By Jessica Wray
TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana’s Gov. Mike Pence is leaving the door open on a potential 2016 presidential campaign.

In a conversation Friday with NBC’s Chuck Todd of “The Daily Rundown,” Todd asked if there was a chance voters could see Pence on the ballot for the 2016 presidential race – and Pence didn’t rule it out.

“You know, I haven’t spent one second thinking about anything other than the job that I was hired to do,” Pence said.

But when pressed, he didn’t say he wouldn’t run. As Todd prodded Pence, the governor touted facts about Indiana’s economy without directly addressing his questions.

But Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said it’s unlikely that Pence’s name will crop up as a serious contender for 2016. With only a year into his first term as governor, Sabato said it’s difficult to see Pence giving up the governorship so early to pursue presidential aspirations.

“That’s why I don’t take it seriously,” Sabato said. “I could see him running after two terms as governor. Absolutely. He would be finishing in 2020 and at 6-1/2, 7 years as governor.”

Sabato, who helps create the Center for Politics’ Crystal Ball presidential watch lists, said he hasn’t seen a concrete indication that Pence is ready to make a commitment.

Robert Dion, chair of the political science department at the University of Evansville, said it’s a win-win situation for Pence to dangle the presidential carrot.

“He didn’t slam the door because he doesn’t need to,” Dion said. “He can’t go wrong. This is enormously flattering. If he chooses not to run, he’s still being mentioned as a major presence in the party.”

Dion said the combination of Pence’s unique skill set – he’s comfortable with national media, is a skilled speaker and has experience on Capitol Hill – with current uncertainty within the Republican Party, makes Indiana’s governor a possible GOP champion.

But speculation of Pence’s political ambitions is nothing new, he said.

“He’s setting up very nicely to at least make a strong case for himself,” Dion said. “Whether he ultimately jumps in or not.”

This isn’t the first time in recent years a Hoosier has been under national political scrutiny. Indiana’s former Gov. Mitch Daniels flirted with the presidential spotlight, and rumors he would run on the 2012 ballot – which were already high – soared after his keynote speech at the Conservative Political Action Committee in Washington three years ago. ​

Jessica Wray is a reporter at TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.

By John Sittler
TheStatehouseFile.com     

INDIANAPOLIS – A Senate committee unanimously passed a bill Wednesday that would expand privacy laws to accommodate the increased use of digital technology.

The bill’s author, Rep. Eric Koch, R-Bedford, said the legislature’s challenge is “to define those conditions and circumstances under which the use of certain technologies should be allowed, prohibited or subject to court approval.”

House Bill 1009 requires police to obtain a search warrant before using a phone to track a person’s location or using an unmanned device – such as a drone – to gather information in most situations. It also requires police to get a warrant before they can demand that a person turns over his or her password for a computer, phone or other electronics device.

And it would set new rules for the way private citizens could use surveillance technology.

Steve Key, executive director of the Hoosier State Press Association said he supports the bill because of language that would protect media.

The bill “is a good kind of buffer to make sure that law enforcement is not able to do an end run around the reporter’s privilege that allows newspapers, and radio and TV to protect their sources of information,” Key said.

Key cited a case in Muncie in which law enforcement accessed The Star Press’ phone records in an effort to identify a newspaper source in the police department. The paper only found out its records had been accessed when they were used as evidence during the meeting in which the officer was fired.

The bill says that if a media outlet’s records are subpoenaed, it must be notified so it can appear in court and fight to protect a source.

Steve Gerber, a licensed private investigator, said he supports the goals of the bill but questioned “language that has potential to turn everyday citizens into criminals as an unintended consequence.”

Gerber listed families of people in nursing homes and concerned parents as two groups that could be criminalized for surveillance activities under HB 1009.

“These people are trying to gain information to help keep somebody safe or to somehow prevent problems,” he said.

But Koch said the bill’s language addressed those concerns by specifying that, in order to be illegal, surveillance equipment must be unattended, on private property, without the consent of the owner or tenant.

Sen. Mike Delph, R-Carmel, said he supported the bill because the idea of everyday citizens – in addition to law enforcement – being able to have massive surveillance capabilities seems “kind of Big Brother-ish.”

John Sittler is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.

By Olivia Covington
TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS – Charities would be able to host more lucrative gambling events to raise money for their organizations and communities under a Senate bill heard in the House on Wednesday.

Senate Bill 166 would raise caps on charity gambling events in Indiana.

Sen. Jean Leising, R-Oldenburg, who authored the bill, said both Ohio and Kentucky have already eliminated their charity gambling caps. She said Indiana needs fewer restrictions on its prizes to stay competitive.

Current law allows charitable organizations to host two bingo events each year in which the total prizes do not exceed $10,000. But SB 166 would raise that cap to $30,000.

And the bill would increase total pull tab, punchboard and tip board prizes from $5,000 to $25,000. The individual prizes would be raised from $599 to $15,000.

Leising said charity gambling revenue currently brings in $400 million to the state each year.

