Progressive Indiana Network Special Events

https://progressiveindiana.net

https://www.blythepotter.com/

SUMMARY:

In this PIN Virtual Town Hall, Brianna - The Recovered Republican - hosts Blythe Potter, Democratic candidate for Indiana Secretary of State. Potter — an Army veteran, small business owner, and mother from Johnson County — makes the case that the Secretary of State’s office should be a boring, customer-service-oriented administrative job, and that she has the organizational and marketing background to fix it. The conversation ranges across voter accessibility, website modernization, transparency, office culture, digital disinformation, and election security, with Potter consistently returning to three themes: proactive voter outreach through a comprehensive statewide ballot book, citizen-led ballot initiatives as the mechanism for expanding voting options, and restoring basic accountability to an office she says has been hollowed out by Diego Morales’s nepotism and cronyism. Viewer questions from touched on auto-mail ballots, an Indiana Office of Digital Integrity, reallocation of overpaid political hires, and the obstacles Potter has faced from party insiders during the primary.

Progressive Indiana Network is subscriber-supported independent media. To help us continue doing this work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

IN DEPTH:

0:00:22 - Introductions

- Brianna Indiana opens the town hall under her “Recovered Republican” banner, framing the evening around transparency, accountability, and substance over soundbites.

- Potter introduces herself as a mom, Army veteran, and small business owner — and argues that the Secretary of State’s office should fundamentally be a boring administrative job focused on maintaining systems, securing data, and serving the public.

- She draws on 30 years in customer service and 20 years of administrative work, and flags two core problems she wants to fix: Hoosiers who show up to vote without knowing what’s on their ballot, and the broken INBiz website that she and her own business partner struggled to navigate.

- Her pitch in brief: if you want people to know about elections, you market them — and as a small business owner, that’s exactly what she does every day.

0:04:20 - Q: What concrete steps would you take in the first year to make voting easier and more accessible?

- Potter’s centerpiece proposal is a comprehensive statewide ballot book — mailed opt-in to registered voters, available online, in Braille, and in multiple languages — that goes well beyond the current website’s bare office/name/party listing.

- She would start by adding public feedback boxes to all Secretary of State websites (including INBiz) to let end users identify what’s broken, rather than imposing top-down fixes.

- Roughly 10% of Indiana’s population — over 600,000 residents — lacks internet access, so physical mail distribution is essential, not optional.

- Funding mechanisms include HAVA grants and existing budget reallocation; the goal is to make election information so ubiquitous that voters would have to “intentionally ignore” it.

0:07:58 - Q: What specific transparency measures would you implement to end no-bid contracts and restore accountability?

- Potter would open the office with an independent audit, release the results publicly in real time, and use the findings to establish a baseline for reform.

- All contracts would be publicly posted before bidding, with unions and small businesses specifically notified so they have a real shot at winning work — keeping money in local economies.

- She frames transparency as a cultural posture, not just a procedural one: politicians should own their mistakes publicly the same way she tries to as a candidate.

- The Secretary of State’s office is inherently nonpartisan in function — no hot-button policy decisions — which makes it, in her view, the ideal place to model what responsive, ethical government looks like.

0:10:09 - Q: What new supports or resources would you provide to county clerks?

- Every county has different needs; Potter would start by visiting and listening before prescribing solutions.

- HAVA grants — which she says stopped flowing to counties like Morgan and Monroe under Diego Morales — would be restored to fund voter education, poll workers, and equipment.

- She would ensure all Secretary of State staff are certified notaries to prevent the kind of filing paperwork failures the office has already experienced, and would push county clerks’ offices to maintain notaries on staff as well.

0:11:39 - Q: What would you do to make elections safer?

- Potter notes that “election security” means different things to different voters — some fear voter intimidation (including ICE presence at polls), others worry about vote-counting integrity — and that the office should speak to both concerns.

- Her primary prescription is transparency through education: live demonstrations of how voting machines work, YouTube videos, and clear explainers on the bipartisan inspector system already in place at every polling site.

- By and large, Indiana elections are safe — the problem is a lack of public understanding, which creates a noise environment that bad-faith actors exploit.

0:13:28 - Q (viewer): Diego Morales hired family members. How should the hiring process work in your office?

- No family members, period — and no cronyism either. All open positions would be publicly posted.

- She would retain long-serving career staff who do good work and aren’t responsible for Morales’s decisions; they deserve credit for doing their jobs under difficult circumstances.

- Hiring decisions would incorporate public feedback on what qualities people want to see in office staff.

0:14:52 - Q (viewer): What steps would you take to increase civic engagement for working families, seniors, and young voters in communities like Johnson County?

- The ballot book addresses all of these groups: comprehensive, accessible, optionally mailed — and would include civics basics like how to become a precinct chair, what a township trustee does, and how to run for office.

- For seniors and homebound voters, Potter supports opt-in permanent absentee ballot enrollment — once you opt in, you receive a ballot every election without re-applying — and would publicize travel board options for those who want in-person assistance.

- She flags the shift from neighborhood polling locations to consolidated vote centers as a specific barrier for voters without cars, and says county-level needs must be assessed individually.

- Johnson County lacks adequately handicap-accessible polling locations — a concrete local example of gaps the office should identify and address.

0:18:08 - Q (viewer): What are your plans for the work environment inside the Secretary of State’s office?

- Potter would begin with an internal listening tour — asking current staff about culture, morale, and unmet needs before making changes.

- She would review and update the employee handbook, which she suspects is outdated, and clear out anyone who’s incompatible or checked out.

- Requiring all office staff to be certified notaries would eliminate a specific operational vulnerability that caused problems with filing paperwork under the current administration.

- The goal is a nonpartisan, impartial, psychologically safe workplace — because politics can be uncomfortable, and staff need to be able to do their jobs without pressure.

0:20:06 - Q: Tell us more about the proposed statewide voter guidebook — what’s in it and how does it reach every Hoosier?

- Beyond candidate listings, the book would include party platforms, how to become a precinct chair or delegate, what a township trustee does, how to file as an independent candidate, and county party contact information for all parties.

- Candidates would have space for a brief (roughly 500-700 character) nonpartisan self-description, a website link, and social media handles — and any candidate who refuses to fill it out gets “candidate chose not to respond,” which Potter says speaks for itself.

- This levels the playing field: Republican candidates in her local races never answered League of Women Voters questionnaires or updated Ballotpedia, but would now have a standardized, publicly visible profile.

- Distribution would combine physical mail, digital access, and ADA-compliant formats, drawing on late-’90s-era websites that desperately need modernization.

0:23:32 - Q: How has your military service in Iraq shaped your leadership style?

- Potter served as a .249 and .50-cal gunner, lead truck driver, and night watch — not just a personal security role — which entailed real accountability for weapons, equipment, and her team.

- She is clear that she does not believe the U.S. should have been in Iraq, is opposed to the ongoing support for military action in Gaza and Palestine, and opposes war broadly.

- Her early leadership style mirrored the authoritarian “do as I say” model she experienced in a Republican household and in the military — she’s candid that it wasn’t kind.

- Over time, she’s moved toward nonviolent communication and consensus-building: she believes a leader is only as strong as the least-informed member of their team, and actively develops cross-functional knowledge in the people she manages.

0:26:23 - Q (viewer): In deep-red counties, people think Democrats are crazy before we open our mouths. What message works best for rebuilding trust?

- Potter’s advice is to lead with curiosity rather than persuasion: ask people what they’re worried about, because the underlying concerns — costs, safety, quality of life — are usually shared across party lines.

- She acknowledges that Democrats have earned some distrust through federal-level failures, and that the party genuinely needs to change how it campaigns and governs.

- When conversations turn hostile, she recommends a polite exit rather than escalation; the goal is consistency and continued presence, not winning every argument.

0:29:46 - Q (viewer): Should we automatically mail ballots to voters?

- Potter supports permanent opt-in absentee enrollment rather than requiring a new request each election cycle — she would not mandate universal mail ballots without putting it to voters first.

- Her preferred mechanism is a citizen-led ballot initiative: let Hoosiers vote on whether to adopt automatic mail ballots, as other states have, so no single party takes the blame or credit.

- She believes broader mail voting would increase turnout — the 2020 numbers support this — though she acknowledges it’s not universally popular.

0:30:59 - Q (viewer): How would you protect Hoosiers from AI-generated disinformation and digital manipulation while protecting free speech and privacy?

- Social media manipulation is largely outside the Secretary of State’s direct authority, but Potter would build fact-checking infrastructure into the office’s websites — linking to resources like Snopes and potentially creating an Indiana-specific portal where residents can flag suspected disinformation.

- She is alarmed by Diego Morales’s decision to hand voter data — including Social Security and driver’s license information — to the Department of Justice, and would work to stop the state’s practice of selling Hoosier data, currently generating $12 million or more annually.

- She would seek a corporate partner to provide data-breach protection to Hoosiers whose information was exposed through DOGE-related data sharing.

- Kory’s broader proposal for a formal Indiana Office of Digital Integrity is intriguing to Potter, but she wants a public comment process before committing to its scope and structure.

