The news is out today that Democratic gubernatorial candidate, John Gregg, has chosen Representative Christina Hale as his running mate for lieutenant governor. She is a Democrat, representing Indianapolis’s District 87 since 2012. Prior to that, she worked as chief communications officer for Kiwanis International and spent some time as a reporter for the LaPorte Herald during college.
I first became aware of Rep. Hale through her efforts with respect to the under reporting of sex crimes against girls. At the time, Rep. Hale was working with the Criminal Law & Sentencing Study Committee because, as she reported:
[A]ccording to the Center for Disease Control, one in six girls in Indiana has been raped or sexually assaulted. Rep. Hale further indicated that the number is actually higher because crimes are under-reported. According to federal data, Indiana is the second worst state in the nation for rape and sexual assault against high school aged girls.
And, in fact, she has continued her work to combat sex crimes. You can see her legislative initiatives for 2015 and 2016. She has worked with a number of bills involving subjects such as rape, harassment, domestic battery, human trafficking, and underage prostitution.
If a Gregg/Hale ticket is successful, it appears very evident that they will have a more effective relationship with the Indiana General Assembly. While the General Assembly will almost certainly continue to be dominated by Republicans, the fact is that Gregg & Hale have a lot more experience with the legislative process than Pence and Holcomb. I don’t know much about Holcomb. He definitely seems to have his strengths, but it’s pretty easy to argue that Gov. Pence traded down with respect to his ability to navigate the legislature when he ditched former Lt. Governor Sue Ellsperman. Ellsperman was highly regarded and had served in the Indiana House of Representatives. Even so, the Pence administration has often seemed to have trouble communicating effectively with the General Assembly and navigating the legislative process.
John Gregg, of course, was Speaker of the House and, in that capacity, seems to have managed a good working relationship with the Senate Republicans across the hall. Rep. Hale is probably a choice that adds to that strength.
Seems to me to be an excellent choice with Hillary at the top of the ticket.
I have a good feeling about this one. I think Pence is toast.
We can only hope. I advocated for Gregg a lot in the last Gubernatorial and i’ll do so again this time. The guy is sharp, both in mind and mustache.
Education, Communicate and Motivate to VOTE.
It seems like even Republicans in the legislature have repeatedly been left saying, “WTF, dude?” to a number of Pence’s policies and comments. Hopefully that means a low bar for Gregg and Hale.
No fan of Pence. At all.
Yet I always considered him a very gifted politician.
That said, how in heck did he get himself into such a mess? And now his strategy is to double down on the same religious right crackpottery that first got him into trouble?
Doesn’t make sense to me.
He’s chasing the money. Both now and for his future career prospects.
I did a google search of Pence out of curiosity. His bio states that he practiced law before moving into politics, but it does not say where he practiced. I thought he worked in conservative talk radio.
I found a very interesting article from 2008 by Matt Yglesias. His criticism of Pence is withering and spot on, based upon Pence’s utter lack of knowledge regarding investment risk and simple finance principals. Pence was apparently peddling a scheme to partially privatize Social Security by creating private investment accounts with a guaranteed government annuity if the investor’s returns were below market.
Yglesias confronted him with the plan by bringing in the elementary investment (or insurance) concept of moral hazard.
“I said I thought this would create a moral hazard problem for bad investors. He had no idea what I was talking about. Seemed unfamiliar with the term. Then I tried to explain it to him, I said that if the government guaranteed to bail you out in case of losses, then investors would make riskier investments and the number of people who need bailing out would rise. He just flat-out denied this, said the presence or absence of a guaranteed bailout would have no impact on investor behavior. He seemed unaware that some portfolios are riskier than others, or that higher average rates of return are associated with greater risk taking. He didn’t know anything at all, in short, about investing, financial markets, or, seemingly, the basic terms of public policy. And yet there he was speaking on the topic at Heritage. He’s a total fraud.”
Pence was also part of a 2008 financial bailout plan. I cannot determine his role regarding the plan. However, the plan was foolhardy, a Trojan Horse to obtain the Republican dreams of even lower marginal tax rates and deregulation.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2008/09/26/172382/house-bailout/#more-4078
One concept was exceptionally ill-advised.
“There’s also an accounting rule change that’s on the table. It would temporarily change the way holders of securities value their assets on their books: moving from using the asset’s current market value to a value based on what the holders claim the asset will be worth in the future (or alternatively a moving average which includes their value in the past). While looking at the longer-run value of assets can be useful for some purposes, changing the rules right now, in the middle of the crisis, is more likely to deceive or confuse investors than enlighten them–which is the last thing we need.
This would have triggered a short-interest feeding frenzy and a further decline in real asset values. That combined with eliminating taxes on capital gains would have collapsed the capital markets.
But Republicans are the ones that are more trusted with the economy, pollsters routinely find.
So, after a bunch of years in law school and passing the bar, the guy practices law then becomes a radio talk show host. I’ll bet he was some great attorney.
Stuart, that is my thought that he was a failed attorney, or someone that was unsuccessful. If he had worked at a law firm of any note, that experience would be in his bio. In 1986, as in far to many years, the Indiana Bar passage rate was close to 90%. Anyone with a law school degree and a pulse could pass the joke that was the Bar Exam.
I remember that article from 2008 and haven’t seen any evidence from Pence to doubt it’s accuracy.
I think the scary thing about Pence and his ilk are they truly believe God is on their side.
jharp, god had better be in their side, because the laws of fiance are against them.
I did a Westlaw search for Pence from 1986 (when he was admitted to the bar) to 2000 (when he was elected to Congress) in Indiana’s state and federal cases. He shows up in only one matter, as a party, in his individual capacity and in association with a right wing think tank. Certainly, there are other ways to make a living as a lawyer other than litigation, but it remains a mystery. Every bio I have found of him mentions his supposed law practice in a single sentence. He seems to have been tied in to conservative think tanks since he was a young man, but presumably he did something else at some point, but who knows?
John M. Thanks for sharing. A hard day’s work would kill the man.
Just hoping that the next election will be an end to Pence’s anti-government service as a government servant which included his brilliant stint in the House. I suspect that he will somehow land on his feet, continuing to take full advantage of the government he so despises.
Lobbying (or influence peddling) is likely what Pence will end up doing.
The smart move for Democrats would be to send Gregg to the home for over-the-hill politicians and run Hale for Governor.