By Marilyn Odendahl
The Indiana Citizen
March 18, 2025
A dispute arising over a candidate’s eligibility to run in the 2023 general election for a seat on the Columbus City Council was presented to the Indiana Supreme Court last week with the justices seemingly less interested in the question of who is eligible to run for office and more interested in the question of who can file a lawsuit challenging a candidacy.
The case – Ross Graham Thomas v. Joseph Foyst, 24A-MI-00251 – started in the summer of 2023 and arises from Foyst’s run for the District 6 seat on the council. Thomas, chair of the Bartholomew County Democratic Party, said Foyst, a Republican, missed a key filing deadline and, therefore, was ineligible to appear on the ballot.
In July 2024, the Court of Appeals of Indiana agreed with Thomas. The three-member panel unanimously overturned the result of the 2023 general election and ordered the Democratic candidate, Bryan Muñoz, to be declared the winner. Foyst then petitioned the Indiana Supreme Court to hear the case.
Appearing before the Supreme Court on Thursday, George Hoffman III, Foyst’s attorney, and Deputy Solicitor General Jenna Marie Lorence urged the justices to follow the will of the voters. They argued that by tossing the outcome of the election, the Court of Appeals had disenfranchised voters in violation of the Indiana Constitution and the judicial precedent of liberally construing the state’s election laws to uphold the will of the electorate.
“As the United States Supreme Court has said, ‘Voters, not lawyers, should decide who elected officials are,’” Lorence said.
However, the Indiana justices focused much of their questioning on whether Thomas had standing – or a legal right to bring a lawsuit in court – in his challenge to Foyst’s candidacy. They repeatedly asked how Thomas was personally injured by the outcome of the election.
Thomas, representing himself in the case, said as the county’s Democratic Party chair, he was injured because election law was not followed. “I am injured by … not knowing what the rules are,” he said.
After the Bartholomew County Republican Party failed to field a candidate in the May 2023 primary for the council seat in question, it held a caucus July 1 to fill the vacancy on the November general election ballot. Foyst won the caucus, but Thomas successfully challenged his candidacy with the Bartholomew County Election Board, arguing the Republican missed the deadline for filing his paperwork with the county clerk.
State statute requires notice of a caucus to be submitted at least 10 days before the event. However, the GOP’s notice and Foyst’s declaration of candidacy were filed with the clerk on June 22, nine days before the caucus was convened.
Subsequently, the Republican Party held a second caucus in August and Foyst, again, ran and won the nomination. Thomas sought to block Foyst’s candidacy, but the election board let the Republican remain in the November race, after finding the county Democratic Party chair had missed the deadline to file his challenge.
On Sept. 6, Thomas filed a complaint in Bartholomew County Circuit Court, seeking to declare Foyst ineligible to appear on the November ballot and to enjoin the election board from putting his name on the ballot. The trial court, which found for Foyst, did not enter its judgment until January 2024 and, in the interim, Foyst won the November election, receiving 454 votes, while his Democratic opponent Muñoz garnered 309 votes.
Thomas then turned to the Court of Appeals, which reversed the trial court’s ruling. The appellate judges found that since Foyst missed the first filing deadline, his candidacy “never existed in the eyes of the law.”
Key to Thomas’ argument was precedent set by the Indiana Supreme Court in the 1985 decision in Higgins v. Hale. There the court ruled that failure to meet a statutory deadline for filling a vacancy on a general election ballot resulting from a primary election ballot vacancy makes a nomination “void and of no effect.”
Hoffman, Foyst’s attorney, downplayed the importance of Higgins. In particular, he noted the statute under which Higgins was decided has since been amended several times.
“I don’t think you need to overturn Higgins v. Hale or (Wilhite v. Mohr), because I think they’re good law under the statute that existed at the time, but that has since been repealed and replaced with the statute that we’re arguing today,” Hoffman said.
Justice Christopher Goff pointed out the legislature had amended the definition of a candidate in state statute last year, which, he said, was a “legislative fix” to the situation in Bartholomew County.
“If the General Assembly has taken action to cure the problem that happened here, I’m concerned that we inject ourselves into this highly charged political issue,” Goff said to Hoffman. “Why should we get involved in this case?”
Hoffman replied, “I think, number one, because the people have spoken.”
