Don Bates, Jr. has completed his signature drive and plans to file soon. Rumor has it the Marlin Stutzman and John Hostettler campaigns aren’t far behind. And the bad blood between, mostly, Stutzman supporters and those collecting signatures for former Senator Dan Coats continues to burn white hot.

In the 4th CD the list of Republicans interested in replacing Steve Buyer continues to grow. According to Indiana Legislative Insight some of those names include:

• Former Purdue president Martin Jischke
• Rep. Tim Brown of Crawfordsville
• Hendricks County Commissioner Eric Wathen
• (As Abdul noted) Sen. Mike Young of Indianapolis, who also sought the seat, though unsuccessfully, in the post-redistricting primary in 2002
• Sen. Ron Alting of Lafayette
• Dave Heath the former Lafayette mayor

Currently, Secretary of State Todd Rokita and State Senator Brandt Hershman are the leading contenders, though Rokita, as of this writing, is the only one of the two who has filed.

In the 5th CD, backroom deals have been attempted to “thin the field”. According to Howey:

“Dr. John McGoff told HPI on Friday (Feb. 5th) that he had been offered an Indianapolis City-County Council seat to get out of the race. McGoff said he is committed to staying in the 5th CD race.”

This was done after fellow 5th CD challenger Luke Messer was quoted as saying “”The other guys have to look in the mirror and reach their own decisions. But we have to reach out. There’s no backroom way to get this done.” (emphasis mine)

In the 9th CD, Congressman Mike Pence will be endorsing Mike Sodrel this coming Saturday morning at the Clark County GOP headquarters. This comes after fellow 9th CD challenger Todd Young has racked up plenty of endorsements of his own from most of the statewide elected officials. Travis Hankins is also still making a run of it in the 9th.

Contentious primaries, all! And apparently, there could be more news today! So feel free to discuss your particular race of choice. Just keep things civil.

Following on the news this morning, The IndyStar reports Brandt Hershman had joined Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita seeking the GOP nomination for 4th Congressional District, replacing the retiring Steve Buyer

This e-mail came to us this morning….

“Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita discussed and prayed with his wife Kathy at home over the weekend about how best to serve going forward.

“He is grateful for the strong encouragement from Hoosiers throughout the 4^th CD, and has decided to campaign for the opportunity to serve in Congress on their behalf.

“Todd will post a statement today to his Facebook page.  He wants to work at the federal level on the economic and security issues that directly affect the workers, families and small businesses of the 4^th District.”

We will update as news comes to us…

*UPDATE*

Here is Todd’s announcement from via his facebook page:

“Last week I said what most Hoosiers already know– that we need real leadership in Washington D.C.

“Every year as Secretary of State, and for two years before, I traveled to every one of Indiana’s 92 counties. It’s in the small towns and far reaches of our great state where I have learned how to best serve Hoosiers and where I get my marching orders. Because of this, I am deeply familiar with the people and issues of the beautiful counties that make up Indiana’s fourth congressional district. Even more, Kathy and I made the 4th District our home five years ago and are raising our growing family here.

“I continue to enjoy the challenge of helping to lead Indiana’s successful 21st Century comeback. Any objective observer would conclude that we have done a lot in and with the Office of Secretary of State, including reducing its size and cost while improving service to Hoosiers. But, as my time as your Secretary of State begins to wind down, Kathy and I have thought and prayed about how we can best serve others either in or out of elected office. Then, last week we had the opportunity and were asked to consider running for either the U.S. House or Senate, all within a day or so.

“For us, it became clear that the best way we can work on reducing the national debt and generating good jobs, strengthening our national and homeland security, and nurturing an environment based on conservative family values – is to ask the people of the 4th Congressional District for the opportunity to serve them in Congress. Over the next several months, my team and I will work morning, noon, and evening crisscrossing the district and detailing our plans and ideas.

“We are looking forward to continuing to help Indiana’s Comeback and I thank our many supporters for their encouragement and offers of assistance.”

