If I should wear sandals with black socks or a striped shirt with plaid pants, some would rightly hold me guilty of a “crime” against fashion. My “crime,” however, would exist well outside any penal code. In that sense, there are occasional schemes designed to diminish our cherished (little “d”) democracy. While such schemes are not so trivial an offense as my (hypothetically) clueless fashion choices, they are generally executed without any violation of a criminal statute. Such was the case in February of 2010 when our democracy in Lake County and state-wide was diminished by schemers with familiar names.
EVAN BAYH
I had voted probably twice for Senator Birch Bayh and (lightly) mourned his eventual loss to Dan Quayle. Then came Evan. I voted for him to become Indiana Secretary of State. I voted for him in the Indiana gubernatorial election. I voted to re-elect him. And I voted for him in two U.S. Senate elections. I was pleased how the son had won back his father’s lost Senate seat. I donated money once or twice. I was on the Christmas card list for a while. Then Evan Bayh defiled the very democracy that had been so generous to him.
Evan Bayh’s Senate seat was on the ballot for the 2010 primary and general election. He was widely expected to file for re-election, and he did, thereby giving notice to all the aspiring Democratic candidates that the seat was taken. With Evan Bayh’s popularity, no sane Democrat would challenge him in the primary, and none did. But Evan had a secret. On February 15, 2010, just hours before the Senate filing deadline he withdrew his candidacy. Given the signature requirements for a Senate candidacy, there was no time for any Democrat interested in a suddenly open Senate seat to file within the few remaining hours.
Did Evan Bayh intend to create electoral chaos by first pretending to run for a third term and then by withdrawing at the worst possible time? No, no, no…chaos was not the intended goal. Rather, the intent was to manipulate the system in order for Evan Bayh to pick his successor, as though the Senate seat were personal property. Evan Bayh supported U.S. Representative Brad Ellsworth as the next Democratic Party nominee. By manipulating the system as he did, Evan Bayh prevented that choice from being made in an open, competitive party preference primary election. When the deadline for filing to run for Senate passed with no Democrat on the list, the selection of the Party’s Senate candidate was handed off to the 32 pols comprising the Democratic State Central Committee, which is a lot less (little “d”) democratic than a meaningful primary.
Other Democrats, including Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott, Jr. and erstwhile Senate candidate Baron Hill, showed interest in being the Party’s Senate nominee but withdrew when it became apparent that the fix was in for Brad Ellsworth.
As instructed, the State Committee selected Brad Ellsworth as the Party nominee for the November general election. Ellsworth lost in November of 2010 to current (retiring) Senator Dan Coates.
This year those of us who have eyes to see and ears with which to hear have been treated to Evan Bayh’s second sabotage of a Democratic primary. Baron Hill (of Columbus?) won the May primary to be the Democratic Party nominee for U.S. Senate in November. But this primary winner won’t be on your November ballot. The unanticipated selection of Governor Mike Pence as Donald Trump’s running mate precipitated a re-shuffling of the electoral deck such that Evan Bayh saw (all the way from the District of Columbia) opportunity back in his occasional home state of Indiana. Baron Hill obliged by withdrawing his candidacy, leaving the choice of the Democratic Senate nominee (once again) to the Democratic State Central Committee which (to no one’s surprise) picked Evan Bayh.
On your November ballot Evan Bayh will face a Republican nominee in the race for U.S. Senate. All I know of the Republican is that he will have my split-ticket vote. To Evan Bayh, I say that you can’t write your own political obituary, as you did in 2010, and then show up again to run for office after (you hope) most of the electorate has forgotten your crime against democracy.
LORENZO ARREDONDO
Lorenzo Arredondo was an appointed judge of the Lake County Court (n/k/a Lake Superior Court County Division) in the latter 1970’s when I first encountered him. Within the next few years Judge Felix Kaul retired from the Lake Circuit Court and gave his political blessing to Lorenzo Arredondo as his successor. There was a multi-candidate primary, and Arredondo succeeded in becoming the Democratic nominee for Judge of the Lake Circuit Court. He won that November and so many times since that I’ve lost count. I can’t recall the last time (after his initial primary win) that Judge Arredondo had a serious challenger in the Democratic Primary.
In early January of 2010 incumbent Circuit Court Judge Lorenzo Arredondo filed his candidacy papers to run once more for that prized judicial seat. Arredondo’s filing was notice to the population of lawyers who are Democrats that there would be no open seat to run for nor anything to be gained by challenging the incumbent. As the February 19th filing deadline approached no other lawyer had made the trip to Indianapolis to file candidacy papers in order to be in the May Democratic Party Primary.
