talk about the sheer amount of numbers.

It appears to be done recklessly.

You're just looping people together to get information.

What are you going to do?

But at the end of the day, you know, they're kind of doing their job, right.

This is what they're supposed to be doing.

They're supposed to be making sure that our election system is as easy and fair as it is, and just pick a number.

Right.

I understand 12% is a large kind of ridiculous number.

We can all agree on that.

But pick a number.

Say, if this goes through the process and I do like how general, Attorney General Rokita signed on to another letter that basically asked the government to tell them how they're going to process all of these names that they're getting from states.

But, I mean, pick a number.

Is it 203 hundred that come back and say, actually, yeah, you did catch this amount of people that aren't supposed to be on your rolls.

Like, you know, you could argue what's that number before you think it's worth it?

it's there.

It's so flagrantly illegal.

It's so flagrantly illegal for a messaging like, okay, first of all, I do monitor this office 20 47I do I see the press releases come in at 5 a.m.. And this particular one with both Secretary of State Diego Morales and Attorney General Rokita, I just the Curb your enthusiasm.

The music just started playing, and I was terrified to keep reading through because I knew whenever I get that type of press release, I knew our rights were at risk.

And here we are.

This was not only have election observers, good government observers, long time advocates who have been watching these policies play out for decades, who were there marching during the Voting Rights Act, things like, you know, longtime advocates, they are raising the alarm on this policy or excuse me, on this, this call to action from both the AG and the so as because it's so violently flagrant or excuse me for flagrantly violating the Voting Rights Act and this is why folks are concerned, aside from the messaging, aside from from simply the message it sends out that this is just partizan hackery.

Well, since these are not new registrants, incidentally, these are people that back to 2005 and the point that he signed on the letter, how are you going to process all this, suggesting that there's somehow, you know, the onus is on them to at this for this 11th hour, crazy request, when in fact this could have been done.

How many years is it I didn't do?

I mean, they can't.

And I want to I want to ask this.

But you do it.

You do it now because this is when the political score can.

The bell can be wrong.

Diego Morales came out with a, an updated statement later in the day.

Yesterday after the story came out saying, you know, saying what many stories had already said accurately, which is no one is getting removed from the voter rolls over this because legally they're not allowed to.

He's saying this is really just about putting it in the hands of local election officials to challenge voters, some of whom some of whom came to the state House and testified because they heard people speaking Spanish in their neighborhoods, that meant all the illegals had invaded.

That's what we want.

And this in the hands of a.

We don't know if the feds are actually going to do this.

And that's true.

They haven't responded.

That's true.

You know, I would say if they set back something saying, okay, of that two years, 2000, we're concerned.

I don't, you know, I'm just making up a number.

You know, the, the basically he's saying he would then for that to local officials and they could challenge them at the voting booth during it.

I will note to everyone who's worried about this.

And of course, our voter rolls are important, but Indiana has a voter ID law, guys, you literally can't vote until you show your ID and you obviously know you can't really get a real ID unless you can prove who you are.

You have your your papers, per se, your birth certificate, your, you know, citizens chip papers, whatever.

So, I mean, I don't want people to jump to the conclusion that just because someone's registered means that they get to vote, no questions asked.

We have a voter ID law, it's on the books and.

Well, on if they were registered back then.

This is a pretty smart conspiracy because if you had the foresight and before in the early 2000s, I know how we can game Indiana's elections.

We're going to get a bunch of illegals to go and register now knowing that in 20 years from now that could come in handy.

I worry over.

Sleepers.

Is that they've set up already reason to question this election.

Republican Mike Braun went into the final month of the governor's campaign with a healthy financial lead over his opponents, according to campaign finance reports released this week, Braun raised more than $3 million from July through September, nearly three times as much as Democrat Jennifer McCormick did in the same period.

But McCormick had a lot more people giving money, more than four times as many contributors as Braun.

Her largest donations came from the political arm of the Indiana State Teachers Association and philanthropy Deborah Simon.

Braun's biggest contributors were the Indiana Republican Party and Republican Governors Association, as well as Cynthia Fisher, a national health care consumer advocate.

Braun outspent McCormick more than 2 to 1 in the last three months and went into October with $1.2 million still left in his campaign coffers, more than double what McCormick has.

Jon Schwantes, Braun, or any Republican, is always going to have a big financial advantage.

McCormick has been saying all along, I just need enough to be competitive.

Is this enough to make this race competitive?

yeah.

And there's so many ways to slice and dice these numbers.

Give me a set of numbers and I can spin an argument.

Either way.

You look at who is getting, seems to have momentum in terms of fundraising.

It's McCormick.

You look at the 10 to 1 advantage that had been in place earlier, down to 2 to 1. clearly she's she's bringing it in at a rapid pace now.

And the number, I mean, to me, it was the number of people who contributed.

Yeah, much.

It's a much broader base of support.

$200, I think, is the average contribution, versus some of the big ticket contributions.

But again, that's like trying to assess school accountability.

Is it student performance?

Is it is it how much are they progressing and how quickly or is it do they have, are they efficient in this.

Proficient in this skill.

So in the end, I don't know if it matters.

She has enough to make the message.

And if and if money alone were the only factor, we'd have the Harris campaign probably trouncing the Trump campaign most everywhere in the.

Country, which is clearly not the case, but, I mean, is the clearest sign of is this race competitive?

The fact that the Democratic Governors Association just poured in $450,000 into the McCormick.

Sugar pours in, then RGA, then DG.

I mean, we're going back and forth.

Also, another huge sign that it's competitive.

Now, this week was the attack at the state Republican Party put out against the libertarian candidate.

I mean, if that doesn't show, they're worried about Mike Brown losing votes.

I don't know what does.

Really quickly, can Donald Rainwater have an impact on this campaign?

Sure.

But I don't foresee him having any impact past the double digits.

Like, I really don't think he'll slip out of the single digits.

Frankly, in this race, but that's still enough to make a good dent.

And that is exactly why that was sent out by the state Central Committee this week.

very curious to me.

If you're a Republican, is that a sign that they're a little worried?

Yeah.

I mean, because I just I feel like the enthusiasm overall is down.

You know, just about everybody I talk to is like, yeah, I'll probably vote for you, but.

It's excited to vote for Mike.

Yeah, I.

Mean I like his blue shirts.

All right.

That's Indiana Week in review for this week.

Our panel is Democrat Lindsay Haake.

Republican Chris Mitcham, Jon Schwantes of Indiana lawmakers and Niki Kelly of the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

You can find Indiana Week In Reviews podcast 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.

(Music) The opinions expressed are solely those of the panelists.

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