Disingenuous Outrage Over Gas Tax from Dark Money Group

I was driving in to the show today and heard one of these ads from the dark money group. Now, reminder: a dark money group is set up as a 501(c)(3). They're a nonprofit, and as such they don't have to disclose who their donors are. The trade-off is they can’t issue what I refer to as a call to action. They can’t tell you to vote for or against someone. Because of that restriction, they don’t have to disclose their donors. Nonprofits really can’t do direct political advocacy in terms of telling you to vote for or against someone. Now, they can engage in politics. A lot of times you’ll hear people say churches can’t engage in politics. Yeah, they can. They just really can’t tell you to vote for or against someone, because that raises a red flag. In the case of these 501(c)(3)s, they are advocating. They are taking political positions. But it’s legal. It’s not anything untoward. It’s the way the system is set up. That’s why people have advocated for big changes in our political system, our election system, and our campaign finance system. I’ve felt this way for years. You should be able to give unlimited money to whoever you want. It’s ridiculous that we have these PACs and nonprofits doing the same thing while making it harder to track who’s giving to whom and how much. It would be better if we just said: you’re the candidate, people can give you whatever they want, but you have to disclose it. Then we’d know who it is, within the confines of the current system. Now look, there’s also a valid argument and a broader conversation about people having better access to their government and to politicians. Let’s face it: someone who gives $1 million to a politician, whether directly or through PACs or nonprofits, is going to have more influence than you or I. That’s why we get so much bad policy that benefits select groups at everyone else’s expense. That’s a worthwhile conversation about limiting the amount of money that can go into politics. But if we’re going to have the system we currently have—where people can give unlimited money to PACs and nonprofits—I would much prefer it go directly to the candidate so we know who it is. But these nonprofits exist. They’re called dark money groups because they don’t have to disclose their donors. As the Indiana Capital Chronicle has discussed, there’s a dark money group going after Senate candidates who voted against redistricting. According to the Capital Chronicle, that group has ties to Jim Banks. I’m hearing an ad from one of these groups today as I’m driving in to do the show. The ad is against incumbent Senator Greg Walker. Walker has been in the Senate since the earth was young. He represents Johnson and Bartholomew County, the Columbus area. I’m listening to this ad thinking: you people are ridiculous. And I’m not saying that in defense of Greg Walker. I’m not saying vote for Greg Walker. I’m not saying I’m a fan of Greg Walker. I’m saying the ad itself is ridiculous. The ad has two components, and we can’t reward this sort of disingenuous, hypocritical behavior from outside groups. First, it talks about Greg Walker’s vote for the gas tax. Second, it talks about all the bad things Donald Trump has said about Greg Walker—calling him a loser and other things. Let’s start with the Trump part. You wonder why these “No Kings” protests are happening—we’ll get into how ridiculous those protests are later—but you’re running an ad for state senate, and the crux of the ad is that Donald Trump called someone a loser. Why did he call him a loser? What did Walker actually do to earn that label? Trump wouldn’t know Greg Walker from Greg Brady. He has no idea who this guy is. He called him a loser because Walker voted against redistricting. If you lined up Greg Walker’s voting record with Ron Alting’s, they’d probably mirror each other on most things except redistricting. Ron Alting is the very liberal Republican from Lafayette who’s up for reelection. If you compared their records, you’d probably have trouble distinguishing them on most issues. Yet Trump endorsed Ron Alting. At the same time, you have an outside group running ads saying Trump called Greg Walker a loser. Not because of their voting records, but because Walker didn’t do what Trump wanted. So now that’s our standard. What does Trump think? That’s a horrible way to vote. Trump has done some good things as president. The crackdown on illegal immigration, the attempt to remove people here illegally, and the actions on asylum seekers—those are good. But the economy? Not great. Affordability? Not great. The situation with Iran? Concerning. Like every president, it’s a mixed bag. Yet for some reason Republicans have attached a purity test that if Trump doesn’t like you, you’re unqualified for office. We didn’t do that before Trump. Greg Walker has done a bad job, but it has nothing to do with what Trump says about him. Trump doesn’t know anything about how Walker has done his job. Trump’s issue with Walker is the redistricting vote. And the redistricting argument itself is ridiculous. If Republicans governed better, they’d win elections anyway. They just won elections. You’re saying the system is rigged while controlling every lever of government: the House, the Senate, the presidency, the Supreme Court. Apparently Democrats did such a bad job rigging the system that Republicans ended up controlling everything. Yet instead of governing better, Republicans claim they need to change the maps mid-cycle in order to win elections. That’s nonsense. They just won elections promising to address spending, inflation, and the growth of government. They’ve done nothing to address those issues. Most Republican redistricting efforts in other states have been upheld