Commentary: Mike Braun, Curtis Hill, And Unintended Comedy

INDIANAPOLIS – Maybe U.S. Sen. Mike Braun and his fellow Republican, outgoing state Attorney General Curtis Hill, have a plan.

Perhaps their goal is to turn Indiana into the laughingstock of the free world.

If so, Braun and Hill are well on their way to making their dream a reality.

Both men, in different ways, have been supporting actors in President Donald Trump’s attempt to turn the presidential election of 2020 into a surreal farce. Denying both reality and simple mathematics, Braun and Hill have lent support to the president’s petulant contention that he didn’t really lose the election.

It’s hard to tell which of the two Hoosiers had the more absurd moment in propping up Trump’s whiny fantasy.

Let’s consider Braun first.

In defending Trump’s refusal to do what every other president since John Adams has done – act like an adult, acknowledge the results and congratulate the winner – Braun offered this odd justification.

“When you look at how close the election was, basically a tie vote in the popular vote if you take out the margin of difference in California,” Braun said.

Braun was trying to play to conservatives’ longstanding complaint – actually, prejudice – that California somehow isn’t fully American.

Just how excluding California from the United States might benefit Americans, Braun and his fellow deep thinkers never explain.

California, after all, would be the fifth-largest economy in the world if it were a freestanding nation – ranking ahead of India and just behind Germany.

Saying farewell to California also would mean losing the state’s tax revenues. That would not be a good thing for most of America. It certainly wouldn’t be a good thing for Indiana.

For decades, California was a so-called “donor state.” That meant its citizens paid more in federal taxes than they received in federal government services. Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger once complained that Californians only received 78 cents in federal services for every dollar they spent on supporting the U.S. government.

This meant, of course, that California was subsidizing services in other states – such as Indiana – that receive more in federal government support than they pay in federal taxes.

This disparity is not quite what it once was – in large part because of the budget-busting tax cut Republicans pushed through at the beginning of the Trump presidency.

Nonetheless, California ranks 41st on the list of states most dependent on federal government support. Indiana occupies the 8th spot.

If conservatives such as Braun get their way and read California out of the American experience and the United States, we Hoosiers can expect hefty tax increases to compensate for the loss.

And we’ll have guys like Mike Braun to thank for it.

Hill’s contribution to this low-rent tragicomedy was no less ludicrous.

Hill added Indiana to the list of states asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review how mail-in ballots were handled during the just-concluded election.

In 2020 alone, Hill has been suspended from the practice of law for a month by the state disciplinary commission and the Indiana Supreme Court for ethical transgressions and repudiated by his own party when he sought renomination. He is the lamest of lame ducks.

Just why Hill thought the world was waiting for an attorney who had been disciplined by the judicial branch and rejected by his own party to opine on best practices anywhere or on anything is a good question.

Just how Hill thought he had the moral and political standing to do so for this state is an even better one.

But, beyond that, Hill, like Braun, seems not to have thought at all about the implications of what he’s doing.

To weigh in on how other states conduct their elections is to invite other states to do the same with ours.

Doubtless, we Hoosiers will be just thrilled when our neighbors in Illinois start telling us how to police polling places and count ballots.

We can thank departing attorney general for his foresight at that moment.

Until then, let’s encourage Mike Braun and Curtis Hill to take bows.

If they wanted to make themselves and Indiana look foolish, they can rest easy.

Mission accomplished.

FOOTNOTE: John Krull is the director for Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.