0:33:54 - Q (viewer): People supporting your opponent claim you lack bipartisan appeal. What do you say?

- Potter pushes back directly: she grew up in a Republican home in a rural red area, still lives in one, and understands viscerally what it means to distrust Democrats.

- The real trust deficit, she argues, is Democrats taking corporate money and then voting like Republicans once elected — her platform has nothing inherently partisan in it and invites public input.

- She believes her strongest untapped constituency is non-voters — the largest single “voting bloc” — who are more likely to respond to authenticity and accessibility than to a famous last name.

0:35:31 - Q (viewer): What level of customer service do Hoosiers deserve, and how will you deliver it?

- The office should function like any responsive service organization: feedback forms, timely responses, and a chain of accountability when county clerks do something wrong.

- She is frustrated that constituents have spent a year and a half calling and emailing elected officials with no response; her office would not operate that way.

- Better website infrastructure is itself a customer service intervention — most questions should be answerable without ever contacting a human.

0:37:12 - Q: What do you say to people with concerns about your Republican upbringing?

- Potter is open about her past: she grew up without internet or cell phones, and her worldview was shaped entirely by family, friends, and church — all Republican-leaning.

- Her political shift began when she returned from Iraq in 2006 and had 90 days to find her own health insurance — the moment she realized she had been living off the government as a soldier while simultaneously believing people shouldn’t.

- She describes her political evolution as ongoing: the older she gets, the more progressive she gets, and she finds her personal journey of deprogramming useful for understanding where persuadable voters currently are.

0:39:18 - Q (viewer): How would your office improve communication and transparency with everyday residents?

- All contract bids and job openings would be publicly posted; local papers would be proactively notified; and the office would hold public forums during major procurement decisions.

- When the office makes a mistake — which it will — Potter commits to owning it publicly and correcting course rather than covering it up.

- More town halls and public engagement from the Secretary of State’s office itself would be a structural shift from the current culture of silence.

0:40:36 - Q (viewer): Should there be an Indiana Office of Digital Integrity connected to the Secretary of State?

- Potter finds the concept genuinely compelling — a Snopes-style clearinghouse for Indiana political information — but wants public input before committing to its design.

- She’s clear about the limits of her expertise here: implementing something like this is outside her wheelhouse, and she’d need to convene a dedicated conversation with Kory and others who understand the technical and legal dimensions.

- Voting machines in Indiana are not connected to the internet, but the broader question of digital integrity in elections is real and deserves serious institutional attention.

0:41:17 - Q: What does “restoring honor to the office” mean in practical terms?

- It means doing the job: managing the budget responsibly, not billing taxpayers for personal cars or travel, and making ethical decisions consistently.

- Potter directly contrasts this with what she describes as the Republican pattern of using public office for personal enrichment.

- On Kory’s specific question about election machine security: the machines in most Indiana counties are air-gapped from the internet, though they communicate with each other locally; more public education on this process would reduce unfounded fears.

0:43:01 - Q (viewer): What are your views on Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, and the rise of Islamophobia?

- Potter states flatly that she believes what is happening in Gaza is a genocide, and that she is anti-war — a position she holds as an Army veteran.

- She defines human rights as non-negotiable regardless of geography: safe food, water, air, shelter, education, health care, environment, and government.

- The partisan framing of human rights, she says, is ultimately about money and power — and she would love to see a world where these basics are not up for partisan debate.

0:44:04 - Q (viewer follow-up): Would you formally support creating an Indiana Office of Digital Integrity at the state and federal level?

- At the state level, yes in concept — she’d want a public comment process to define scope and function.

- At the federal level, the Secretary of State’s jurisdiction doesn’t reach that far; she encourages a separate dedicated conversation with Kory on the details.

0:46:11 - Q (viewer): If you remove Diego Morales’s overpaid family members, how would you reallocate those funds?

- All staff should earn a living wage — she’s not proposing across-the-board salary cuts.

- But the money currently going to Morales’s brother-in-law at hundreds of thousands of dollars a year should be redirected to website upgrades, ballot book production, and county clerk resources.

- The full picture of where money has been going will only be clear after the independent audit she plans to conduct on entering office.

0:47:23 - Q: What do you say to people who claim you can’t fundraise sufficiently to win in November?

- She says “yes I can” — and argues there is nothing her campaign lacks that her opponent has: better website, better platform, better social media, better responsiveness, better ground game.

- The deeper point is structural: if $3 million is the price of entry for a competitive general election, the Democratic Party will eventually run out of candidates — it needs a model that grassroots-funded campaigns can replicate.

- Potter’s campaign has been using grassroots analytics tools for some time, a fact underscored by her opponent recently adopting the same approach.

- She draws on her involvement with the Indiana Rural Summit and relationships with organizers in Virginia and Philadelphia who have successfully engaged rural communities — an organizing model she is actively replicating across all 92 Indiana counties.

0:50:38 - Q: What do you think about top Republicans calling for Diego Morales to suspend his campaign?

- Too little, too late. Potter is blunt: Republicans nominated and protected Morales despite his illegal voting, his firing from the office, and a sexual assault allegation — they are all complicit.

- She doesn’t care who the Republican nominee ends up being; every candidate in that party is, in her view, part of the same system that produced the current mess.

- She does see political opportunity in Morales’s collapse: Republican voters who are disgusted with politics as usual are potential Potter supporters, because she’s an outsider running explicitly against cronyism in both parties.

0:52:18 - Q: What are your thoughts on party leaders donating to their preferred primary candidates?

- Potter sees the tension: Democrats are voters too and have every right to support their preferred candidates.

- But she describes a pattern in this race that goes beyond legitimate preference — county party chairs who won’t tell her when their meetings are, chairs who told her not to bother visiting because they “only have six delegates,” and media interviews that got killed.

- Her ask is simple: the Democratic Party should follow its own bylaws and treat all candidates fairly, regardless of insider preference.

0:54:00 - Q (viewer): Could Indiana adopt open or jungle primaries at the county level or below, given how many Democrats have to pull Republican ballots just to have a say?

- Potter agrees this is a real problem — she’s seen it firsthand in Johnson County, where entire towns have historically had zero Democrats on the ballot.

- Her answer is citizen-led ballot initiatives: work with the legislature to put the question directly to Hoosier voters rather than imposing it top-down.

- She supports jungle primaries in principle and notes that ballot books in states that use them include detailed, sourced breakdowns of every referendum — pros and cons with citations — so voters can make genuinely informed decisions.

- She is enthusiastic about open primaries but wants to preserve the ability to participate in one’s party of choice without being required to register or pay dues — a tension she acknowledges hasn’t been fully resolved.

0:58:12 - Final question: Is there anything you want voters to know that we haven’t covered?

- Be objective: look at both candidates, and don’t believe the claim that you need a name or money to win — a name can be built, and her campaign is proving it.

- The Secretary of State is a four-year office; voters should be thinking about sustainability, not just the moment.

- Her platform: party-building, restoring integrity to Indiana elections, and making voting easier.

- She is an open book — cell phone, email, and DMs all publicly available at blythepotter.com — and she asks voters to come to her directly before sharing rumors, because misinformation about her campaign is circulating daily.

Thanks to Blythe for taking the time to meet voters where they are. For more information and to get involved, visit her campaign website at https://blythepotter.com.

Progressive Indiana Network is subscriber-supported independent media. To help us continue doing this work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Recorded 4/25/2026. In this episode of The Recovered Republican, Brianna sits down with David J. Ziemba — an organizer, legal expert, and longtime force within the Indiana Democratic Party. Together, they dig into Ziemba’s background and the wide‑ranging experience that’s made him a go‑to multitool for campaigns, candidates, and community coalitions across the state.

The conversation breaks down the wins and losses from Indiana’s 2026 legislative session, highlighting what moved, what stalled, and what those outcomes mean for Hoosiers. Ziemba also walks through key legal and political cases to watch in the months ahead, along with the important dates that every engaged voter should have on their radar.

It’s a grounded, insightful look at how democracy actually works in Indiana — and what it takes to keep pushing it forward.

This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

https://progressiveindiana.net

https://timpeckforcongress.com/

SUMMARY:

With Indiana’s May 5th primary two days out, the Progressive Indiana Network hosted its final virtual town hall of the primary season, featuring Dr. Tim Peck, emergency physician and Democratic candidate for Indiana’s 9th Congressional District. Peck, who lost the 2024 general election to Republican incumbent Erin Houchin, is making his second run for the seat covering Indiana’s 18 southeastern counties. Over the course of the hour, Peck made the case for a grassroots, no-corporate-PAC campaign rooted in his medical experience, discussing healthcare affordability, the Supreme Court, AI and data centers, the Fifth Circuit’s mifepristone ruling, bipartisan dealmaking, and his evolving view of corporations — closing with a pitch for why this cycle is different from 2024 and how viewers can join his movement before Tuesday.