in court. Missouri and Texas were upheld. Meanwhile, many Democratic efforts, like in Virginia, have been struck down. Republicans have actually gained more seats through mid-cycle redistricting than Democrats. They just won elections. So we need to stop pretending redistricting is necessary. That’s why I opposed it. It bails out bad governance. It’s like parenting. At some point you warn your kid enough times and then you stop giving warnings. My kid gets two warnings. The voice on the second warning sounds different than the first. We’ve been warning Republicans for 25 years about spending and government growth. Have they changed? No. We’re $39 trillion in debt. There was an article recently explaining how insolvent the federal government is from a balance sheet perspective. We’re in serious trouble. And Republicans, whether people want to admit it or not, have contributed more to the national debt over the past 25 years than Democrats. That doesn’t make Democrats good. They’re run by people with plenty of bad ideas. But I’m not going to pretend Republicans are doing a good job. They aren’t doing what they promised. Instead, they want to rig the maps and change the rules to bail themselves out. After 25 years of warnings, at some point you have to say enough. Just do what you promised and you’ll win elections. But they don’t want to do what they promised, because that would mean ending the legalized vote-buying—the handouts, giveaways, and taking money from one group to give to another. I’m done with it. I’m not bailing out bad governance. And think about how much money is being spent targeting these incumbent senators. Most of them are doing a bad job, and I won’t shed tears if they lose. But if this were really about winning more congressional seats, the First Congressional District is in play. Republicans say that all the time. So why aren’t they spending that money recruiting a strong candidate and promoting the Republican record? Because look who they wanted to run: Jennifer Ruth Green. She was their golden child in the First District. I said Republicans in Indiana should have called their redistricting effort the Jennifer Ruth Green Election Act. She was their top candidate. She was a disgraced former cabinet member under Mike Braun who left because of irresponsible behavior. She paid a massive fine after an ethics investigation. She was given every opportunity and blew it due to arrogance and entitlement. That’s who they wanted. I’m not changing the rules in the middle of the game for that. Greg Walker has done a bad job, but Trump doesn’t know that. Ron Alting has done a bad job and Trump supports him. Liz Brown in Fort Wayne has done a bad job and Trump supports her. So the first part of the ad boils down to this: Trump called Walker a loser, so vote against him. The second part that really made me angry is the gas tax. Walker’s vote on the gas tax was nine years ago. Nine years ago, people like me were screaming about that vote. You know how many outside groups came to help? Not many. Since then, the gas tax has been renewed. Indiana now has one of the highest gas taxes in the country. Greg Walker did what almost every Republican did and voted for it. When we were complaining nine years ago—and again a few years ago when it was renewed—Republican leadership told us to sit down and be quiet. They said they were governing responsibly and paying for roads. Now it’s suddenly a problem worthy of an ad. Technically it’s not a campaign ad. It just encourages you to call Greg Walker and tell him how much he’s failing. And he just happens to be running for reelection with a viable challenger. Let’s be honest. These are campaign ads. The gas tax is terrible. But it has been the official position of the Republican Party, Eric Holcomb, and Mike Braun. Now some of the same people aligned with Braun are pretending to be outraged about it. The time for outrage was nine years ago. Or when it was renewed. Yet there’s no outrage about the governor proposing $6.5 billion in new taxes for I-70. Not a word. They won’t run an ad demanding Braun stop raising your taxes by $6.5 billion. But they’ll run an ad about Greg Walker voting for the gas tax. I also saw an ad yesterday from the Indiana Republican Party about Braun’s comments regarding the IURC meeting with major utility companies. They tried to portray Braun as some tough reformer standing up to utilities raising rates. Republicans have controlled Indiana government for 20 years. Everything the IURC has done has been through people appointed by Republican governors. There was no outrage during Holcomb’s administration while rates kept rising. But now Republicans want you to believe they’ll fix the problem they created. Last year Braun signed a bill allowing utilities to recover 80% of investment in unproven technology. Whether it works or not, you pay for it through rate increases. Meanwhile Republicans approved one rate hike after another through the IURC. It’s the same story with Medicaid. Republicans did nothing while Holcomb created problems, and now they claim to be swooping in to fix them. They create the problem, stay silent while it grows, and then claim credit for solving it. When I hear this ad about Greg Walker, I’ll say this: he has done a bad job. He’s been a bad senator and has let down his constituents. But don’t pretend these dark money groups care. They’re not running the same ads against Ron Alting or Liz Brown. This is about subservience to Trump. It’s strange, and it’s unhealthy. We should hold every politician accountable: the president, senators, members of Congress, state legislators, county commissioners, city councils, and mayors. Loyalty tests are bad for the country. They’re bad for voting, and they’re bad for public policy.