By Sydney Byerly
The Indiana Citizen
November 5, 2025
Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith received a written reprimand from Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray in February after lawmakers complained about his X posts and uncommon behavior presiding over the Senate — including incidents involving Beckwith’s use of “AI glasses,” his former senior advisor Erin Sheridan told The Indiana Citizen.
She said Bray, R-Martinsville, and his senior staff pulled Beckwith aside to Bray’s office off the Senate floor and presented the letter as both a warning and an attempt to help Beckwith course-correct just weeks after taking office.
“Sen. Bray was very professional, very down to earth,” Sheridan said. “They said, ‘We want to make sure that you’re succeeding here, but we can’t allow this.’”
Instead, Sheridan said, Beckwith dismissed the concerns outright. “The lieutenant governor basically said, ‘Too bad, so sad, I’m going to continue behaving that way — get used to it.’ And I just about died,” she said. “It was unheard of. You’re the lieutenant governor, sitting in front of leadership, receiving a written reprimand, and they’re trying to help you. I couldn’t believe the flippant attitude.”
A second source familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity citing fear of retaliation, confirmed that the meeting between Beckwith, Bray and members of both Republican officials’ staffs occurred.
On October 23, The Indiana Citizen filed a public records request with the lieutenant governor’s office under the Access to Public Records Act, which a Beckwith staffer later acknowledged receiving. An inquiry was also made to Bray’s office, but the General Assembly has broad authority to exempt itself from disclosure under the state’s open records law.
Neither Beckwith’s office nor Bray’s office provided the written reprimand or responded to multiple requests for comment.
Sheridan, who served as Beckwith’s senior adviser before being fired in July, sat for nearly six hours of interviews with The Indiana Citizen over three days to detail her experiences in her six months on Beckwith’s staff.
Sheridan said the meeting and subsequent letter centered on Beckwith’s behavior on the Senate floor, and also addressed his use of recording-enabled artificial intelligence-enabled glasses.
At the time, Beckwith had frustrated lawmakers by posting on social media during active floor sessions — something members and presiding officers who are expected to wait until proceedings conclude before commenting publicly considered a breach of decorum.
Sheridan explained that she had been regularly present on the Senate floor during the session to support Beckwith as he adjusted to his presiding duties.
“I couldn’t let this guy go on the Senate floor without somebody representing him and being there for him,” she said. “Somebody had to be in there with experience.”
She said senators later took a vote to allow her to remain during proceedings, on the condition that she not participate.
“They actually put me by all the Democrats, which is hysterical,” Sheridan said. “I didn’t have a formal role. I was there to support Micah and to learn what I could and build relationships. I knew it was a privilege — I wasn’t elected, they were — so I tried not to react or participate.”
She recalled that it was because of her seat near the Democrats that Sen. Greg Taylor, D-Indianapolis, approached her when Beckwith posted on X prematurely about a bill’s passage during debate. Sheridan said Beckwith had posted that the measure had passed before the official vote was concluded — an X post that came during debate over Senate Enrolled Act 289, the anti-DEI bill that would later draw national attention to the Hoosier state when Beckwith defended the legislation by calling the Three-Fifths Compromise “a great move” and continued to double down on that stance in the weeks that followed, prompting widespread backlash.
“He had tweeted that it had succeeded before it had,” Sheridan said. “Sen. Taylor looked at me, and he was like, ‘What is he doing?’”
“Sen. Bray took over. It became a big argument,” she said. “Sen. [Michael] Young [R-Indianapolis] went up there and argued [Beckwith] should be able to do what he wants. But the protocol was — you just didn’t do that.”
At the time, Sheridan said people in the Statehouse had begun to take notice of Beckwith wearing what appeared to be Google-style AI smart glasses — camera-enabled eyewear capable of recording — during meetings and around the Statehouse.
Sheridan recalled that she first realized the glasses were recording when Beckwith showed her a short video of herself that had been captured from the device. She said she confronted him directly, asking whether he had been recording in session and during private meetings, to which he replied, “Don’t you just assume you’re always being recorded?”
Sheridan said she immediately warned a handful of legislators and staff to assume that any meeting with Beckwith could be recorded, because she feared it would irreparably damage their trust in her and in the office she represented.
