By Marilyn Odendahl
The Indiana Citizen
June 26, 2024
Both Democratic candidates for Indiana attorney general, Beth White and Destiny Wells, spoke to voters on the steps of the Statehouse Monday evening, encouraging them to elect a Democrat as the state’s top lawyer for the first time since 2001.
White and Wells were among the Democrats who participated in the rally organized by MADVoters Indiana. The event, marking the two-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, overturning abortion rights, was part of MADVoters’ “Project 2024: Take Back the Statehouse,” a push to elect more Democrats to state offices.
Jennifer McCormick, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, and Terry Goodin, candidate for lieutenant governor, were also at the rally along with Valerie McCray, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, and a host of other Democrats running for the legislature or local seats.
The crowd waved signs in support of reproductive rights, applauded and cheered as the candidates spoke, and engaged many of the candidates in conversations. Occasionally, a passing car would honk its horn. After the speeches, the crowd marched around the Statehouse, while they chanted McCormick’s tagline, “We deserve better,” and the abortion-rights message, “My body, my choice.”
McCormick hammered the Indiana General Assembly for responding to the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision by passing a near-total ban on all abortions in the state. She warned the crowd that the Republican supermajority in the Statehouse would take away students’ academic freedom, attract only low-paying jobs to the state, and block access to affordable health care.
“They are about stripping birth control (and) IVF. They are not going to stop,” McCormick said of the Indiana GOP. “The only thing between us and a really, really bad bill that’s going to come through (the legislature) is our vote.”
White and Wells focused their speeches on the consequences of Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita’s actions. According to White, fewer and fewer people want to come to Indiana to study or practice medicine because of the attorney general’s public investigation and the subsequent licensing complaint his office lodged against Indianapolis OB/GYN Caitlin Bernard.
“We have an attorney general who has lost his way,” White told the crowd. “He has decided that his political games are what he should be doing with our tax dollars in the attorney general’s office.”
Wells recounted her time working as a deputy attorney general under former Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill. She said working in that office was “very toxic,” but the conditions have gotten even worse since Rokita took over. Lawyers have left the office, she said, because working there does not “comport with their values or their ethics as attorneys.”
“That office is begging to be turned around and that is what I’m going to do,” Wells said. “We are going to recruit attorneys who care. We are going to make sure that we have the best public servants.”
Courting delegates for AG nomination
White and Wells will be running for their party’s nomination for attorney general at the Indiana Democratic Party convention on July 13. Delegates will cast ballots at the convention to decide which candidate will appear on the party’s November ballot. White said she has been calling delegates, spending six hours on the phone Sunday and five hours Monday, while Wells said she has been meeting with delegates in-person, traveling 830 miles Friday and Saturday.
The delegates will also choose the lieutenant governor candidate at the convention. McCormick has said Goodin is her preference for the number two position but some Democrats have chaffed, citing his previous support for anti-abortion legislation and opposition to gay marriage.
Wells issued a statement, welcoming Goodin to the campaign trail and saying his experience as a farmer and an educator is “an incredible asset for the Democratic ticket.” However, since the Goodin announcement, state Sen. J.D. Ford, D-Indianapolis, the first openly gay lawmaker to serve in the Indiana General Assembly, has said he is exploring a run for lieutenant governor.
At the rally, Wells said she has talked to Ford, but she was noncommittal about his potential bid to be McCormick’s running mate.
“I think J.D. has a long career ahead of him and he’s going to be fighting for equality for a lifetime,” Wells said. “So he has a decision to make as to what is the best long game for him because I think the sky’s the limit for J.D., but as far as doing it right now, I think it probably has its pros and its cons.”
Asked how excited Democrats are about their 2024 candidates, especially since McCormick was a Republican when she served as Indiana’s state superintendent of public instruction, Wells acknowledged a lot of the progressives in the party reacted negatively to Goodin’s selection. Still, she said, she expects excitement will increase in the late summer as voters start to turn their attention to the election.
“I know some of them are already coming around and looking at the reality of the situation,” Wells said.
Outlining their experience, platforms
White, currently the CEO of the Indiana Coalition to End Sexual Assault and Human Trafficking, is emphasizing her administrative experience. Pointing to her prior work as the chief legal counsel for the Indiana Department of Workforce Development, deputy corporation counsel for former Indianapolis mayor Bart Peterson, and as Marion County clerk, she said she is telling delegates she knows how to recruit and retain employees and she has a “respectful relationship” with legislative leaders.
From her experience in the public sector, White said she has learned Hoosiers expect their elected officials to do the work of government. The constituents have “zero tolerance for ideology,” she said, and care most about potholes, garbage pickup, clean water, and that police and fire departments will arrive when they call 911.
“Fifteen (to) 17 years of my career has been in local government and I understand what it takes to just figure out how to get work done,” White said. “I think the people in (the Statehouse) have lost that. … The legislature with the executive branch has lost the notion that things just need to happen. Hoosiers expect things to happen.”
Wells ran for Indiana secretary of state in 2022, capturing 40.2% of the vote while losing to Republican Diego Morales. She announced her candidacy for Indiana attorney general in November 2023 and, at the rally, could recite the exact number of days until the Democrats’ state convention.
In her criticism of Rokita, Wells said he was wasting office resources on “chasing big cases,” such as his lawsuit filed against TikTok, which was dismissed in 2023. Also, she said Rokita is using his office for political purposes by, most recently, asking “folks to sue” the Indiana Department of Health to obtain the terminated pregnancy reports filed by doctors after they perform an abortion.
Wells acknowledged the attorney general’s office has to uphold state statutes, even the state’s restrictive abortion law. To hit the balance between enforcing state statutes and stopping any interference from a political agenda, she said, is to follow the letter of the law.
“If we are defending, investigating within our statutory limitation and to the letter of the law, then we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing,” Wells said. “But if we’re stretching that to try to make it a political platform, and we’re trying to deter (health) care, then we’ve overstepped our bounds. And I would say Attorney General Rokita has been very overzealous and unethical in using that office in that regard.”
Dwight Adams, a freelance 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
