Following up on this July 2022 post concerning former Congressman Steve Buyer being charged with insider trading, former Congressman Buyer has now been sentenced to 22 months in prison for those charges. Buyer left office, ostensibly because of family health issues, but hot on the heels of reports of sketchy financial practices having to do with his “Frontier Foundation.” The organization was nominally in place for student scholarships but seemed to raise a lot of money from lobbyists and spend a lot of money on the Buyer family.

According to an SEC press release when the charges were brought:

After Congress, Buyer went to work as a lobbyist. He obtained inside information that T-Mobile planned to acquire Sprint. In 2018, he bought a bunch of Sprint stock and spread it around “his own personal accounts, a joint account with his cousin, and an acquaintance’s account.” When the news became public, he sold and netted $107,000. Similarly, in 2019, he obtained inside information that Navigant Consulting would be acquired by Guidehouse LLP, bought a bunch of Navigant stock and spread it around “his own accounts, joint accounts with his wife and son, his wife’s personal account, and the same acquaintance’s account involved in the Sprint trading.” When the news became public, he sold and netted $227,000.

The AP report on his sentencing relates that the judge in the case said Buyer’s conviction by a jury in March was not a close call because the evidence against him “screams guilty.” The AP also reports:

Prior to being sentenced, Buyer, who is from Noblesville, Indiana, told the judge he should visit Indiana, where someone buying a dozen ears of corn for $6 off the back of an unmanned trailer might put the money in a container that already has $300 in it without worrying that anybody will snatch the cash.

“It’s an honor system. It’s how we live. It’s how I’ve lived my life,” he said.

I don’t know how to respond to that. I have, in fact, visited Indiana. And, being a Hoosier, I know that stashing three hundred bucks in legal corn money without sweating it too much has fuck all to do with pulling in $300,000 in ill-gotten, illegal, insider trades. And, furthermore, maybe a guy who made money that way doesn’t have the best grasp on the concept of an “honor system.” Honestly, I’m probably more irritated about him dragging Indiana into this conversation and trying to sell some cornball story about his honor than about his skimming off the stock market.

You might remember Indiana Fourth District Congressman, Steve Buyer of Monticello, from the Frontier Foundation campaign finance scandal. It was a foundation that shared a mailing address with Buyer’s campaign office and employed his daughter but with which he said he had no special connection. Ostensibly a scholarship organization, the foundation took money from the likes of AmGen and didn’t give out much in the way of scholarships. It paid staff and organized fundraising trips at high end golf courses. Buyer retired shortly after that scandal under a cloud.

He’s back in the news with a filing from the Security and Exchange Commission. According to the SEC press release, after Congress, Buyer went to work as a lobbyist. He obtained inside information that T-Mobile planned to acquire Sprint. In 2018, he bought a bunch of Sprint stock and spread it around “his own personal accounts, a joint account with his cousin, and an acquaintance’s account.” When the news became public, he sold and netted $107,000. Similarly, in 2019, he obtained inside information that Navigant Consulting would be acquired by Guidehouse LLP, bought a bunch of Navigant stock and spread it around “his own accounts, joint accounts with his wife and son, his wife’s personal account, and the same acquaintance’s account involved in the Sprint trading.” When the news became public, he sold and netted $227,000.

Again, this is per an SEC press release. I don’t pretend to have any particular knowledge. If true, I guess it beats working for a living.

Dave Bangert has a column in the Lafayette Journal & Courier about an exchange between Congressman Todd Rokita and a constituent that speaks to a bigger problem with political discourse.

A constituent asked him about the government’s role in regulating firearms. Rokita says, apparently, that government has no such role, “See, that’s why you’ll never be able to communicate with me this way, because you have a fundamental different perspective on who gives someone the rights found in our Constitution.” The facile reasoning here being that because God gave us the Second Amendment or the right to bear arms, Congress has no role in regulating such rights. It immediately falls apart if, say, Congressman Rokita recognizes a role for Congress in regulating the broadcast spectrum through the FCC or otherwise despite our “God given” right to free speech.

This is a variation of “‘Shut up,’ he explained.”

I’ve taken the unpopular view that when someone speaks of “natural” rights (God-given or otherwise), from Thomas Jefferson up to and including Congressman Rokita, it suggests that the individual is appealing to authority either to foreclose further discussion or because the proponent’s claim to a right is on less stable ground than he or she would like to acknowledge. For example, in 2010 on the subject of god-given gun rights, I wrote:

I’m not really sure what a “god given right” might be. Those strike me as less enforceable than those rights protected by government force.