“I did not want that to be a reflection on me,” she said. “That would destroy my career. To find out they were being recorded was appalling to me. I knew that I couldn’t be part of that administration, [but] I had decided I was going to make it through the session.”
Sheridan said after the meeting in Bray’s office, she raised concerns about the reprimand with other members of Beckwith’s staff, and specifically chief of staff Sherry Ellis, but those were dismissed.
“They wanted nothing to do with it, and they thought it was funny,” she said. “They said, ‘This is their way of bullying us.’ And I said, ‘I don’t have that impression. I feel like this is their way of helping you.’”
Ellis did not respond to The Indiana Citizen’s request for comment.
Former state Sen. Luke Kenley, who served in the Senate for 25 years and chaired the budget-writing Appropriations Committee before retiring in September 2017, said he could not recall another instance of Senate leadership issuing a written reprimand to a lieutenant governor.
Kenley said he believed any tensions were “probably the result of that adjustment period,” but unlike anything he had heard or seen in prior administrations.
“He’s the first person elected lieutenant governor in my memory who hadn’t already served in the Statehouse,” Kenley said. “Most of them came in knowing the legislative process and what the duties of the presiding officer were. Micah came in as an outsider, and I think there was some give and take early on about what his role actually was.”
Sheridan said she viewed the letter as an effort by Senate leadership to maintain professionalism.
“I didn’t consider it a reprimand as much as, let us help you,” she said. “But we want to cover our ass.”
Beckwith, a conservative pastor from Noblesville, is known for his self-proclaimed Christian nationalist views and frequent social media commentary on religion and politics. He rose to prominence through his opposition to COVID-19 restrictions and his criticism of what he called “woke culture” in schools, libraries, and government. Beckwith won the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor in 2024 in a surprise convention upset over Gov. Mike Braun’s preferred running mate, positioning himself as a political outsider unafraid to challenge his own party’s establishment. He has also maintained his post as pastor at Life Church in Noblesville while serving as lieutenant governor.
Sheridan has more than two decades of experience in Indiana state government and served under several Republican administrations. She began her career with state Auditor Connie Nass, later working for Auditors Tim Berry and Dwayne Sawyer, before then-Gov. Mike Pence appointed her interim auditor. When Suzanne Crouch was named to the post, Sheridan stayed on to help with the transition, and eventually became Crouch’s chief of staff when the Evansville Republican was elected lieutenant governor.
Sheridan first met Beckwith through longtime friend and former colleague Rob Kendall, who had once worked for her in the auditor’s office and now co-hosts the Kendall & Casey show on WIBC.
During Sheridan’s October interview on The Kendall & Casey Show on WIBC, co-host Rob Kendall confirmed that he had personally recommended her for the position in Beckwith’s office.
“I highly recommended you for this position,” Kendall told Sheridan on air. “It’s easy to run on being an outsider, but once you’re in the office, it’s not the Wild West. You can’t do whatever you want — you need seasoned professionals around you who know how state government works.”
Sheridan responded that she saw the offer as “an exciting opportunity” and “a challenge,” noting that she didn’t know Beckwith well but wanted to help “get him acclimated.” She described him as “very green about government and governing,” but said she believed she “had a place there” to help guide the new team.
“All of it, it was because of Rob Kendall,” Sheridan said later, crediting him with introducing her to Beckwith and helping connect her after the convention.
That introduction eventually brought Sheridan into Beckwith’s inner circle after his rise to statewide office. Within weeks of being inaugurated, however, tensions began building between the new lieutenant governor and legislative leaders.
Sheridan said she was present when Beckwith received the letter and stepped in to prevent him from reacting impulsively.
“I took it,” she said. “I just said, ‘May I see that?’ and then I put it in my folder so we could leave. He wanted to respond to it right then and there, and I said, ‘I think maybe we need to go back and look this over in a little more detail.’ But he was quick to make clear that his behavior wasn’t going to change.”
Sydney Byerly is a political reporter who grew up in New Albany, Indiana. Before joining The Citizen, Sydney reported news for TheStatehouseFile.com and most recently managed and edited The Corydon Democrat & Clarion News in southern Indiana. She earned her bachelor’s in journalism at Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism (‘Sco Griz!).
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.