Progressive Indiana Network is subscriber-supported independent media. To help us continue doing this work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

IN DEPTH:

00:00:21 Opening Remarks

- Scott introduces the show as PIN’s final virtual town hall of the primary season, two days before the May 5th primary

- Peck thanks Scott for the work PIN does to bring educated voters to the polls and introduces himself as an emergency physician living on a farm in Clark County, across the river from Louisville

- Peck frames his campaign around a door-knocking encounter: a constituent who told him “it costs too much to go to work,” citing gas, credit card interest, housing, childcare, student debt, and healthcare premiums

- Peck notes that only six of IN-9’s 18 counties can deliver babies, calling the district a microcosm of rural healthcare collapse

- Peck says he has sworn off all corporate PAC money and has built a movement of 1,000 volunteers who have knocked over 10,000 doors

00:06:02 Viewer Question (Sarah, web form): Will you accept corporate PAC money, and how do you guard against taking it indirectly through leadership PACs?

- Peck says he signed on with roughly 70 candidates nationwide to a pledge covering term limits, no individual stock trading, no corporate PAC money, Supreme Court ethics transparency, and a five-year post-office lobbying moratorium

- Peck defines his pledge broadly: he also refuses dark money PACs and money from Democratic incumbents who themselves take corporate PAC money — including declining a check offer from Rep. Andre Carson

- Peck argues that taking corporate PAC money creates a structural conflict of interest: when Chase Bank calls, you cancel your constituent meeting; without that money, you don’t

- Peck says the national Democratic Party — including the progressive wing — has abandoned Indiana, which actually gives him freedom to run the campaign Hoosiers deserve rather than one dictated by national party strategy

00:12:03 Viewer Question (Christine, YouTube): What type of Democrat do you consider yourself?

- Peck calls himself a left-of-center Democrat with progressive ideals who is willing to work with those who don’t share all of them — distinguishing that from moderation

- Peck says labels obscure more than they reveal; he knocked on a door that same day belonging to a union worker with a Trump yard sign who voted for Trump three times and is now unhappy with him

- Peck argues that working with Republicans isn’t ideological compromise but legislative strategy: there is bipartisan support for things like the PRO Act that simply never gets to the floor because Mike Johnson blocks it

- Scott offers “pragmatic progressive” as a label; Peck says he’ll take it

00:16:13 What do we do about the Supreme Court?

- Peck opposes court expansion, calling it the nuclear option — like eliminating the filibuster, it only empowers whoever holds power at the moment

- Peck’s path forward: pass Amy Klobuchar’s anti-mid-decade gerrymandering bill, enact binding Supreme Court ethics legislation, win the presidency to appoint new justices, and use impeachment only once ethics laws are in place and being violated

- Peck says he does not support using impeachment for messaging purposes, but that Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito, and John Roberts cannot be impeached yet because Congress has not yet passed the ethics laws that would make their conduct clearly illegal

- Peck frames the long game: chip away at the structural damage, neutralize the court over time, and focus on winning elections rather than procedural shortcuts

00:22:04 How do you tackle healthcare affordability and get toward universal coverage?

- Peck believes healthcare is a human right but does not think Medicare for All is achievable now, and argues Medicare itself has serious flaws: no dental, vision, or hearing coverage; 20% of recipients still carry medical debt; no long-term care coverage; and lengthy ICU stays can bankrupt patients

- Peck’s plan centers on weakening insurance monopolies through antitrust enforcement: UnitedHealth owns Optum (a physician network), nursing homes, pharmacy benefit managers, and NP groups — Aetna and CVS have merged similarly

- Peck wants to haul insurance executives before Congress and demand an accounting of how much Medicare payroll tax money went to executive bonuses and shareholder payouts

- Peck calls for banning prior authorization (an insurance company making a medical decision) and eliminating pharmacy benefit managers, which he says extract money from the system with no added value — both have bipartisan support

- Peck argues that Citizens United is the real obstacle to full Medicare for All; until corporate money is out of politics, the insurance industry has too much power to be displaced entirely

00:32:21 Viewer Question (Anonymous, web form): Your career has ties to Sam Altman of OpenAI and Joe Lonsdale of Palantir. Your FEC filings show a $2,000 donation from Brian Bloom, VP of Millennium hedge fund. Will your votes on AI and tech policy protect Hoosier working families or will your industry connections sway you?

- Peck says the Bloom donation came from a childhood friend who is a Democrat, not from Millennium as an institution

- Peck focuses on data centers as the most immediate AI policy question: deals are being struck in backrooms, contracts signed, and only then is the public invited to discuss — he calls this insane and in need of regulation

- Peck draws a parallel to Indiana’s casino licensing process, where communities had robust public input and could negotiate community benefits (schools, libraries, a YMCA) before deals closed — data centers should work the same way

- Peck says he is directly affected: a massive Facebook data center is being built in Clark County, his home county, and he has no meaningful say over its electricity or water consumption

00:38:10 Viewer Question (Anonymous, web form): You suggested people use ChatGPT to vet candidates. Where do you stand on AI use and responsible guardrails?

- Peck says he recommended ChatGPT because voters are uninformed — he knocked on doors during early voting and met people who had already cast a ballot without knowing who they voted for in his race; any research tool is better than none, but he stressed using the cited references

- Peck says the incumbent, Erin Houchin, sits on tech and crypto policy committees while taking heavy money from Silicon Valley VCs and voting for maximum deregulation — he wants the opposite

- Peck argues AI should be treated like nuclear energy: even when driven by private industry, technologies that pose existential risks require public ownership of the decision-making process

- Peck says AI development needs to be slowed down and subjected to the same kind of public discourse and regulatory guardrails applied to other civilization-scale technologies

00:43:06 Viewer Question (Ruth, web form): The Fifth Circuit just ruled mifepristone cannot be sent by mail. Does this improve patient safety?

- Peck flatly says no — the “patient safety” rationale from the court is false; mifepristone is a very safe drug, and the program of telemedicine prescribing followed by mail delivery is one he helped build with Planned Parenthood

- Peck says what is actually unsafe is forcing patients to travel great distances, and describes the practical reality in his ER: when a pregnant patient faces a life-or-death situation, his first call legally has to go to a hospital lawyer before he can make a medical decision — that is the government in his exam room

- Peck notes an unusual political wrinkle: pharma companies want the mail program to continue and will spend money fighting the ruling — watch where that money goes

- Peck strongly supports restoring mifepristone access by mail and opposes government interference in medical decision-making

00:46:29 Can you name an issue where you’d vote with Republicans over most Democrats, or with the party over a majority of your constituents?

- Peck says his commitment on rights issues — abortion, LGBTQ — is grounded in the First Amendment and will not waver regardless of constituent polling; those are not negotiating positions

- Peck says working with Republicans is about the pre-floor process: finding issues with genuine bipartisan alignment, doing the work to get a bill to the floor, and then voting on whatever imperfect bill emerges in the best interest of his constituents

- Peck points to universal pre-K as an example of surprising Republican support, including GOP-authored proposals to extend the CBO scoring window to 30 years so the long-term economic benefits become visible

- Peck reiterates the mifepristone situation as a live example: sometimes pharma and the right align with the right outcome, and you take the win

00:51:13 Is there a position you’ve evolved on over the years?

- Peck says his biggest evolution is his view of corporations: he used to think more highly of them, until he personally experienced and came to fully understand that every corporate board charter legally places the shareholder first — above employees, patients, and customers

- Peck says that when push comes to shove, corporations will always revert to what the charter demands, which will not be in the interest of regular people

- Peck agrees with Scott’s framing that government’s role is to set the conditions so that doing the right thing and doing the profitable thing are the same thing — rather than assuming corporations will self-regulate

- Peck credits thousands of one-on-one voter conversations over three and a half years as the source of this evolution

00:54:41 What’s different this time vs. 2024?

- Peck says Houchin beat him by 20+ points in 2024, but frames it as Donald Trump and straight-ticket voting beating him — Houchin’s own name recognition was still only in the 30s–40% range in internal polling

- Peck points to unprecedented Democratic engagement: Jeffersonville drew 2,000 to its last No Kings rally, Corydon drew 700 in a town of 3,000, and similar energy is showing up in Madison, Seymour, and Bloomington

- Peck says soft Trump voters who stayed with him in 2024 — not the core MAGA 30-35% — have begun turning in the last six weeks, with gas prices serving as the final straw for people already stretched by childcare, housing, and healthcare costs

- Peck says the structural difference is the operation: 3.5 years of relationship-building has produced experienced staff, a large individual donor list, 3,000 postcards sent from the lower district to Bloomington voters, and canvassing in four cities simultaneously on the day of this town hall

01:02:07 How can people get involved?

- Peck directs viewers to www.timpeckforcongress.com and the “Join the Movement” tab, where they can sign up to write postcards, knock doors, or find a fellowship

- Door knocking for the primary has ended, but phone banking continues through Election Day Tuesday; Peck says if someone really wants to knock, the campaign will give them literature for their own neighborhood

- Peck gives his personal cell number on air: 812-287-9079, crediting former Congressman Lee Hamilton for the advice to put your real number on your card

- Peck pledges that win or lose on Tuesday, he will continue fighting — if he loses, he will join whatever Democratic movement is growing, because flipping the House is the goal

01:03:24 Closing Remarks

- Scott thanks Peck, wishes him luck Tuesday, and urges all viewers to vote regardless of candidate preference

Thanks again to Dr. Peck for joining us. For more information and to get involved, visit his campaign website at https://timpeckforcongress.com. You can also find him on Facebook and across most social media sites at timpeckforcongress.

