The milquetoast mainstream Indy media has perpetuated some popular perceptions of Indiana’s governor and Indianapolis’ mayor.
The media has painted new Gov. Mike Pence as an ultraconservative, tea party acolyte who came into office with a conservative social agenda and who will stop at nothing to achieve it.
At the other end is the media painting Mayor Greg Ballard as a non-political, avuncular, people-pleasing mayor; innocent and naïve.
The problem is reality isn’t matching the media fueled portraits.
Since taking office 12 weeks ago, Gov. Pence is doing something I haven’t seen an Indiana governor do since the late Frank O’Bannon. Pence has personally met and spoken with all 150 elected members of the Indiana General Assembly. Not just a passing conservation in a Statehouse hallway, but substantive meetings.
The governor has met with the 116 Republican legislators (some of whom are fighting him on his income tax cut proposal).
More surprisingly to many, and something the media isn’t reporting, is that the governor has met with all 46 Democratic members of the Legislature.
With a GOP supermajority, Pence could have frozen the Democrats out. But even before taking office, Pence reached out to House Minority Leader Scott Pelath and Senate Minority Leader Tim Lenane. And has, I’m told, stayed in touch with them during the session.
Even more surprising is the governor’s attitude toward the 13 African-American and Hispanic legislators; all Democrats.
Before taking office, Gov. Pence personally reached out to Sen. Lonnie Randolph, chair of the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus. Not only has the governor met with Black legislators individually, he’s met with them as a caucus.
Not in his Statehouse office, but Gov. Pence walked up a flight of stairs to meet with the Black Caucus in a legislative meeting room. A sign of respect from one branch of government to another.
And to cap it off, the governor had dinner this week with the Black Caucus. And Pence will be front and center at the annual April 4th commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King’s death and the immortal speech by Sen. Robert Kennedy.
Gov. Mitch Daniels didn’t have this type of one-on-one outreach to Democrats, including Black Democrats during his eight years. And Democratic Govs. Evan Bayh and Joe Kernan did it in a spotty way.
Possibly the governor’s efforts are window dressing. It may not change his conservative views or slow down some of the horrid legislation Republicans are slamming through this legislative session. But at least Gov. Pence is keeping true to the words of his Inaugural Address about being the governor of all Hoosiers. And his open door toward politicians who disagree with him will help in times of crisis.
That brings us to Mayor Ballard. I talked last week with Rep. Cherrish Pyror, D-Indianapolis, who remarked positively at Gov. Pence’s outreach and willingness to meet with Democrats and Black legislators. She then remarked that “I’m Greg Ballard’s state representative and he’s never offered to meet with me.”
Pryor sits on the critical House Ways and Means Committee that has the power of life and death over state fiscal matters. She’s a co-sponsor of the mass transit legislation which Mayor Ballard said on radio last week that he’s personally been the driving force behind.
If that dubious claim is true, then why has the mayor never bothered to speak with the lawmaker who represents his Pike Township neighborhood on mass transit?
The handlers/string pullers/sycophants on Mayor Ballard’s staff think I’ve unfairly portrayed the mayor as less than sympathetic to Black leaders, lawmakers and people. But what I can’t understand is the reasons behind Mayor Ballard’s continued abject dislike, aversion, fear – I don’t know what else to call Ballard’s repeated refusal to interact with or speak directly with his elected official peers who aren’t just of the opposite party but who’re African-American.
Indiana’s conservative governor meets with every Black legislator; including all seven from Indianapolis. Indianapolis’ seemingly pleasant mayor never has! Not in a group or individually.
And, of course, Mayor Ballard disdains meeting with Black City-County Council members.
President Barack Obama has had dinner with some of the very Republicans who’re out to do him in. Gov. Pence meets with Republicans who’re blasting him over his tax plans. But Indianapolis’ mayor won’t meet with anyone who differs with him on issues.
This week we commemorate the positive things that kept Indianapolis from burning after Dr. King’s death 44 years ago. Sen. Kennedy’s important speech helped. But so did the personal meetings Mayor Richard Lugar had with Black leaders from moderates to radicals in the turbulent hours and days after Dr. King’s death.
I hate to say it, but if Greg Ballard had been mayor on April 4, 1968, with the negative attitudes he seemingly shows towards Black politicians and Black leaders, Indianapolis would’ve burned to the ground.
What I’m hearing in the streets
The IPS School Board’s inexperience was displayed last week when an unrealistic timeline for hiring a new superintendent was unveiled.
While the board spends a month asking the community the qualities they’d like to see in a new IPS chief, the board will be accepting resumes. By May 18, the board thinks they’ll be able to announce finalists. Then have them vetted, background checked; naming a new superintendent in June who’d take office July 1.
No way!
Ominously, the board is divided on whether to publicly release the names of finalists for the superintendent’s job and give the community an opportunity to express their views to the board before a final selection is made.
It is now the practice in major school systems to give the public a chance to weigh in on school superintendent finalists. Yet the board is divided on this critical issue of openness and transparency.
Seemingly board members Michael Brown, Samantha Adair-White and Gail Cosby are for transparency. Annie Roof, new silent board sphinx Caitlin Hannon and President Diane Arnold are hedging against transparency. And I don’t know where Sam Odle stands.
And this dysfunctional board has to pick a new superintendent? What a mess.
See ‘ya next week.
You can email comments to Amos Brown at acbrown@aol.com.