Then came the road trip of infamy. Judge Arredondo and George Paras (then Arredondo’s probate commissioner) motored down to Indy. Within the final hour for filing candidacy papers for Circuit Court Judge, Lorenzo Arredondo withdrew and George Paras filed. Remarkably, they weren’t alone on the road to the Statehouse. Someone had overheard loose lips or someone leaked the secret. A young Alex Dominguez (nephew to Roy) made the trip as well and beat the filing deadline. Alex had practiced around six years, too short a time to win a primary based on the qualification of experience. In order to even make it to the primary, Alex Dominguez had to stave off a lawsuit in which a Schererville resident challenged the technical sufficiency of his candidacy filing. While George Paras was not a party to that failed challenge, it is notable that the Schererville resident was represented by Bob Vann, who was later appointed by Paras (after he won the primary and general elections) to the position of civil magistrate in the Lake Circuit Court.
The rest of the story of Judge Paras¹ is that he lost in the May 2016 primary to a younger, more energetic Marissa McDermott, who is a heavy favorite to win in the November general election and to begin a six-year term on January 1, 2017. The demonstrated vulnerability of George Paras in a genuinely contested primary with a qualified, well-financed opponent is testimony that Paras would probably not have won in 2010 but for the anti-democratic machinations of then-Judge Arredondo. I regarded that road trip of infamy as Arredondo’s self-written political obituary. And it was until he re-emerged this year as a candidate for Attorney General. I cannot cast a ballot in favor of a fellow Democrat who took from me (and from you) the opportunity for a meaningful Democratic party preference primary in 2010. Just as Evan Bayh had done, Judge Arredondo defiled the democratic process by anointing his own successor without the consent of the electorate. He should be too ashamed to run again for elective office, but apparently he is not.
Some Clouds
While I was a supporter of Evan Bayh over his several campaigns, it should be noted that there was a serious challenge to his eligibility for his first term as Governor. The case was State Election Board v. Evan Bayh, 521 N.E.2d 1313 (Ind. 1988) wherein the unanimous SCOTSI held that Evan Bayh was eligible to be Governor despite the following clause of Ind. Const. Art. V § 7 (1851):
“No person shall be eligible to the office of Governor…who shall not have been five years a citizen of the United States and also a resident of the State of Indiana during the five years preceding his election…”
From August of 1978 to January of 1982 (excepting a leave of absence for his father’s 1980 senatorial campaign) Evan was enrolled at the University of Virginia Law School. After receiving his law degree in January of 1982, Evan took and passed the D.C. bar exam then returned to Indiana for a one-year clerkship with a Southern District federal judge. He was admitted to the practice of law in Indiana in August of 1983 though he was then working for a D.C. law firm. Around November of 1984 Evan returned to Indiana from D.C. and worked for his father’s Indianapolis law firm. Evan had been careful to vote in Indiana and to otherwise lay claim to an Indiana “domicile” while studying and working elsewhere. Still, he ran for the office of Governor less than five years from returning to Indiana.
In a unanimous decision that I view as erroneous, the Indiana Supreme Court held that you need not reside in Indiana to be a resident of Indiana.
Once Governor, Evan Bayh presided over the fall from grace of former Lake County Prosecutor Jack Crawford, newly appointed to run the Hoosier Lottery. I will not dredge up the details of Jack Crawford’s scandal except to offer my opinion that a more experienced Governor could have resolved the matter in a manner chastening Crawford without the unnecessary public disgrace.²
As for Judge Arredondo, a blot on his legacy persists in the case of In Re Arredondo, 522 N.E.2d 389 (Ind. 1988). On January 15, 1988 the Indiana Commission on Judicial Qualifications initiated “formal proceedings to inquire” into allegations of misconduct dating to 1979 and 1980 when Arredondo served on the Lake County Court. It was alleged that Judge Arredondo had taken money in exchange for favorable rulings on seven occasions.
In the cited decision the Indiana Supreme Court granted Arredondo’s motion to dismiss on the basis of an odd statutory limitations period applicable to matters of judicial discipline. The SCOTSI held that the limitations provision was valid and that the Commission was a bit more than a year too late in commencing its case. While I applaud the good lawyering in the defense of Judge Arredondo, the result was the avoidance of any judicial fact-finding on these very serious allegations of judicial misconduct. Judge Arredondo was never found guilty of misconduct. Nor was he exonerated.
Sources
Sources for this Article include the cited cases, NWI Times archives, and my independent recollection of events as they occurred.
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¹George Paras has resigned the Circuit Court bench effective October 15, 2016 for undisclosed reasons. An interim temporary judge has been named by the Chief Justice of the SCOTSI.
²To his credit Jack Crawford stayed dead (politically, that is) after he authored his own political obituary with the assistance of Evan Bayh.
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