Sometimes, it even trumps ideology and partisanship.
In the past few days, two Indiana state senators announced ahead of the ill-conceived special session of the Indiana General Assembly that they wouldn’t support President Donald Trump’s attempts to rig congressional maps ahead of next year’s midterm election.
Indiana Sen. Michael Bohacek, R-Michiana Shores, announced that he wouldn’t back the president’s ploy to gerrymander the 2026 congressional elections.
Bohacek’s decision had little to do with political maneuvering. He chose not to support Trump because the president deliberately insulted a group of Americans he’s supposed to serve and protect.
Including Bohacek’s daughter.
Bohacek’s daughter has Down syndrome. As he said in announcing his opposition to Trump’s plans, Bohacek has made no secret of his daughter’s condition.
A few days ago, in a public spat with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, the president used the “r” word to describe Walz. Walz is also the father of a child with special needs.
So, Trump’s use of the word exhibited an elevated level of callousness and disregard for simple standards of human conduct.
Afterward, Bohacek said he couldn’t support the president because of the slur. Doing so just wouldn’t be right, he said. He needed to stand with his daughter.
Bohacek’s announcement came at almost the same time that Indiana Sen. Greg Walker, R-Columbus, reasserted his opposition to Trump’s Congress-packing plan in an interview with his local newspaper, The Republic.
Walker first said in August he wouldn’t support the president’s redistricting push. Yet he received a phone call from a White House staffer inviting him to meet with Trump in the Oval Office to discuss the matter.
“I refused (the invitation), but the underling who reached out to me is trying to influence the election on my dime,” Walker told The Republic. “That individual works for me. He works for you. He’s on my payroll, he’s on your payroll, and he’s campaigning on company time. That’s a violation of the Hatch Act. He’s a federal employee. He works in the White House. But does anyone care about the rules anymore? Not that I can tell.”
Walker also said he would have reported the invitation to the authorities “if I thought that there was anyone of integrity in Washington that would follow through on my accusation and actually cause someone to lose their job over it.”
The Columbus Republican added that he couldn’t believe a president of the United States would be spending time on something so trivial. Walker said Trump should have much higher priorities than lobbying “a nobody like me” regarding something that wasn’t even his business.
The president’s pressure campaign wasn’t going to make him change his position, Walker said.
“I know right from wrong. I was taught as a child the difference between right and wrong, and this is just wrong on so many levels,” Walker said.
Walker and Bohacek don’t disagree with the president on political grounds.
Both men are rock-ribbed Republicans, conservatives to their core. Doubtless, they support most of Trump’s policies.
But what they’re saying is that this is different.
Their quarrel with him in this instance is bigger and more basic than politics.
It’s about right and wrong.
Bohacek is saying that a decent person—much less the president of the United States—shouldn’t treat people with disabilities with disrespect and discourtesy. Walker is saying that cheating is wrong and that following the law matters, particularly when a person has taken a sacred oath, hand on the Bible, to uphold the law.
This point gets lost in too many political debates these days. Our leaders fight and scratch to win, heedless of the damage they do to their communities and the country as they trash rules, laws and standards of common courtesy in their quest for victory.
The late U.S. Rep. Andy Jacobs Jr, D-Indiana, was one of the most thoroughly decent human beings ever to hold public office.
“I’m not going to argue that you won’t have more money if you rob a bank,” he told me once while explaining how he tried to counsel fellow politicians against the dangers of moral expediency. “I’m just going to tell you that that doesn’t make it right.”
Amen.