Tune in Tuesday night for PIN’s Primary Election Night Special, beginning at 7pm ET | 6pm CT.

Progressive Indiana Network is subscriber-supported independent media. To help us continue doing this work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

In this episode of The Recovered Republican, Brianna sits down with Jordan J. Herrera, a Democrat running for Congress in Missouri’s 4th Congressional District. MO‑04 is a district shaped by rural communities, military families, agricultural labor, and years of political neglect — and Jordan is stepping forward with a message centered on service, accountability, and actually showing up for the people who live there.

This conversation digs into:

* why Jordan decided to run,

* what he’s hearing from voters across the district,

* how national narratives overlook communities like MO‑04,

* and what it takes to build a campaign in a place pundits love to write off.

If you’re tired of the idea that some districts “don’t matter” or that democracy is only worth fighting for in easy races, this episode is for you. Jordan brings a grounded, real‑world perspective shaped by lived experience — not culture‑war theatrics — and his story resonates far beyond Missouri.

To support the show and get bonus content, behind‑the‑scenes updates, and early episode drops, you can subscribe on Substack.

progressiveindiana.net

bradmeyer.org

SUMMARY:

In his fourth virtual town hall with Progressive Indiana Network, 9th District Democratic Congressional candidate Brad Meyer covers a wide range of policy ground with host Scott Aaron Rogers ahead of the May 5th primary. Meyer opens with an unscripted personal statement about why he got off the sideline and into the race, framing his progressive candidacy as a rejection of the Democratic Party’s rightward drift. The conversation spans climate and energy policy, the dual-edged threat of AI and data centers, US-China relations and the prospect of war, gun violence, drug policy, mass incarceration, neurodiversity and disability education funding, executive power and the Iran war, and the political disillusionment of ordinary voters. Throughout, Meyer draws on his 35-year background as an engineering manager to ground his policy positions in practical terms, while Scott pushes him on structural questions about wealth concentration, federal job guarantees, and the courage required to go on offense rather than play permanent defense.

Progressive Indiana Network is subscriber-supported independent media. To help us continue doing this work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

IN DEPTH:

00:00:00 Opening Remarks

- Scott opens the stream, notes technical difficulties with ProgressiveIndiana.net, and invites Brad Meyer to begin while Scott troubleshoots

- Meyer speaks off the cuff, describing how he and his wife were heading into a quiet retirement before Project 2025 and the Democratic Party’s drift rightward pulled him into the race

- Meyer argues Democrats must stand on their values and bring voters to their side rather than softening positions to blend in with the opposition

00:03:29 Environmental Policy, the Green New Deal, and Net Zero

- Scott notes it is “criminal” that they have not yet discussed the environment in this series and asks Meyer about his policy positions, including the Green New Deal and a carbon tax

- Meyer frames the issue in two parts: global warming, where he calls out climate denial as the same playbook used by the tobacco industry, and ecology, where he cites Indiana’s severely polluted waterways and the need for point source pollution controls

- Meyer says he still has more listening to do before committing to a definitive climate platform, but expressed interest in carbon swap mechanisms as an economic tool

00:06:43 Nuclear Energy and Small Modular Reactors

- Scott presses Meyer on how to achieve net zero by 2035 and raises nuclear — particularly small modular reactors being developed in Indiana partly to power AI data centers — as a potential clean energy option

- Meyer says he cannot support nuclear today as an engineer, citing the recurring pattern of unforeseen combinations of failures in past plants and the impossibility of trusting regulatory oversight under the current science-denying administration

- Meyer draws a distinction between next-generation reactor technology and the regulatory and scientific environment required to deploy it responsibly

00:09:43 Viewer Question from @2Tows (YouTube): AI and Data Centers

- @2Tows asks how Meyer approaches the looming threat of AI and data centers on the working class

- Meyer breaks the question in two: on AI, he says the transformation will be faster and more disruptive than the PC revolution, hitting white-collar workers who have never faced this kind of displacement before — comparable to what automation and deindustrialization did to blue-collar manufacturing

- On data centers, Meyer argues the core problem is companies using NDAs to lock out local communities from decisions that directly affect them, calling the practice unethical and a red flag about corporate intentions as a community partner

00:14:03 Distributing AI’s Economic Value

- Scott asks how we ensure AI’s productivity gains are distributed more equitably rather than captured entirely by a handful of tech overlords

- Meyer confirms the hype is real — describing a personal engineering project he completed in two weeks with AI that he estimated would have taken 52 weeks alone — and says the question is not if but how

- Meyer advocates for a $20 federal minimum wage and higher taxation on corporations and high-net-worth individuals, while expressing a preference for policies that break up monopolies and enable small business formation over direct wealth transfers

00:19:00 Federal Jobs Guarantee and the Care Economy

- Scott pushes back: if AI eliminates jobs wholesale, what do the idle masses do, and does the federal government need to step in with a jobs guarantee or something like a climate corps?

- Meyer prioritizes breaking up monopolies, restoring the Small Business Administration, banning anti-competitive non-compete agreements, and implementing Medicare for All to free workers from job-lock

- Meyer says done right, the AI boom produces more small business owners; done wrong, it produces the economic conditions of the 1880s

00:22:23 US-China Relations and Foreign Policy

- Scott notes it is equally “criminal” that a federal candidate has not been asked about foreign policy, and raises the US-China relationship: Cold War redux or something else?

- Meyer says the better analogy is pre-World War II, citing publicly available congressional testimony about China’s plans to take Taiwan in 2027 and Trump’s requested 40% military budget increase as alarming signals

- Meyer argues America First is really America Alone, and that the diplomatic failures surrounding the Iran war — including leaving European allies out of the picture — have left the US dangerously isolated at the moment it most needs partners

00:26:55 Scott Pushes Back: American Imperialism and the China Threat

- Scott challenges the framing as an anti-war lefty, noting the US has spent 80 years “swinging its thing” around the globe — Iran, Cuba, Greenland, Central America, Iraq, Vietnam — and questions the moral authority to cast China as the threat

- Meyer acknowledges the critique but argues the relative peace of the post-WWII era, underwritten by US power and trade alliances, has been genuine — and that China’s rise to preeminence, particularly a Taiwan seizure, would trigger a regional realignment with severe economic consequences for the US

- The two agree to disagree philosophically and Meyer reframes the goal as preserving a stable world economy where all nations can grow without the US having to suffer

00:32:24 Gun Violence Policy

- Scott pivots to gun violence, noting weapons of war are proliferating on American streets and schools, and asks what Meyer’s policy is and whether it involves banning anything

- Meyer calls for common-sense measures with broad support — disarming people on terrorist watch lists, and those in mental health crisis or threatening others through court-reviewed red flag processes — while acknowledging the political sensitivity in southern Indiana and his need to be explicitly on the record

- Meyer highlights the Dickey Amendment-style research prohibitions Congress has imposed and calls for lifting them, arguing the population cannot be moved faster than it is willing to go but that time in the district and sustained persuasion can shift that

00:37:28 Viewer Question from Patrick (Facebook): Schumer or Ro Khanna?

- Patrick on Facebook asks whether Meyer aligns more with Chuck Schumer or Ro Khanna for the direction of the Democratic Party

- Meyer says he is a progressive, plans to join the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and is not a Schumer fan — Scott informs him Khanna is a fellow Progressive Caucus member

- Meyer’s response: “Groovy.”

00:38:35 Drug Policy: Marijuana Legalization and Beyond

- Scott uses the gun prohibition discussion as a bridge to drug prohibition, noting Meyer has been outspoken for marijuana legalization, and asks how far he would go — psilocybin, ibogaine, the Portugal decriminalization model?

- Meyer supports full recreational marijuana legalization with controls mirroring alcohol — taxed, regulated, no impaired driving — but says his enthusiasm for going further is “really low,” supporting only tightly restricted medical research into psychedelics with no path toward normalization

- Meyer says he always believed medicinal marijuana was a foot in the door toward legalization, which he now supports outright, but draws the line there

00:42:05 Mass Incarceration

- Scott argues the war on drugs has failed and produced a mass incarceration crisis, and asks how Meyer would address it

- Meyer identifies three root causes he wants to attack: mental illness, addiction, and poverty — noting that the US has been almost entirely punitive rather than curative, and that the people most likely to be locked up are also the poorest

- Meyer flags the high recidivism rate as evidence that longer sentences are counterproductive, severing inmates from the community ties that reduce reoffending

00:47:04 Private Prisons

- Scott cuts to the chase: private prison corporations profit from incarceration — would Meyer ban them?