But, Leising said, “we are not trying to compete with casinos and racinos.”

Representatives from the American Legion and gaming organizations said they support the bill because they want Indiana to remain competitive in the industry.

Former American Legion Commander Butch Miller said money the organization gets from charitable gaming events is given back to the community through donations to schools or the honor guard. He said the American Legion is preventing local governments from having to provide those funds.

The committee did not vote on the bill.

Olivia Covington is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students. 

By Jessica Wray
TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS – Gov. Mike Pence named two new members Friday to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission.

Angela Weber of Franklin and Carol Stephan of Indianapolis will both begin serving on the commission in early March.

The IURC is a fact-finding body that hears cases brought by customers and utility companies. The organization exists to “ensure the utilities provide adequate and reliable service at reasonable prices.”

Weber currently works for Ice Miller and has previously worked for the Indiana Department of Education and the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office. Stephan has worked for the Indiana Department of Workforce Development, the state attorney general and as general counsel for the state Office of Utility Consumer Counsel.

Both have previously worked for the IURC.

“I extend my utmost appreciation to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission nominating committee for their diligence, integrity and commitment to public transparency throughout this process,” Pence said.

Members of the nominating committee are Chair Gwen Horth, Eric Scroggins, John Blevins, Larry Buell, Win Moses, Michael Evans and Michael Mullett.​

TheStatehouseFile.com

 INDIANAPOLIS – Scott Shepherd tells me the story of how he became a racist – and then how he stopped being one.

At one time, he was a serious, determined and dangerous racist. He was a high-ranking official in the Ku Klux Klan and he ran for

John Krull, publisher, TheStatehouseFile.com

public office in Tennessee twice as a white supremacist. He didn’t win in his campaigns for governor and state representative, but he acknowledges that he did a lot of damage along the way.

Shepherd and I are talking on the radio, along with race relations expert and author Daryl Davis. Davis, a black man, has made a practice of establishing relationships with white supremacists and attempting to lead them away from the path of racial animosity. He’s had success. He’s persuaded more than a few dragons and wizards to renounce their racist ways.

Davis and Shepherd both have interesting stories to tell, but I find myself pitching more of the questions Shepherd’s way.

Maybe it’s because, in these angry, angry times, I want to try to understand what makes someone adopt hate as a lifestyle, a passion, a mission.

When Shepherd tells his story, that story’s pedestrian nature makes it clear how well-trod the path to bigotry is.

He was born in Mississippi in 1959. His hometown – Indianola – was the birthplace of the White Citizens Council, a racist organization dedicated to preserving and promoting segregation.

Integration came to Indianola when Shepherd was in elementary school, but the fuse for his rage already had been lit long before the classrooms were desegregated. He came from a troubled family – one that struggled with alcohol and dysfunction.

When Indianola’s schools were integrated, the white families in the community who had money sent their children to an all-white private school. Shepherd’s family didn’t have money. He went to a public school that was overwhelmingly black.

Every school day was a reminder not just of the changes in the South’s racial politics, but also of just how far down on the social totem pole Shepherd and his family sat. Each day was yet another reason to feel resentment about his life and everything around him.

He drifted to the KKK because the organization meshed with his stored grievances, the well-stoked fires of anger he carried within him. Being part of the Klan made him feel “welcome,” as if he “belonged somewhere,” he says.

He rose in the ranks and worked hard at baiting, belittling and tormenting blacks, Jews, immigrants and just about anyone who wasn’t just like him and his friends.

When Shepherd was running for governor of Tennessee as an avowed racist, he got pulled over while driving under the influence.

He had to go into treatment as a way of avoiding harsher legal penalties. The treatment forced him not just to confront his drinking and substance problems, but other issues, too.

“I learned that the problem wasn’t all the other people I blamed,” he says. “The problem was Scott Shepherd.”

He renounced his racist views and began working to achieve racial reconciliation. When he encounters people he tormented in his earlier days, he tries to make amends.

“I know I’ll never make right what I did, but it’s important to try,” he says.

I ask Davis, who has spent a quarter-century studying white supremacist groups, how common stories like Shepherd’s are – stories that lead to bigotry and hate.

“All too common,” Davis almost sighs.

People veer to racist organizations, he explains, when they are unhappy with their lives and change seems to overwhelm them. They look for people to blame for their misery – people they don’t think are like them.

Both Davis and Shepherd say the key is simple but hard: Getting racists to stop looking at types and get them started seeing people, individual human beings. It’s intensive work and it has to be done on a person-to-person level.

Doing the work that way takes a lot of time, but there’s a good reason to step up the pace.

Membership among the KKK and other hate groups is growing rapidly.

Davis and Shepherd explain at least one of the reasons: There’s a black man in the White House, which has made a lot of already unhappy and angry people even more unhappy and angry.

That makes for a fertile field of racists from which to grow a good crop of racists.

John Krull is director Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism, host of “No Limits” WFYI 90.1 Indianapolis and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.