Exit Mike Pence, enter Secretary of State, Todd Rokita.  The rumor, as I first saw it, appeared on twitter.  Todd Rokita was thinking about a potential challenge to Evan Bayh and joining, an already crowded field of those seeking to knock off our Junior Senator from Georgetown.  The rumor came from, what I consider to be, very reliable sources.  Then I started getting emails.  Finally, it made local and national news cycles and Rokita issued a statement.

“I continue to receive a lot of encouraging phone calls and emails from a diverse group of people. I certainly share Hoosiers’ concerns that we need real leadership in Washington – leadership that we simply aren’t getting today. As Kathy and I prepare for the birth of our second son, we still think and pray about how we can best serve Indiana in the future – this great state that we love.”

So is he or isn’t he running? We know Mike Pence isn’t. So what about Rokita? Well, we need to look at the challenges.  And first things first, the signatures.  If anyone knows the signature gathering rules better than anyone, it would be our Secretary of State.  With precious little time before the deadline for those signatures – filing deadline is February 19th – he’d probably have to pay to get the signature process done.  But don’t let that get in the way of your opinion.  Mike Pence would have had to do the same thing if he ran.

So, let’s assume Rokita get’s the signatures (which, again, is a big assumption with the deadline drawing so much closer).  Is he our best chance at finding someone to really challenge Evan Bayh? It’s hard to say if he represents our “best chance” – that was probably Mike Pence – as the Rasmussen poll that came out didn’t poll Rokita since he wasn’t part of the race.  That said, he has run two successful statewide campaigns for SoS and has decent name ID.

(Read more after the leap)

An article from Sunday’s Indianapolis Star:

3 interested in Rokita’s job

It’s only October, but the next secretary of state race is going strong.

One Republican — Hamilton County GOP Chairman Charlie White — and two Democrats — Tom McKenna, a Carmel resident who headed the Department of Commerce under then-Gov. Joe Kernan, and Vop Osili, an Indianapolis architect — have filed papers with the Indiana Election Division forming exploratory committees for the office.

Voters will pick the next secretary of state in November 2010. The incumbent, Republican Todd Rokita, cannot seek a third term.

But it’s Rokita that has spurred the interest, at least on the Democratic side.

Osili, 46, and McKenna, 63, cited the voter ID law that Rokita helped push into state law as a factor in their decisions to run.

“We all want to make sure our process of voting is protected,” Osili said.

But, he added, Indiana’s law — the strictest in the nation and recently overturned by an appeals court — goes too far in putting up barriers to voting.

McKenna also singled out the voting ID law, which requires people to present a government-issued photo ID that has an expiration date. Some have argued that discriminates against students at private colleges, whose college ID is not accepted, and elderly people who do not have a government-issued ID such as a driver’s license.

While Indiana must make sure that only those qualified to vote do so, the state also must be sure that anyone who is qualified gets to cast their vote, he said.

When Vop Osili says that he wants “to make sure our process of voting is protected,” what he really means is that he wants to protect the ability for lefty groups like ACORN to be able to get away with mischief.

(Read more after the leap)

Today, Secretary of State Todd Rokita officially rolled out his plan on “Rethinking Redistricting” at the Indianapolis Rotary Club.  It’s already won the support of Governor Daniels, but, at least here on Hoosier Access, has been received with mixed reviews from daltonsbriefs and Scott Fluhr.  Watch the speech yourself and chime in with your thoughts.

Todd Rokita’s redistricting speech to the Indy Rotary Club.

I just know this post will cause some ulcers, but I was struck with a though when catching up on Indianapolis news this morning.   Here are the posts that started me off:   Rokita’s Rather Ridiculous Redistricting Proposal and Rethinking Redistricting the website produced by Secretary of State Rokita.

After a cursory overview, I have to say in general I agree with Todd’s suggestions.   I might have favored private money being used in the research and marketing, as the Kernan Shephard folks did.   I would find the “illegalality” of thinking about politics to be too strong, since last I checked we are all still granted the right to think.

But all in all, each Indiana Senate seat should feature two House seats in the same geographic bounds.  All in all, population should be the guide and not voter vault.  All in all, the existing county lines are a much better boundary than gerrymandered messes to give one side or the other a couple extra votes.