- Meyer says he is inclined to ban private prisons as a government function, but hedges by saying if a private prison demonstrably lowered recidivism, that would be worth considering

- Meyer’s core argument: remove the profit motive from the entire prison system, public or private, and tie advancement to outcomes after release

00:48:29 Neurodiversity, Disability, and the IDEA Act

- Scott notes that many people in the carceral system are undiagnosed and untreated neurodiverse individuals who fell through the cracks, and asks how Meyer would address the autism and neurodiversity community specifically

- Meyer says he has held roundtable discussions with disability experts and advocates to inform his thinking rather than imposing his own precepts, and centers his answer on the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act — which the federal government committed to fund at 40% but has never exceeded 14%, and which the current administration is actively gutting

- Meyer argues every dollar invested in early education for people with disabilities returns four to six dollars, and that society is already paying the cost through incarceration, homelessness, and lost productivity

00:52:09 Viewer Question from Katy (Facebook): Limits on Presidential Executive Orders

- Katy on Facebook asks whether Meyer has plans to impose limits on presidential executive orders

- Meyer says the limits already exist on paper — the real problem is Congress abdicating its oversight responsibility, and the specific abuse Meyer highlights is the use of emergency powers, citing Trump’s conduct around the Iran war as an example requiring impeachment rather than new legislation

- Meyer says he wants the social norms built over 250 years enforced, not new laws written, and that a president who violates those norms needs to be removed — legally

00:54:00 The White House Correspondents’ Dinner Incident

- Scott asks Meyer’s reaction to whatever happened the previous night at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner

- Meyer says there is no place for violence in American politics — regardless of how strongly he opposes Trump — and that the answer is the ballot box, starting with May 5th

00:54:48 Viewer Question from @2Tows (YouTube): How to Help the Campaign

- Scott returns to a question he had been holding from @2Tows, who is a newly converted Meyer supporter, asking what they and others can do to help in the final days

- Meyer says: vote, and tell your friends one-on-one — peer-to-peer persuasion is more powerful than door-knocking and will matter even more in the general

- Meyer says person-to-person contact is what will make the difference

00:56:09 Message to Disillusioned Voters

- Scott asks what Meyer says to voters who are over it — fed up with both parties

- Meyer validates the disillusionment completely, saying voters are not looking at it wrong, and argues that the party’s strategy of moving right and sounding more Republican has never produced real solutions

- Meyer uses the gerrymandering fight as a case study in defensive politics: Democrats stopped Indiana from making an already-horrible gerrymander worse and called it their biggest victory — while nothing got done on streams, childcare, coal, the grid, or education; he says it is time to go on offense

01:00:06 Brad’s Closing Remarks

- Meyer directs viewers to bradmeyer.org and the Brad Meyer for Indiana Facebook page to contact, volunteer, or donate

- Meyer closes with a direct ask: vote May 5th, tell your friends, and remember that more timid policies will not get us where we need to go

Thanks again to Brad Meyer for joining us. For more information and to get involved, visit his campaign website at https://www.bradmeyer.org. You can also find him on Facebook and across approximately eight social media platforms linked from the campaign site.

The last in our virtual town hall this primary season is Sunday, May 3 at 7pm ET with another 9th District Democrat, Dr. Tim Peck.

Progressive Indiana Network is subscriber-supported independent media. To help us continue doing this work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Produced by:

Progressive Indiana Network: https:/www.progressiveindiana.net

Moderator:

Kacey Blundell: https://hoosierwomenforward.org/kacey-blundell/

Candidates:

Brad Meyer: https://bradmeyer.org/

Tim Peck: https://timpeckforcongress.com/

Keil Roark: https://www.keilroark.com/

Jim Graham was invited but unable to attend due to a scheduling conflict.

SUMMARY:

Progressive Indiana Network hosted the final primary debate of the 2026 cycle for Indiana’s 9th Congressional District, moderated by Kacey Blundell. Three candidates participated: Dr. Tim Peck, an emergency medicine physician from New Washington; Brad Meyer, a former manufacturing leader from Bloomington; and Keil Roark, a licensed electrical engineer, Navy veteran, and former UAW assembly line worker. A fourth candidate, Jim Graham, was invited but declined citing a scheduling conflict. The debate covered 11 questions across a broad range of policy areas -- including the cost of living, healthcare, education, infrastructure, immigration, data centers, and government accountability -- followed by a 15-question lightning round exposing intra-party fault lines, and closing statements from each candidate. Peck ran on a platform of rejecting corporate PAC money, reducing healthcare costs by eliminating middlemen and directing Medicare dollars to patient care, and labor-first infrastructure policy. Meyer advocated for a $20 minimum wage, Medicare for All, and a structural progressive overhaul of the economy. Roark positioned himself as the pragmatic, electable candidate, focused on ACA subsidies, a $15 minimum wage, and appealing to disaffected Republicans.

Progressive Indiana Network is powered entirely by our subscribers. To help us continue presenting special events like this, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

BREAKDOWN:

00:00:23 Welcome and Introductions

- Blundell introduces the debate and PIN, explains the format, and welcomes the three candidates.

- A fourth candidate, Jim Graham, was invited but could not attend due to a scheduling conflict.

- Opening statement order determined by random draw: Peck first, then Meyer, then Roark.

00:03:21 Opening Statements

- Peck introduces himself as an emergency medicine physician who co-led a bipartisan coalition to expand telemedicine ahead of the pandemic, frames the central problem as “it costs too much to work,” and pledges to accept no corporate PAC money.

- Meyer highlights 25 years in manufacturing leadership, calls for a $20 minimum wage, Medicare for All, and the first $20,000 in earnings tax-free, and argues Democrats lose by softening their message.

- Roark introduces himself as a Purdue-educated electrical engineer, Navy officer, and former UAW assembly line worker, calls for a $15 minimum wage and ACA subsidy restoration as pragmatic near-term priorities, and frames himself as the electable candidate in a conservative district.

00:09:43 Q1: What is your top priority for residents of Indiana’s 9th Congressional District, and how do you plan to achieve that?

Keil Roark

- Prioritizes reinstating ACA subsidies, passing a minimum wage increase, and repealing the “big, beautiful bill” to restore SNAP and Medicaid funding.

- Also called for a No Stock Trade Act to prohibit members of Congress from trading on insider information, and Supreme Court ethics reform.

Brad Meyer

- Top priorities: stabilize the ACA and rural health care system, and enforce the Impoundment Act to compel the executive branch to spend congressionally allocated funds.

- Called for impeachment proceedings against Trump for the Iran war and for gutting federal programs in violation of law.

Tim Peck

- Focused on the “costs too much to work” problem he hears at the doors: gas, housing, childcare, groceries, education debt, and health insurance all consume more than a paycheck provides.

- Proposed restoring war powers, first-time homebuyer assistance to compete with private equity, universal pre-K, grocery price gouging investigations, lower student loan interest rates, and reversing the big, beautiful bill’s ACA cuts.

00:15:56 Q2: How would you address rising costs of living, including housing, groceries, and health care for families in this district?

Brad Meyer

- Proposed $20/hour minimum wage, raising the non-exempt salary threshold to $100,000 for overtime purposes, and making the first $20,000 earned tax-free.

- Advocated for Medicare for All to reduce medical debt bankruptcies, ending corporate speculation in single-family housing, building more housing supply, and helping first-time buyers with down payments.

- Also called for stabilizing Social Security.

Tim Peck

- Identified corporate PAC money as the root cause -- arguing that business interests now control government, citing the current congresswoman’s Duke Energy record as a specific example.

- Proposed leveling the tax code between corporations and individuals: credit card interest rates, PE firm housing tax rates, and ACA premium taxation all favor corporations over working people.

Keil Roark

- Framed housing as primarily a supply problem stemming from the post-2008 construction slowdown, calling for tax incentives for development, low-interest loans for first-time buyers, and anti-monopoly cost controls on predatory developers.

- Tied grocery prices to fertilizer costs elevated by war, and argued ACA subsidy restoration would cut average monthly health care costs by roughly 25%.

00:21:59 Q3: What is your stance on public safety and criminal justice reform, and what specific policies would you support?

Tim Peck

- Supports funding police while also addressing the root causes that produce crime. Described a real incident from the night before -- a middle schooler waving a gun outside a high school dance in Salem -- as emblematic of the problem.

- Called for background checks, safe storage requirements, red flag laws, school-based mental health and conflict resolution, and access restrictions for those who should not have firearms.

Brad Meyer

- Framed the issue as reactive (policing and courts) versus proactive (addressing poverty and lack of hope).

- Criticized the country’s failures on mental health, addiction policy, and recidivism -- noting that roughly half of those released from prison reoffend.

- Called for body cameras and federal oversight to rebuild community trust, and argued the federal government’s retreat from consent decrees has made things worse.

Keil Roark

- Emphasized the direct link between unemployment and crime: good-paying jobs reduce recidivism.

- Called for upgraded police recruiting, training, and federal grants to struggling departments; eliminating cash bond for nonviolent offenders; and better in-prison vocational training to reduce reoffending.

00:28:19 Q4: How do you plan to support small businesses and economic growth in the suburban and rural parts of the district?

Tim Peck

- Argued that rural infrastructure is the prerequisite: broadband, transportation links, local hospitals, and schools must exist before small businesses can survive.

