November’s election is rapidly approaching and debate season is heating up, but there will be empty seats this fall at forums held by the League of Women Voters of Hancock County due to the county’s Republican candidates refusing to participate.
The decision by the GOP candidates to not participate blindsided the league, according to league member Ellen Manolopoulos. The forums in the primary went well, she said, and everything had been civil, but when the organization reached out to all the candidates across three races — U.S. House of Representatives District 6, Hancock County Council at large, for which three seats are open, and Indiana House of Representatives District 53 — the only one of five Republican candidates to respond was current county councilperson Robin Lowder, who reached out to decline the offer. Lowder also had a prior commitment due to her duties as a current county councilperson attending the Association of Indiana Counties conference, which was scheduled and paid for before the date of the LWV forum was set. The other four GOP candidates, Manolopoulos said, never responded, though, with the league finding out second-hand that the other candidates would not be participating. Among the candidates not responding was current Hancock County Commissioner John Jessup, who is currently under house arrest facing sexual assault charges in Nevada.
Manolopoulos expressed her concern for how the attitude that led to avoiding these forums would translate into their time in government should those candidates be elected.
“If they don’t listen to you now, do you think they’re going to listen to you later,” Manolopoulos questioned. “It just kills me that it’s coming from one party. I’m not going to slam a party, but I’m looking at those candidates, and I just…” she trailed off with tears in her eyes. She later continued, “We are losing the ability to talk to people of different points of view and arrive at solutions. How are we supposed to come together to solve our problems?”
While the congressional and county council races will still have forums between the Libertarian and Democratic candidates in those races, the District 53 race won’t have a forum at all, as without a Libertarian candidate, the only candidate that would have been there would have been Democrat Nate Anderson, which would have broken the league’s rules surrounding “open chair forums” where only one party is represented. Anderson said that while he understood the League’s decision to cancel the forum, he was disappointed in the loss of an opportunity to engage with voters.
“I just find it incredibly troubling,” Anderson said. “These forums are incredibly educational for our voters … The questions that are asked are full of substance and are about real issues that our fellow Hoosiers hold dear.”
He went on to say that he would host a forum of his own for voters to ask him questions, but worried that the event would lack the turnout and engagement from across the aisle that the LWV’s voter forum would have provided.
GOP candidate Ethan Lawson declined an interview, but said in a statement that he has “engaged in thousands of conversations with Hancock and Madison county Hoosiers.” Lawson did not directly mention declining the invitation to the League’s event this fall despite repeated questioning.
Chair of the Hancock County Republican Party Janice Silvey claims that this was not a party decision.
Not all Republicans are on board with the candidate’s decisions to avoid the forums, though. Former GOP State Senator Beverly Gard did not approve her fellow party members’ decision to not participate. “I think that they’re taking for granted their win in the elections,” Gard said. Gard said that there is a perception among some Republican candidates that the League has a bias toward Democrats, but she noted that the LWV is a bipartisan organization with Republican members. She also said that she feels that even if the League does have a partisan tilt, the candidates should face their voters on both moral and strategic levels.
“If a Republican candidate is going into a forum thinking it might lean somewhat Democratic, I think they still have an obligation to participate and make their case for their views as a Republican,” Gard said. She later went on to comment on how it might affect candidates electorally.
“I think it turns voters off if they know about it,” Gard said. “Unfortunately, this county is growing so big that a lot of the voters won’t know about this one way or another … as a Republican, it embarrassed me to think that this is the attitude that my candidates have.”
Other donut counties are not seeing this trend, with voter forums either scheduled or already having taken place with Republicans in Anderson County, Johnson County and Hendricks County.
This trend is not unique to Hancock County or the Republican party, though. Gard noted that this is a problem wherever a party has dominance and supermajorities, and Manolopoulos repeatedly referenced a Washington Post article reporting that this problem extends across both parties throughout the United States.
Both the Libertarian and Democratic Parties said they were disappointed in the decision by Republican candidates not to participate.
“Being in power for so long has made Republicans lazy and complacent in some cases, realizing that because of straight ticket voting, they will get seated 90% of the time just for making it through the primary,” Hancock County Libertarian Party Treasurer and County Council candidate Luke Lomax said. “I want to encourage participation from the citizens of Hancock County by making meetings more accessible and working toward remote options for Town Halls held to address concerns (even when it isn’t an election year), and [Republicans] seem to want to hide behind their elephant and avoid engaging those they represent or face opposition from on broken policies.”
The county’s Democratic Party put out a press release, blasting the GOP as a party for not demanding more of its candidates.
“The Hancock County Democratic Party strongly believes the Republican Party at all levels has failed to insist their selected candidates participate in these forums and voters need to know of such disrespectful actions. Again, the Indiana voters deserve better.”
The two forums that are still taking place will occur on Sept. 25 for U.S. House District 6 and Sept. 26 for Hancock County Council at large. The first forum will be hosted by Vice President of Programming and On-Air Host of Woof Boom Radio Steve Lindell, while the second will by hosted by Daily Reporter Editor Aaron Kennedy.