But, in any event, I’d argue that your right to protect yourself and your family doesn’t extend to putting me and my family in danger. So, if you start blasting away when you feel threatened, the corollary would be that I have a right to set you on fire or otherwise subject you to physical harm until I feel like I’m safe.

And then we’re back to a state of nature, with man in a war of all against all where life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

Without government, there are no rights, just a Hobbesian war of all-against-all with individuals being able to bring greater or lesser levels of force to bear, protecting or obtaining what they want.

But, that’s straying a bit far afield for the incident noted by Mr. Bangert. What’s really going on in this particular case is that there is no real upside to Congressman Rokita in discussing the issue. Wavering on gun rights might prompt a primary challenge which, in his District, is the only real electoral concern he has. Foreclosing further conversation on gun rights in the name of God carries no political downside for him.

The Journal & Courier is probably the best place to go for information about the extremely crowded ballot for Indiana’s Fourth Congressional District. Steve Buyer decided to step down, leaving an open seat. This started a run to fill it. The Journal & Courier asked the candidates about federal education spending.

On the Democratic side, Tara Nelson suggested that the federal government should be available to shore up shortfalls locally, particularly ensuring things like language, arts, music and sports as well as providing for four year community colleges for middle and lower income families. David Sanders recommended more equitable funding, eliminating unfunded mandates and giving local control to the schools. Federal loans should improve affordability and reliance on standardized tests should be reduced.

On the Republican side, Jon Acton says stakeholders should be “held accountable for future success.” He is also against unfunded mandates, and thinks communities that desire local control should not be punished.

I didn’t really understand Cheryl Denise Allen’s response, but here it is: “I am pleased with the grant programs issued by the government. Any student that needs money is provided for through this program. Some funds similar to these are initiated through K-12. Maybe make tuition programs for the lower grades might be a possibility.”

Jim Hass wants school boards to set standards for themselves, wants parents to set standards for their children, and wants children to govern their own behavior. He thinks the federal government should encourage efforts in math and science and thinks that experimentation should be allowed by lower levels of government.

Brandt Hershman says that, for the most part, he wants state and local government rather than the federal government setting standards for education. (That’s pretty much the status quo, right?)

Todd Rokita’s answer started off pretty boilerplate then got a little garbled: ” I support expanding the affordability of higher education, simplifying the financial aid system and undoing the government takeover of student loans to increase access to financial aid.” The federal government made changes to the federal student loan program. Not sure how the federal government can “take over” its own program. There are efforts afoot to cut out the middle man for federally guaranteed loans. So, the most charitable I can be is to conclude that Secretary of State Rokita doesn’t understand the issue terribly well.

Mark Seitz says that federal funding should be used to support K-12 education but money accepted comes with a requirement that certain standards should be met.

PJ Steffens & Eric Wathen want to get rid of the Department of Education and unfunded mandates.

Daniel Dunham, Charlie Henderson, and Mike Young think the federal government has no business doing anything with education. Henderson supports “states rights.” (Follow up for Mr. Henderson or any states’ rights purist: does the sanctity of states rights extend to drug legalization?)

May 4, 2010 primary:

Jon Acton (twitter) – According to his website, he’s a member of the Brownsburg School Board, has been a U.S. Government teacher at Avon and Edgewood, an assistant principal at Speedway and Edgewood, and head football coach at Avon and Edgewood. He is campaigning as Everyman.

Cheryl Denise Allen – I haven’t found much information on her yet. She’s from Martinsville, and I believe she’s an artist. But Google wasn’t turning up a web page.

Mike Campbell – I wasn’t immediately able to find information online I was confident had to do with this person.

Daniel Dunham – He’s from Mooresville. (And there is a guy with the same name from Idaho who is apparently very active on right wing Internet sites.)

Jim Hass – Again, nothing online that I could find. (This post isn’t turning out to be anywhere near as informative as I had hoped.)

Charlie Henderson – Mayor of Greenwood and former police chief. He is also, I believe, the uncle to state senator Brent Waltz. The mayor of the Indianapolis suburb wants to be “a voice of small town America.”

Brandt Hershman – He is a state senator and manager of Hershman Farms and was District Operations Director for Representative Steve Buyer since 1992. He also apparently worked at the White House from 1989-1991. He has to be counted as one of the top prospects for this seat.

LaRon “Formerly known as firefighter?” Keith – He looks to be a perennial type candidate, challenging Buyer last cycle when he couldn’t get the signatures needed to run for governor.

Todd Rokita – Our current Secretary of State. He’s a big name in this race. The knock against him seems to be that he’s in office for the sake of being in office – looking to the next big thing. (My big knock against him was that “faith-based voter fraud” warning paid for on the public dime where he made sure you knew his name and made sure to talk about “The Lord” in case you didn’t know he was a Christian.)