The justices pressed Thomas on several aspects of his argument.
In particular, Justice Geoffrey Slaughter hammered at Thomas over whether he, as county party chair, had standing to bring the case in circuit court. Slaughter questioned how Thomas was “personally injured, personally aggrieved” by Foyst being on the ballot, noting the Supreme Court has 30 years of precedent that requires the plaintiff to have an injury in order to file a lawsuit.
Slaughter asked, “What’s your own injury for purposes of standing?”
Thomas replied, “I am given the authority in many areas of the election law.” He noted the state courts and the state statute recognize the two major parties and that, as the chair of a major party, “I have the ability to … make these challenges.”
Slaughter hit back, “That wasn’t responsive to the question.”
Thomas said, “My argument, Justice Slaughter, is that all of our election law gives a special purpose to county chairs in filling the ballot and in making challenges.”
Chief Justice Loretta Rush agreed, but, picking up on Slaughter’s line of questioning, she noted Thomas did not argue that he had standing once the dispute jumped from the election board to civil court.
Thomas said the only remedy he had as county party chair was to seek declaratory judgment in court.
“It is illogical to me that I would have had standing to seek judicial review had I lost at the election board, but I lost that if I won at the election board,” he said.
Thomas later explained that he filed the lawsuit seeking the relief that was ultimately provided by the Court of Appeals, which was the ruling that Foyst was not a candidate in the city council race. He said he wanted the trial court to find that since Foyst missed the filing deadline, he was never a candidate and, therefore, could not win an election.
When Thomas asserted he was not simply trying to keep Foyst off the ballot, Slaughter pulled out the amended complaint. Flipping through the pages, Slaughter said Thomas had asked the trial court to find Foyst was ineligible to appear on the general election ballot, but he did not ask the court to find Foyst was ineligible to be a candidate or to be elected.
Thomas pointed to the Court of Appeals ruling and reiterated his argument that Foyst was not eligible to be on the ballot, because he missed the statutory deadline. Foyst, Thomas said, was not a legitimate candidate.
Justice Goff interjected and asked about the role of county party chairs. He asked what would happen if the Supreme Court found county chairs did not have standing to address or raise in court an alleged violation of the state’s election laws.
Thomas responded that the county chair is the best person to bring these kinds of challenges to individual candidates. Also, he alluded to the Indiana Supreme Court’s ruling in Morales v. Rust, 23S-PL-371, in which the court found the Jackson County GOP Party chair could keep Indiana businessman John Rust off the ballot in 2024, because he had not voted as a Republican in two previous primaries.
“As this court recently decided, a county chair can tell a person, ‘I’m sorry, you don’t fit the criteria, I’m not letting you on the ballot,’” Thomas said. “That’s the county chair’s role.”
Slaughter said the county chair is the party’s representative and asked whether the Bartholomew County Democratic Party could have filed the lawsuit.
Thomas replied, “I don’t see a distinction.”
Slaughter, seeming to lose patience, said, “That’s not my question. Is there any reason this could not have been brought in the name of the party?”
Thomas responded, “It certainly could have.”
Slaughter retorted, “The party is injured by this, right?”
Thomas replied, “And I’m representing the party and my injury is the same as well.”
Slaughter visibly angry, countered, “You’re not representing the party. You’re here on your own behalf, as a pro se litigant.” Slaughter went on to assert that the problem of standing could have been fixed if the party had filed the lawsuit, rather than the county chair.
Thomas replied, “Well, if it does than I’m sorry, but I just believe that is an argument I don’t understand.”
The Supreme Court did not grant transfer in this case. It could decide not to accept transfer – and, therefore, not issue a ruling – which would leave the opinion from the Court of Appeals in place.
Dwight Adams, an editor and writer based in Indianapolis, edited this article. He is a former content editor, copy editor and digital producer at The Indianapolis Star and IndyStar.com, and worked as a planner for other newspapers, including the Louisville Courier Journal.
The Indiana Citizen is a nonpartisan, nonprofit platform dedicated to increasing the number of informed and engaged Hoosier citizens. We are operated by the Indiana Citizen Education Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) public charity. For questions about the story, contact Marilyn Odendahl at marilyn.odendahl@indianacitizen.org.
