Brian Howey: Bloody Tuesday: 38% of Indiana Incumbent Mayors Lost

By Brian Howey

INDIANAPOLIS, IN -  Pssst. The people are angry. Livid.

All you have to do is look at last Tuesday’s municipal elections. An analysis by Indiana Chamber of Commerce Political Director Michael Davis reveals that 24 mayors - 14 Republicans and 10 Democrats - lost on Tuesday. In contested races, 38.1 percent (24 out of 63) of the incumbents lost. That doesn’t include the 11 mayors who were defeated in last May’s primary or mayors like Elkhart’s Dave Miller, Fort Wayne’s Graham Richard, Portage’s Doug Olson and 35 other mayors who didn’t seek re-election.

Of Indiana’s 119 cities, more than half of the city halls will have new mayors. Democrats now hold a 69-47-3 advantage in Hoosier city halls and now control eight of the largest 10 cities and 12 of the largest 15.

While some, like Indiana Legislative Insight’s Ed Feigenbaum continue to propagate the notion that Hoosiers are “resistant to all change,” by my counting since the May 2004 primary, Hoosiers have voted out Senate Finance Chairman Larry Borst, Gov. Joe Kernan, and Senate President Pro Tempore Robert D. Garton. The Indiana House has switched hands, meaning we've had two speakers in that time span. In fact, Hoosiers have swapped out their entire executive and legislative branch leaders who make policy. Hoosiers have retired four congressmen - Baron Hill, John Hostettler, Chris Chocola and Mike Sodrel (obviously bringing Hill back). They have defeated five House members. Another four have resigned this year.

The defeats of Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson, Anderson’s Kevin Smith, Terre Haute’s Kevin Burke, West Lafayette’s Jan Mills, Plymouth’s Gary Cook, Delphi’s Lee Hoard and primary defeats to Crown Point’s Dan Klein, Hobart’s Linda Buzinec and Kokomo’s Matt McKillip stand to send a storm surge through the Indiana Statehouse. Property taxes weren’t the deciding factor in most of these races. The small number of voters who turned out were just angry.

"Incumbents, especially state legislative incumbents, will be facing this same angry set of voters during the May primary and November general election," said Davis. In Indianapolis, it’s estimated that Mayor Peterson outspent winning Republican Greg Ballard 30 to 1. In 2006, the vanquished Sen. Garton had a similarly huge money advantage over Greg Walker.

Voters were lashing out at the first public officials who appeared on the ballot after the tax crisis hit this summer, even in places were property taxes didn’t dramatically increase. If Gov. Daniels and the legislature don't forge a long-term property tax and government reorganization plan next winter, the entire Statehouse political establishment will be on the endangered species list.

Then there's the Kernan-Shepard Blue Ribbon Commission that will issue a report sometime in the next seven weeks. HPR sources are telling us that some of the commission's recommendations will be bold, though perhaps not as far as seeking to combine tiny counties like Ohio and Switzerland or forcing significant school corporation consolidations.

Hoosiers are upset about property taxes and the opportunity here is that if Kernan-Shepard does go bold, Gov. Daniels may find a very receptive audience across the state if he can underscore the costly layers of government and how they relate to your property tax bill and mortgage payment.

Ballard took the stage at the Murat on Election night and told a frenzied crowd, "Welcome to the biggest upset in Indiana political history! This is a classic, if not the ultimate, example of grassroots politics."

"The people want Ronald Reagan, Goldwater and Jeffersonian styled limited government," said Sen. Mike Delph, R-Carmel. "Anything else will be met with resistance." State Sen. Brent Waltz explained, "Property taxes aren't the third rail. It's the only rail."

Lt. Col. Ballard emerges from this campaign as perhaps one of the most pristine political figures in modern Hoosier political history. Throughout the year, the former Marine led what seemed to be a solitary campaign to upset the political establishment while virtually the entire GOP hierarchy remained on the sidelines. Even when people began appearing outside the Governor's Mansion, at the Statehouse, at Monument Circle, few of them embraced Ballard.

He has now won without saying a mean word about his opponent. He didn't run a single negative or scary television ad. He didn't have to sell his soul to raise money. He now finds himself in one of the most unique circumstances in the history of modern Indiana politics: he can define himself ... after ... he won office.

Gov. Daniels – who basically ignored Ballard and was surprised by his victory - appears to understand this, telling business leaders in Hammond on Wednesday that legislators “can bring their sleeping bags as far as I'm concerned,” to work on a property tax plan.

As Ballard took the stage after his stunning upset, he called out to the frenzied crowd, "Can everybody hear me?"

If you work at the Indiana Statehouse, I’ll bet you did.

Howey is publisher of The Howey Political Report at www.howeypolitics.com

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