Sorry Scott, I felt your article didn’t give the proposal its fair shake.  Perhaps a problem with Todd, or his possible run for Governor?  This effort on the surface looks surprisingly like a Daniels move, bringing the best of common sense and transparency and putting it on the table.    To be frank, I’m still for Becky as Governor, if she wants it … but this kind of forward thinking on Todd’s part shows he’s just the man for Lugar’s Senate seat we need, if only that resignation were forthcoming.

Alliteration! It’s a word you haven’t heard since high school English.

Anyway, Tuesday’s Indianapolis Star outlines a proposal by Todd Rokita to change how Indiana draws its legislative and Congressional maps.

Don’t get me wrong. One look at the districts held by Steve Buyer or Dennie Oxley would be enough to tell anyone that Indiana needs a change in its redistricting process. But Rokita’s proposal doesn’t really change things.

The Star:

(Read more after the leap)

From Shella comes news of a clash of titans:

Republican Governor Mitch Daniels vetoed the bill to allow for more vote centers today. This is his veto message:

“While this bill contains provisions that would make the act of voting more convenient, it does not contain sufficient safeguards against fraud and abuse and removes long-standing bipartisan checks and balances in the conduct of elections.”

Republican Secretary of State Todd Rokita upset. Here’s the statement he issued:

“How ironic it is that the one local government reform that actually passes the legislature ends up getting vetoed. Vote Centers is perhaps the only local government reform that so far has been proven unequivocally to save taxpayers money. I would expect, given the serious fiscal condition of the state, that the concept is important enough to find its way into the budget bill so that all 92 counties be given the opportunity to realize the unquestionable taxpayer benefits and savings.”

I’m glad the Governor vetoed the legislation.

The problem with the legislation isn’t that vote centers are bad. Far from it.

The problem with the legislation is that they rely upon the county election board make decisions about them.

The legislation about vote centers suffers from being tied to a much worse problem that nobody ever wants to address.

Indiana’s laws for county election boards are flawed.

(Read more after the leap)

By: Brian Sikma

In Lake County Indiana in 2008, a stack of 2,100 voter registration applications were determined to be fraudulent.  Filled out by ACORN quasi-employees (volunteers getting paid) the applications were not for dead people, they were for people who never even existed.  In one notable and now well-known instance Jimmy John’s, the sandwich shop, tried to register to vote.

Free, open, and honest elections are the heartbeat of our representative government.   The concept of self-government is only a theory until the mechanics of election law and procedure are brought to bear.  If an election is have consequences, and if it is to mean something, it must be held with integrity and the results must not be questionable or open to justifiable suspicion.  Energetic debate and intense campaigning between multiple candidates for public office is acceptable and healthy, but once the balloting is underway the voters must be assured that their vote is legitimate and that it will not be subjected to partisan pressures.

In many states the responsibility for insuring that election law is followed carefully, fully and properly falls to the Secretary of State.  It is this officer’s job to insure that the law is followed in every possible way in order to insure that the outcome of an election genuinely reflects the final judgment of the people.  Because this single task is one of the most important jobs in the state, some left-wing groups, including the supposedly non-partisan Secretary of State Project (SOS Project), have begun targeting Secretary of State races around the country.  They know that if the rules can be relaxed, what cannot win in an honest election can win in a fraudulent election.

[More Below The Fold]

Indiana’s version of Bernie Madoff will be a topic of discussion tonight on NBC’s Dateline.  The story of Marcus Shrenker is interesting because he tried to fake his death, messed that up as miserably as he did his clients finances and then claimed he was innocent.  He assetts have since been frozen.

With all this talk going on of swindler financiers, and with one of the more high profile ones coming from Indiana, our own Secretary of State, Todd Rokita, will be featured on Dateline tonight at 10:00.

(H/T – The IBRG Twitter feed)

From Politico.com, here is the best of late night, from last night.  Consider this your Thursday open thread.

Also, check out this link from from an American soldier’s blog called “Afghan Ronny”. A loyal Hoosier Access reader sent it to me. It recounts an experience he had with Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita when Rokita visited Afghanistan last year. Pretty cool!