- Described his own community’s situation -- local hospital closed, fiber internet only recently arrived, limited transport to urban centers -- as the lived reality of rural economic hollowing.

Keil Roark

- Drew on his own blue-collar background in construction to argue for protecting small business tax deductions for equipment, materials, and operating costs.

- Called for working with local mayors and county leaders to identify specific infrastructure and economic development needs, then targeting tax incentives accordingly.

Brad Meyer

- Outlined four steps: reduce barriers to starting businesses (limit non-competes, pass Medicare for All to decouple health insurance from employment); strengthen the local economy through minimum wage and overtime policy; expand capital through the Small Business Administration; and invest in broadband, infrastructure, and workforce development.

- Noted that Kentucky receives roughly twice Indiana’s federal funding, and called that a failure of congressional representation.

00:34:39 Q5: What steps would you take to improve access to affordable health care for Hoosiers, given Indiana’s rankings near the bottom nationally for maternal mortality, mental health access, public health funding, and hospital costs?

Brad Meyer

- Short-term: reinstate ACA subsidies, expand telehealth and preventive care, increase rural provider reimbursement rates, and support mobile EMS units.

- Long-term: advocated for Medicare for All, arguing the for-profit system is unsustainable -- Americans die earlier and go bankrupt more than in comparable countries.

- Offered a personal story about using Planned Parenthood when he and his wife were young and low-income, and expressed strong support for restoring it.

Keil Roark

- Called for reinstating ACA subsidies and updating ACA language to include tax incentives for demonstrated preventive care activities -- citing Japan’s system as a model for how preventive care reduces downstream costs.

- Supported repealing the big, beautiful bill, whose Medicaid and SNAP cuts are putting severe pressure on district hospitals.

Tim Peck

- Described the EMS crisis in his own community: no local hospital, local fire department does not run EMS on weekends, and the next closest ambulance may be unavailable or transporting someone to Kentucky.

- Argued that without universal insurance coverage, rural hospitals cannot stay open -- and without hospitals, EMS collapses with them.

- Called for eliminating prior authorization, banning pharmacy benefit managers, and ensuring Medicare tax dollars go directly to patient care rather than executive bonuses and shareholder payouts.

00:41:50 Q6: How should the federal government support education and what changes would you advocate for schools in the district, given Indiana’s rankings of 37th in K-12 funding, 37% grade-level reading rate, and 39th in teacher pay?

Keil Roark

- Called for funding teacher assistants, after-school programs, and dramatically higher teacher pay, arguing that without better compensation, districts cannot attract STEM professionals.

- Drew on his experience as an Ivy Tech instructor and Navy recruiter -- noting he saw many enlistment candidates fail the ASVAB because of weak math skills -- as evidence of the STEM gap.

Tim Peck

- Argued that Mike Braun and the state Republican majority will not raise teacher pay, so the federal government must act through its leverage over funding.

- Proposed tying federal education dollars to living-wage requirements for teachers and prohibiting those funds from flowing into private school voucher programs.

- Supported universal pre-K as a bipartisan investment with a measurable return, noting a Republican-authored bill already exists on the subject.

Brad Meyer

- Called for restoring and protecting the Department of Education, which channels roughly $3 billion in Title I funds to Indiana’s struggling schools.

- Supported universal pre-K and a national child care program, and called for better congressional coordination of over a dozen federal adult education and retraining programs.

- Argued that state leaders bear primary responsibility and are failing, and that federal pressure must be applied.

00:48:17 Follow-Up: Should the federal Department of Education be kept or returned to the states?

Keil Roark

- Supports keeping the Department. Argued that federal funding leverage is real -- Indiana will listen when dollars are at stake -- and that the Department provides essential national oversight of graduation rates, credentialing, and curriculum standards that states cannot self-police.

Tim Peck

- Supports keeping a well-funded, centralized Department. Argued that federal dollars give Congress the power to require states to fund public education rather than divert money into voucher programs, which Indiana has done and plans to expand.

Brad Meyer

- Supports keeping the Department, emphasizing its role as an independent evaluator of school performance -- one the administration wants to eliminate specifically to hide what privatization is doing to student outcomes.

- Called the proposed elimination a “shell game”: Trump will increase military spending and defund education, then send responsibility to states that will let it collapse, causing the $3 billion Indiana has historically received to simply vanish.

00:54:21 Q7: What is your position on infrastructure spending -- roads, broadband, and public transportation -- for the 9th District?

Tim Peck

- Argued that federal infrastructure money should be conditioned on worker protections and fair wages -- the PRO Act does exactly that and has bipartisan support, but Speaker Johnson will not put it on the floor.

- Described the broadband rollout in his rural community as a cautionary tale: subcontractors using questionable labor are breaking things that union workers then have to fix, spending the money twice.

Keil Roark

- Called for local mayors and county councils to serve as the clearinghouse for infrastructure priorities -- they know which roads, bridges, and fiber connections are needed and where.

- Supported federal funding for roads, bridges, broadband, and school improvements as long as it is tied to genuine community needs and balanced between maintenance and new development.

Brad Meyer

- Noted over 1,000 deficient bridges and another 1,000 in disrepair in Indiana; an aging electric grid unable to keep pace with growth; and neglected water treatment infrastructure.

- Argued the federal government’s core role is to fund the big, expensive, long-term things local communities cannot handle alone, and that Congress must work with regional and state officials to target that money effectively.

01:00:26 Q8: How would you approach border security and immigration policy?

Keil Roark

- Opposed defunding ICE but called it broken -- citing the firing of Noem as evidence -- and called for stronger recruiting standards, body cameras, and accountability.

- Supports strict border security and wants to reinstitute a strengthened E-Verify to hold employers accountable for hiring undocumented workers.

Tim Peck

- Argued Congress has shamefully abdicated its power by failing to push back on Trump’s legally invalid “invasion” rationale for blocking asylum cases, which a federal judge has since rejected.

- Supports stronger borders through more judges, more officers, and better drug detection equipment -- along with a faster, fairer asylum adjudication process, rather than releasing claimants into the country for years while their cases wait.

Brad Meyer

- Led an anti-ICE protest at Camp Atterbury in August and supports rolling back current ICE expansion -- but acknowledged that doing so only returns policy to 2024, which was also inadequate.

- Reframed immigration as an economic issue: the U.S. labor participation rate has declined for 40 years and the country needs more workers; immigration policy should be redesigned to bring workers in legally, with dignity, in a controlled and values-consistent way.

01:06:18 Q9: As the district’s congressman, what actions would you take to address environmental concerns raised by data center development while balancing economic growth?

Brad Meyer

- Opposed irresponsible data center implementation; called for establishing clear national standards for responsible siting, requiring transparent permitting (without NDAs or gag orders on communities), engaging the EPA, and ensuring the grid can handle additional load.

- Called community gag orders potentially illegal and argued local residents must have more power in the process.

Tim Peck

- Argued data center companies, unlike casinos, make private deals with governments before communities can weigh in, then consume water and drive up electricity prices with no community benefit.

- Called for transparency and accountability before construction, noting that casinos historically deliver community infrastructure as part of their deals and data centers do not.

Keil Roark

- Called for clear value propositions: communities must know the tax revenue, lease terms, maintenance agreements, and ownership structure before ground is broken.

- Supported using the EPA and Department of Energy to clamp down on reckless development, and praised local moratoriums already in place in some counties as a model.

01:12:34 Q10: How will you ensure transparency and accountability in your role if elected to Congress?

Keil Roark

- Called for aggressive use of committee hearings and subpoena power to force administration officials to testify under oath, arguing that contempt of Congress and pleading the Fifth are themselves accountability tools that create political pressure.

- Said he would seek assignments on the Veterans Committee or STEM Committee.

Brad Meyer

- Described a long list of current administration abuses: replacing inspectors general, using unconfirmed acting agency heads, resisting subpoenas, weakening White House visitor log transparency, relaxing ethics waivers, and undermining the FEC.

- Called for structural reforms including a healthcare amendment, balanced budget amendment, and election finance reform.

- Acknowledged that Congress itself has done “a suck-egg job” of oversight and said he would not take corporate PAC money once campaign finance reform is passed legislatively -- but declined to unilaterally disarm during the current cycle, arguing the campaign will need $3 million or more.

Tim Peck

- Pledged no corporate PAC money and called out his opponents for not making the same pledge.

- Said he has already signed the Take Back Accountability in Congress pledge along with 70 other Democratic challengers -- committing to no corporate PACs, a five-year lobbying moratorium after leaving office, a four-term limit, and no individual stock trading.

- Called for restoring checks and balances on the Supreme Court and reclaiming war powers and the power of the purse from the executive.