Mark Seitz – Mr. Seitz is pro-“Common Sense” (which, to me, always sounds like anti-“fancy book learnin.”) Looks like he’s been a Bloomington restaurateur, stock broker, mortgage industry service provider, and now works out of Greenwood where he “manages services that provide continuous emergency power to municipalities.” Stock market and mortgage industry? Not saying that Mr. Seitz had anything to do with it, but that’s like a who’s who of how our economy got wrecked over the past decade. He’s a Lambda Chi Alpha. I don’t have anything particular against them.

PJ Steffen – I don’t have any information on him. Mr. Steffen was kind enough to send me a link to his web page. He lives in the Avon area of Hendricks County and currently works for Rolls-Royce as an Assistant Chief Engineer and Manager in the Future Programs group. He describes himself as a social and fiscal conservative who believes the role of government should be limited. (This raises an interesting point in my mind. Typically, it seems to me, fiscal conservatives are intent on limiting the role of government whereas social conservatives often seem to envision a more active role for government in promulgating their vision of the proper morality.)

Eric Wathen (twitter) – A 6th generation Hoosier out of Brownsburg. (6th generation is something – I’m 5th generation, and that ancestor got to Indy in about 1850 or thereabouts) and another Lambda Chi. He is a civil engineer with a degree from Rose-Hulman and a Hendricks County Commissioner. Not bad for a 35 year old. He might be a dark horse to keep an eye on. He describes himself as “very conservative” and is also a fan of “common sense.”

Mike Young – A state senator out of Indianapolis. Among many other things he’s done as a state senator, one that jumped out at me is that he has proposed that the state government form a committee to study the “principles of firearms freedom.” Specifically “Firearms, firearm accessories, and ammunition that are manufactured in Indiana from basic materials without the inclusion of any significant parts imported from another state and are retained in Indiana should not be subject to federal law or federal regulation.” That’s a two-fer, states’ rights and guns. Bravo, sir, bravo! Of course, forming a government committee on the subject erodes the “small government” side of the ledger.

RTV 6 is reporting (and I saw it from Abdul first) that Rep. Steve Buyer (R IN-04) will not seek re-election. He cites the health of his wife as the reason for his retirement. I have not had any love for Rep. Buyer’s representation of my district, but regardless, I hope his family’s health situation, whatever it is, improves. In fact, I hope it’s just one of those things politicians say when their real reasons are less sympathetic. Family illness is just one of those devastating things. (I’ll even avoid, for the moment, my inclination to veer off into a discussion of how important access to adequate health care is.)

Rep. Buyer was under fire recently for his non-charity, the Frontier Foundation, which had not been providing scholarship money but been taking in money from corporate donors with business before Congressman Buyer’s committees; usually through a golf outing at nice places. But, unless there are some more spectacular skeletons in the closet, I kind of doubt that added a whole lot to his decision to step down. He is in a very safe Republican district and, with no real primary challengers, has been largely unaccountable for his performance as a Congressman.

I would now expect a lot of Republican interest in the seat. I expect the chances of a Democratic pick up to be very slim but chances of an improvement in the quality of representation for the District as very good.

But, again, even though my differences with Mr. Buyer’s politics couldn’t be more profound, I hope he and his family regain their health and live long and happy lives.

(The Indianapolis Star has the story now as well.

Maureen Groppe, reporting for the Indianapolis Star, has an article on a complaint to the IRS from the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). CREW wants the IRS “to investigate whether the foundation violated federal tax law by “failing to operate for its stated public purpose of helping needy students and by doing little more than paying for the congressman to play golf with donors with interests before his committee.”” (More on Buyer and the Frontier Foundation.)

CREW has also asked the Office of Congressional Ethics “to review whether Buyer violated ethics rules “by abusing a charity for private purposes and by trading legislative assistance for donations to the charity and a job for his son.””

Buyer created the Frontier foundation in 2003 for the stated purposed of handing out scholarships once the fund reached $100,000. The foundation has raised more than $880,000 — primarily from companies and trade organizations with an interest in the House Energy and Commerce Committee, on which Buyer serves.

The foundation hasn’t awarded any scholarships, which Buyer has said is because the foundation later decided it needed at least $1 million to be self-sustaining. The foundation has paid for fundraising golf outings at luxury locales.

(Buyer has offered the defense that these golf outings “weren’t fun” for him.)

CREW press release and links here.

My favorite Buyer video here:

Update TPM Muckraker’s Justin Elliott continues his excellent coverage of this matter.