Usually, when there are allegations of disenfranchising voters or restricting Hoosiers’ right to vote, it’s Democrats making those allegations against Republicans.
Not this time.
The Marion County Democratic Party, under the leadership of Kate Sweeny Bell, used procedural moves to keep at least two young African-Americans off the ballot and reportedly scared off two more from participating in the upcoming May primary.
You may have seen the media reports about Belinda Drake and Derris Ross. The two wanted to run in City-County Council Districts 13 and 14, respectively. Drake was going to run in the seat being vacated by the disgraced former Council President, and accused child molester, Stephen Clay. While Ross was going to challenge incumbent LaKeisha Jackson, who voted for Clay as part of a coup attempt last year against Maggie Lewis.
However, because neither Drake nor Ross voted in a Democratic primary, they were not allowed to run because Bell would not sign off on paperwork that they were “good” Democrats.
Under the current system, if someone wants to run for office in a primary as a Democrat or Republican, they need to fill out a form stating they belong to either party. This is determined by 1) the political party ballot requested by the candidate at the last primary election in Indiana the candidate voted, or 2) the candidate files a certification from their county chair affirming their membership in that political party. According to state law, the declaration of candidacy for municipal primary nomination (CAN-42) requires the candidate to affirm their party affiliation and attach the certification, if required.
Now please note, Drake is a Democratic precinct committee person who was actually appointed by Bell in 2018. She volunteered for the party and Congressman André Carson. Meanwhile, Ross is as about as progressive as you can get. These are young people that a political party should be happy to have as they have the energy and enthusiasm that’s needed to keep it vibrant.
However, Bell did not see it that way. People close to her say it’s not personal, just merely the county party has not done this in the past.
No offense, but this is one of the most politically idiotic moves a party chairman can make. Even if there were a concern about these two, it would have been easier to let them run, probably lose, and then they would have gone back to whence they came.
Instead, all Bell has done is kick over a hornets’ nest and get a lot of people worked up, and who knows what they will do? Will they stay home, which could hurt Mayor Joe Hogsett’s re-election chances? Ross and Drake are running as independents, and they only need the signatures of a couple of hundred registered voters in their respective districts to get on the ballot. And as you are reading this, they are both working to make that happen. And I am also told that the two other candidates who were scared off the ballot are planning to do the same.
And here is the irony, these guys are reportedly not good Democrats, however, the Democratic Council Members who conspired with Republicans to remove Lewis and install Clay, who by the way, installed members of the GOP as chairman of several committees, all got a pass.
Please tell in what alternate political universe does any of this make sense? I can tell you, none.
On an even bigger scale, I believe this entire matter illustrates how unconstitutional Indiana’s primary system is.
Under Section 9 of the Indiana Constitution (Freedom of Thought and Speech), it says, “ No law shall be passed, restraining the free interchange of thought and opinion, or restricting the right to speak, write, or print, freely, on any subject whatever: but for the abuse of that right, every person shall be responsible.” I read that to say the government can’t force you to think or speak a certain way without a pretty darn good reason, which I haven’t discovered yet.
And by compelling someone, who may have never voted in a primary or if they voted in the other political party’s primary to get permission from a Democrat or Republican County party chairman before they can run for an elected office seems pretty unconstitutional to me based on first glance
Instead of letting these two get ballot access and political nature running its course, instead, things are about to get a lot uglier real fast, real quick.
Usually, it’s Republicans who get the blame for voter suppression and disenfranchisement. Not this time. This time the blame falls squarely on Marion County Democrats and they have no one to blame but their leadership.
(In the interest of full disclosure, I briefly assisted Ross and Drake with their legal fight for ballot access before they decided to withdraw their names from nomination as Democrats.)
Abdul-Hakim Shabazz is an attorney, political commentator and publisher of IndyPolitics.org. You can email comments to him at abdul@indypolitics.org.