01:20:33 Speed Round

- Federal moratorium on new data center construction: Meyer no, Peck no, Roark no

- Expand the Supreme Court beyond nine justices: Roark no, Peck no, Meyer no

- Statehood for DC and Puerto Rico: Peck yes, Meyer yes to Puerto Rico, Roark yes (both)

- Constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College: Meyer yes, Roark no, Peck yes

- Federal legalization of recreational cannabis: Meyer yes, Roark no (too many unknowns), Peck yes

- FISA reauthorization as currently written: Roark no, Meyer no, Peck no

- Withhold military aid to Israel: Peck yes, Roark no in certain circumstances, Meyer partially

- Impeach President Trump: Meyer yes (for the Iran war), Roark yes (for Impoundment Act violations), Peck yes (depending on the article)

- Free public higher education: Roark no (expanded: merit-based in high-demand fields with payback requirement), Peck pathway to get there (expanded: removing barriers is a national security and workforce imperative), Meyer yes for the first year (expanded: real education costs have risen 10x since 1970 -- this was intentional and must be fixed)

- Cancel all outstanding student debt: Peck no (not all of it), Meyer yes, Roark no (merit-based forgiveness for teachers and doctors who serve required years)

- Federally funded child care: Meyer yes (funding mechanism still unresolved), Roark yes with a cost cap, Peck tax incentives for small businesses

- Hakeem Jeffries for Speaker: Peck no, Roark no, Meyer no

- Federal assault weapons ban: Meyer yes, Peck yes, Roark not necessarily (depends on the weapon)

- Abolish the federal death penalty: Meyer no (struggles with it), Roark no (capital punishment necessary in some cases), Peck yes

- Federal minimum wage by 2030: Roark $22-23/hour, Peck low 20s, Meyer $20 now then adjust as needed

01:30:09 Closing Statements

- Roark closes by arguing he is the only candidate who can win over disenfranchised Republicans in a deeply red district, citing Peck’s 55,000-vote loss last cycle as evidence that progressive candidates struggle in the general, and framing his economy-and-jobs message as the path to November.

- Meyer pushes back directly on Roark’s “safe bet” framing, arguing that every major progressive victory in American history -- Social Security, Medicare, civil rights -- came from courage rather than caution, and closes: “the meek may inherit the earth, but they’re never going to take back the House.”

- Peck argues something has changed in the district -- 700-person rallies in towns of 3,000, Republicans at the doors saying it costs too much to work -- and that the moment calls for a candidate who has built the organizing infrastructure to win, not just the right positions.

01:37:01 Moderator’s Closing Remarks

- Blundell thanks the candidates and PIN, notes early voting is underway, and closes by calling the primary winner’s general election race one of the most consequential midterm elections in modern American history.

Progressive Indiana Network is powered entirely by our subscribers. To help us continue presenting special events like this, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

In this episode of The Recovered Republican, Brianna sits down with Gabrianna Gratzol, a Democrat running for Indiana Senate District 11. Together, they dig into the issues Hoosiers are talking about every day — and the ones they should be.

From school vouchers and data centers to taxes, infrastructure, accountability, and government spending, this conversation breaks down how policy decisions shape real lives across Indiana. Gabrianna shares her perspective as a candidate and community advocate, offering insight into what’s at stake and why these topics matter for families, workers, and neighborhoods across the state.

If you’re looking for a grounded, accessible conversation about the future of Indiana, this episode delivers.

Produced by:

Progressive Indiana Network: https:/www.progressiveindiana.net

Moderator:

Scott Aaron Rogers: https://www.hoosleft.us

Candidates:

William Kory Amyx: https://amyxforcongress.com/

Nick Baker: https://electnickbaker.com/

Cinde Wirth: https://wirth4congress.com/

David Boyd was invited and and confirmed but pulled out of this debate citing to a scheduling conflict.

SUMMARY:

Progressive Indiana Network hosted a Democratic primary debate for Indiana’s 6th Congressional District, featuring moderator Scott Aaron Rogers and candidates William Kory Amyx, Nick Baker, and Dr. Cinde Wirth. A fourth candidate, David Boyd, was invited and confirmed but withdrew citing a scheduling conflict. The debate covered ten questions on foreign policy, technology accountability, immigration, affordability, healthcare, education, human rights, taxation, social security, and labor, followed by a fifteen-question speed round and closing statements. The candidates showed clear ideological distinctions throughout, particularly on healthcare — with Amyx and Wirth supporting universal single-payer and Baker advocating a public option — and on immigration, where Amyx and Wirth called for abolishing ICE and Baker opposed that position. The speed round revealed unanimous agreement on several issues including data center moratoriums, DC and Puerto Rico statehood, abolishing the Electoral College, cannabis legalization, FISA reauthorization, impeaching Trump, and opposing Hakeem Jeffries for Speaker, while the candidates split on an assault weapons ban, student debt cancellation, free higher education, and abolishing the federal death penalty.

Progressive Indiana Network is powered entirely by our subscribers. To help us continue presenting special events like this, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

BREAKDOWN:

00:00:22 Opening and introductions

- Scott Aaron Rogers opens the debate on behalf of Progressive Indiana Network, introducing the 6th Congressional District race.

- Candidates introduced: William Kory Amyx, Nick Baker, and Dr. Cinde Wirth; David Boyd was invited and confirmed but withdrew at the last minute citing a scheduling conflict.

- Format outlined: two-minute opening statements, ten questions with 90-second responses, a fifteen-question speed round, and closing statements.

00:02:49 Opening statements

- Amyx leads, citing 23,000 doors knocked across 11 counties and a focus on affordability, healthcare, education, public safety, and economic dignity.

- Baker follows (order swapped due to technical difficulties with Wirth), highlighting his Camp Lejeune Supreme Court case, a push for a balanced budget through healthcare reform, and an argument that he is the most electable candidate in a conservative district.

- Wirth closes, introducing herself as a seventh-generation 6th District resident, public school teacher, small business owner, and PhD scientist, and citing her 2022 run against Greg Pence as proof of her commitment to the district.

00:08:10 Q1: Separation of powers and the war with Iran

- Rogers frames the question around the Iran war, sweeping tariff authority, and the revival of impoundment powers, asking what each candidate would do to reassert congressional authority and what their position is on the war.

- Baker calls the war illegal and unconstitutional, argues for winning back the House majority to challenge executive overreach through legislation.

- Amyx proposes replacing the War Powers Resolution with a modern version requiring affirmative congressional authorization within 30 days, automatic funding cutoffs for unauthorized hostilities, congressional approval windows for tariffs, and reform of the National Emergencies Act.

- Wirth argues Congress members who took an oath to defend the Constitution have a duty to hold domestic enemies accountable, and calls for restoring the State Department’s professional diplomatic corps to end the Iran conflict.

00:15:12 Q2: Tech accountability and Section 230

- Rogers uses the discovery of a network of online chat groups called “Rape Academy” with an estimated 62 million members as the entry point for a question on platform liability and Section 230 reform.

- Amyx calls for full repeal of Section 230 and introduces two pieces of draft legislation: the Real Identity Integrity Act (tokenized logins to verify identity while preserving anonymity) and the Digital Integrity and Algorithmic Accountability Act (algorithmic transparency requirements).

- Wirth draws on her classroom experience with cyberbullying, calls for guardrails on big tech, and argues the root problem is money blocking legislation that has been proposed repeatedly over 15 years.

- Baker calls Silicon Valley the “Wild West,” applauds a New Mexico verdict against Meta for hosting child predators, references Indiana’s Haley’s Law, and cautions against regulation that tips into censorship.

00:21:32 Q3: Immigration and ICE

- Rogers frames the question around the removal of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, ICE shootings of U.S. citizens, and a Democratic base that increasingly supports abolishing ICE.

- Wirth states she called for abolishing ICE last summer and co-organized an anti-ICE rally at Johnson County Park in Atterbury; she supports retaining professional Customs and Border Protection at ports of entry while eliminating ICE entirely.

- Baker opposes full abolishment, arguing ICE can be returned to how it functioned under Clinton and Obama — deporting people lawfully without the abuses of the current administration; warns that “abolish ICE” messaging will cost votes in a conservative district.

- Amyx introduces his Unity Pathway Act: provisional legal status for undocumented individuals, a pathway to a green card after five years, and replacement of ICE with a new Immigration Enforcement Service refocused on trafficking networks, cartel operations, and violent criminals rather than families and workers.

00:28:20 Q4: Affordability

- Rogers presses all three on the affordability crisis, noting that “we’ll lower costs” is a talking point, not a policy, and asking for root causes and specific solutions.

- Amyx cites real wage data (3.3% price increases vs. 0.3% real hourly earnings growth in March), and outlines a structural approach: raise wages with small business offsets, universal healthcare to cut costs, expand housing supply, and treat child care as an economic investment.

- Baker points to insurance as the largest inflationary metric — with profits up fourfold while premiums rose 10-21% — and argues for reforming healthcare overhead, returning tax revenue to communities, and raising the minimum wage.

- Wirth argues Medicare for All would give every family an effective lift of approximately $24,000 through 2-3% administrative overhead, calls for CEO pay accountability, enforcement of antitrust laws, and investment in 50 million affordable housing units.

00:34:30 Q5: Healthcare

- Rogers uses a direct Baker quote from a Hancock County forum — “I would love the dream of universal healthcare to come true, but I don’t think right now it’s a workable solution” — to open a deeper discussion on how each candidate would get to their preferred healthcare system.

