Maybe even an Environmental Protection Agency cleanup site.
The Indiana Citizen in recent days published two fine stories by Sydney Byerly that reveal a lieutenant governor’s office that would have to adopt much, much, much higher professional standards just to be considered in disarray. (Disclosure: The Indiana Citizen and TheStatehouseFile.com are partners and Byerly is a former student of mine.)
In the first story, based on disclosures by former Beckwith staffer and veteran Republican political professional Erin Sheridan and confirmed by another witness, the lieutenant governor received a written reprimand from Indiana Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray, R-Martinsville.
The reprimand focused on Beckwith’s compulsive posting on social media while the Senate was in session and over which he—in theory, anyway—was presiding and his penchant for recording his meetings and interactions with lawmakers without their consent using AI glasses.
In my more than 40 years of covering Indiana politics, I’ve never heard of a lieutenant governor being reprimanded in any way by a Senate president pro tempore—even when the two offices were occupied by members of opposing parties.
Nor, as Byerly reported, has former Senate heavyweight Luke Kenley, like Beckwith a Republican from Noblesville.
But then, Beckwith is a special case.
In her second story, Byerly recounted Sheridan’s detailed depiction of what Sheridan called “a frat house” atmosphere in Beckwith’s office, an atmosphere she said included male staffers—avowed evangelical Christians—laughing at an AI-generated video of a Republican Indiana legislator’s wife dancing topless.
Beckwith denied the video’s existence but refused to open his office to an outside investigation.
No matter.
Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears instigated a grand jury investigation into the matter. (More on that in a moment.)
Beckwith called that a witch hunt.
At almost the same time Byerly was reporting on these assorted Beckwith episodes of chaos and alleged malfeasance, veteran journalist Tom LoBianco dropped pieces that revealed the grand jury investigation had both widened and deepened—and that one of Beckwith’s closest associates had been implicated in a disturbing sex scandal.
Jonathan Peternel, the 24-year-old son of Life Church’s Nathan Peternel, was arrested on multiple counts of possessing and disseminating child pornography. The younger Peternel apparently also possessed video of his parents having sex.
Nathan Peternel, the pastor of Life Church, has been Beckwith’s boss for years. He hired Beckwith to serve as pastor of the church’s Noblesville campus and has been one of the lieutenant governor’s closest advisors and allies ever since.
Since LoBianco broke the story about the younger Peternel’s arrest, he also has reported that at least one former Life Church parishioner has said that Pastor Peternel’s interest in her sex life with a former fiancée was less therapeutic than it was voyeuristic and salacious.
Beckwith and his apologists have tried to distance him from this expanding scandal by referring to Peternel as a “former” advisor.
That claim is undercut by the fact that, even as lieutenant governor, Beckwith has continued to serve as pastor of the Noblesville branch of Peternel’s church—and Peternel presumably continues to sign Beckwith’s paychecks.
Where do we Hoosiers find these people?
And why do we keep electing them to high office?
This is not a partisan or ideological complaint.
There are plenty of serious conservatives and plenty of serious liberals in this state—men and women who understand that holding public office is a sacred responsibility, a profound duty to this state’s people and its fundamental laws.
Micah Beckwith, though, doesn’t seem to be serious about anything but performing his own hustle and advancing his own narrow interests.
Even before the controversies associated with his AI glasses, doctored pornographic videos of a legislator’s wife and his church’s sordid sex scandal, our lieutenant governor’s primary areas of focus seemed to be leveraging the taxpayers to buy him a more expensive SUV than Secretary of State Diego Morales tools around in and forcing himself on audiences not much interested in listening to him bloviate by threatening to withhold state funds if they didn’t sit demurely still while he prattled on.
He cannot be the best the Indiana GOP has to offer.
In fact, if Micah Beckwith is considered even a middle-of-the-pack member of the Hoosier Republican Party, the party is in serious trouble.
Serious, serious trouble.
