2024 Election Notebook: Deckard announces re-election bid, other county seats open

Appearing for part of the program at Friday’s Canopy of Lights in downtown Bloomington were three local elected officials—Bloomington mayor John Hamilton, and Monroe County commissioners Penny Githens and Julie Thomas.

So the executives in city and county government were represented on stage.

Off stage, holding up the county’s fiscal end of things, were county councilors Jennifer Crossley, Kate Wiltz, and Trent Deckard.

And at the state level, District 61 house representative Dave Hall held the banner for the General Assembly.

That’s probably not an exhaustive list.

All of the elected officials spotted at the event by the B Square were Democrats, except for Hall, who is a Republican.

The partisan presence at Friday’s event was a good reminder that the local 2024 election season is underway, and has been since the summer.

After the switch was flipped on Friday to light up the canopy, Deckard took the occasion to go live on Facebook with an announcement that he would be seeking re-election to his at-large seat on the Monroe County council. He was joined on the broadcast by his wife, Kyla Cox Deckard, and their two daughters, Madeline and Lucy.

In Deckard’s written statement, he says about the Canopy of Lights: “Nights like this give me hope. I still believe that the troubled state of our politics and current events should heed the lessons from a night just like this.” The statement continues, “I still believe that elected officials can and should work together alongside residents.”

Deckard’s announcement did not come as a big surprise—because in early June he filed the paperwork to establish a committee  for his re-election.

But filing committee paperwork does not carry with it an obligation to run for office. And there had been some speculation that Deckard might not seek re-election to the county council, and would instead seek the Democratic Party’s nomination for the District 62 state house seat.

The District 62 seat is the one that Republican Dave Hall won in 2022, in a race against Democrat Penny Githens—by a margin that was thin enough for a recount.

So Deckard’s Friday announcement will likely put to rest the idea that Deckard would run in the Democratic Party’s 2024 primary for District 62 house. If that’s not enough, another candidate for the Dems, Thomas Horrocks, has emerged for the District 62 seat.

On Friday night, Deckard responded to a question from The B Square by saying it wasn’t a hard decision not to run for the District 62 seat.

Deckard said, “I always appreciate seeing Dave [Hall] and I’m so glad that he’s here tonight.” He continued, “For me was a logical choice to serve here on this council.” Deckard added, “I love my job—I get to wake up every single day and do this job. And some days I gripe … and some days I am happy. But on all those days, I’m proud to serve.”

In the 2020 election cycle, the Democrats on the ballot for the three at-large county council seats took all the top spots. The third-place finisher, Geoff McKim, still had a comfortable margin to fourth place—with 28,800 votes to 20,242 for Republican Jim Allen.

But McKim will not be seeking re-election to the Monroe County council. Because he is now a federal employee, he is prevented by the Hatch Act from running as a candidate in a partisan election. McKim became an employee with the National Park Service in early 2022, after previously doing work for the park service as a contractor.

At-large races, like those for county council, require voters to pick up to three candidates. That type of race offers an independent candidate a kind of buffer against straight-ticket voting. That’s because under Indiana state law, a straight-ticket vote for either party will not be tallied for any of the candidates in such a race.

For at-large, pick-up-to-three type races, voters have to choose each candidate manually, in order to make their choices count.

The number of signatures required for an independent to qualify for the ballot depends on the number of people who voted in the most recent Indiana Secretary of State’s race. In 2022, a total of 39,884 Monroe County voters cast a ballot in the Secretary of State’s race. Two-percent of that translates into 798 signatures for an independent to qualify for the ballot as a candidate for Monroe County office in 2024.

Deckard is not the only county councilor to announce already that he is running for office in 2024. In mid-June, county councilor Peter Iversen, who represents District 1, announced that he is running in the Democratic Primary to represent District 2 on the three-member board of county commissioners. That’s the seat in which Democrat Julie Thomas currently serves. The District 3 seat, were Penny Githens serves, is also up for election in 2024.

For Iversen, it is not a choice between running for county commissioner or seeking re-election to the county council. His current county council term for District 1 goes through 2026.

If Iversen were to be elected to the county board of commissioners, then the vacancy left on the county council would be filled through a caucus of the Democratic Party. If he does not prevail in his county commissioner campaign, he would continue to serve on the county council.

Despite having filed their committee paperwork, neither Deckard nor Iversen are yet official candidates for the 2024 primary. Candidates can’t file their official declarations for candidacy until Jan. 10, 2024.  To calculate the earliest date to file, Indiana election law says  the starting point is the date of the primary election. From that date, 188 days have to be subtracted. Subtracting 188 days from May 7, 2024 is Jan. 10, 2024.

In the same way, county treasurer Jessica McClellan  and county auditor Catherine Smith  are not yet official candidates in the 2024 Democratic Party primary—for auditor and treasurer, respectively.

That’s even though they have filed committee paperwork to run for each other’s position. They are both term-limited by the state constitution in their current roles and could wind up trading places. That’s if they were both to declare a candidacy in January, win the Democratic Party primary, and then prevail in the general election in November.

Local candidate filings are posted routinely by Monroe County election division staff on the county’s website. The following link is set up with “2024” as a pre-set search term, which should turn up any 2024 candidate filings that have been posted: 2024 candidate search link.

In the table below, all the incumbents are Democrats.