- Baker clarifies he does not support propping up the ACA, which he calls broken, and instead supports a public option he describes as “Medicare for More” — leaving a capitalistic private market open while eliminating administrative waste; he says universal healthcare would require a two-thirds congressional majority.

- Wirth cites polling showing over 70% of Americans support single-payer in some form, advocates a phased-in approach funded through payroll taxes and a wealth tax on investment gains, and proposes job transition programs for insurance industry workers displaced by the change.

- Amyx agrees with Wirth that preventative care is critical, supports universal healthcare but opposes a sudden transition that could “crush” rural hospitals, and calls for phased implementation with Medicare negotiating drug prices, capped out-of-pocket costs, and strengthened rural care.

00:41:19 Q6: Education

- Rogers frames the question around Trump’s dismantling of the Department of Education, Title I cuts, student debt, and the teacher exodus from the profession.

- Amyx, who has worked in higher education for 22 years as a financial aid officer and veterans advisor, calls for increased Title I and IDEA funding, ending the voucher program, paying teachers at the same level as ICE agents (over $100,000), expanding career and technical education, and making all students independent at 18 for FAFSA purposes.

- Baker predicts the Department of Education may need to be “resurrected” by January, supports increased federal funding, and proposes using litigation to challenge religious institutions that accept vouchers while discriminating — arguing that’s a case winnable even in the current Supreme Court.

- Wirth, whose PhD is in cultural and educational policy, calls vouchers a tool for segregation dating to the post-Brown v. Board era, calls for overturning Espinoza v. Montana, restoring teacher loan eligibility, protecting IDEA, and ending the use of public tax dollars in private schools that can expel students at will.

00:47:54 Q7: LGBTQ rights and the Newsom debate

- Rogers frames the question around Gavin Newsom’s call for Democrats to be more “culturally normal,” the backlash from LGBTQ advocates, and where candidates draw the line between political pragmatism and abandoning vulnerable constituents.

- Wirth, an anthropologist, flatly rejects Newsom’s framing — “there is no cultural normalcy” — calls trans rights human rights, and recounts changing attendance rosters by hand to protect trans students before it was widely discussed, as far back as 2010.

- Baker says he supports liberty and government staying out of people’s personal lives, but expresses personal reservations about gender-affirming care for minors and trans athletes in certain sports settings, framing it as a political liability in the district.

- Amyx, who is gay and the only LGBTQ candidate in the race, calls human rights non-negotiable, says he knows firsthand what it means to hide who you are, and states he will never back down on trans rights or compromise on anyone’s humanity.

00:54:06 Q8: Taxation and the wealth tax

- Rogers uses Newsom’s opposition to a wealth tax — framing it as making room for billionaires in the Democratic tent — against the Warren/Sanders barnstorming tour arguing the opposite, and asks where each candidate stands on taxing the wealthy and reorienting the tax code.

- Baker calls for a complete overhaul of the tax code, more progressive brackets at $1M, $10M, $100M, and $1B income thresholds, and closing loopholes — while also proposing cutting corporate taxes to incentivize reinvestment over executive pay extraction.

- Amyx proposes eliminating the federal income tax entirely for individuals earning under $75,000 (and couples under $150,000), offset by a targeted 1% wealth tax on the ultra-wealthy with tens of millions in accumulated assets.

- Wirth supports a 2-3% tax on billionaire investment gains to fund childcare infrastructure and other programs, and calls for corporations and the wealthy to pay their fair share rather than spending on tax avoidance.

01:00:23 Q9: Social Security solvency

- Rogers frames the Social Security shortfall — projected insolvency by 2032 with an automatic 28% benefit cut — and contrasts Republican privatization proposals with the progressive solution of lifting the payroll tax cap above $184,500.

- Wirth supports raising the cap to approximately $425,000, opposes privatization entirely, and calls for laws protecting the Social Security fund from being used as a “piggy bank.”

- Amyx acknowledges lifting the cap helps but notes economists say even a full cap elimination only closes 70-80% of the 75-year shortfall; says he favors eliminating the cap entirely but admits the full solution requires additional mechanisms he hasn’t fully resolved.

- Baker supports raising the Social Security tax threshold to $400,000-$500,000, argues the deeper problem is the national debt (grown from $13T to $39T since 2010), and references the Simpson-Bowles framework — two-thirds cuts, one-third revenue — as a model for long-term solvency.

01:06:39 Q10: Labor and the union drift to Republicans

- Rogers asks candidates to diagnose why blue-collar private-sector union members have been drifting Republican for decades, and what they would do in Congress to win back not just union leadership endorsements but rank-and-file votes.

- Baker attributes part of the drift to right-to-work laws and pivots to data centers — arguing no candidate can win this district supporting them, citing Decatur Township specifically, and noting that construction jobs last a year or two while the centers then employ fewer people than a Cracker Barrel.

- Wirth, who identifies as the only active labor union member (AFT/AFL-CIO) running for Congress in Indiana, supports the PRO Act and repeal of right-to-work, argues labor unions are being used as pawns in data center promotion, and attributes the trade union drift to sexism — noting trade unions are male-dominated while the professions drifting Democratic are female-dominated.

- Amyx says the cost of living is overriding party loyalty, Democrats haven’t been listening (citing his 23,000 doors across both parties), and that Republicans have mastered “respect for workers” messaging even when their policies don’t match; identifies cultural disconnect, institutional distrust, immigration anxiety, and “identity-first” Democratic messaging as contributing factors.

01:13:38 Speed round

- Federal moratorium on new data center construction: Amyx yes, Baker yes, Wirth yes

- Expand the Supreme Court beyond nine justices: Wirth yes, Baker no, Amyx yes

- Statehood for DC and Puerto Rico: Baker yes, Amyx yes, Wirth yes

- Constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College: Amyx yes, Wirth yes, Baker yes

- Federal legalization of recreational cannabis: Amyx yes, Baker yes, Wirth yes

- FISA reauthorization: Wirth no, Amyx no, Baker no

- Withhold military aid to Israel: Baker no, Wirth yes, Amyx yes

- Impeach President Trump: Amyx yes, Wirth yes, Baker yes

- Free public higher education: Wirth yes, Baker no, Amyx yes

- Cancel all outstanding student debt: Baker no, Amyx yes, Wirth yes

- Universal federally funded child care: Amyx yes, Wirth yes, Baker yes

- Hakeem Jeffries for Speaker: Baker no, Wirth no, Amyx no

- Federal assault weapons ban: Amyx yes, Baker no, Wirth yes

- Abolish the federal death penalty: Amyx no, Wirth yes, Baker no

- Federal minimum wage by 2030: Wirth declined to give a number (living wage tied to local cost of living), Baker $15, Amyx $23 (toward a $25/hr target by 2031)

01:19:18 Closing statements

- Amyx closes on listening before leading — 24,000 doors, real solutions built with constituents, a contrast with “standard politicians.”

- Baker closes on electability — asking voters whether they want the most progressive candidate or the most electable progressive, and arguing his campaign gives Democrats the best shot at flipping the seat, which last went Democratic in 1939 under Finly Gray.

- Wirth closes by invoking her 2022 run against Greg Pence when no one else would, her work across all 11 counties, and a vision of single-payer healthcare, living wages, affordable childcare, fully funded public schools, and being “the first Democratic woman to represent” the 6th District.

###

Rogers closes the event, thanks the candidates and PIN notes early voting is underway with primary day May 5th, and calls the winner’s general election race one of the most consequential midterm elections in modern American history

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https://progressiveindiana.net/

https://www.whetstoneforcongress.com/

SUMMARY

John Whetstone, Democratic candidate for Indiana’s 4th Congressional District, joined HoosLeft host Scott Aaron Rogers for a virtual town hall on April 19, 2026. A small business owner from Crawfordsville, Whetstone grounded his progressive platform — Medicare for All, a $17.25 minimum wage, abolishing ICE, Supreme Court expansion, and federal cannabis legalization — in a personal story of growing up poor in a trailer park and watching his father work himself to death under the weight of medical debt. The conversation ranged across healthcare, education, housing, gun policy, democratic reform, data centers, and the question of how to peel off Trump voters with a working-class populist message that targets billionaires instead of immigrants.

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QUESTIONS

00:00:22 Introduction

00:01:08 John Whetstone introduction and opening remarks

00:05:42 Q: Healthcare transition — rural hospitals are closing now. What does the path from our current system to Medicare for All actually look like?

- Government must use direct funding to keep rural hospitals and labor-and-delivery departments open during the transition period.

- The transition requires throwing federal dollars at the gap while the private insurance model is being unwound.

- Whetstone acknowledged he does not yet have a specific timeline for the full transition.

00:07:13 Q (Bonnie, Crawfordsville): What will you do to improve funding for Indiana schools?

- Incentivize systems to stop diverting students to private and charter schools.

- Restore and expand practical vocational programs — fire/EMS, law enforcement training, automotive — that have been defunded.

- Fund education from pre-K through college; student debt should not exist because an educated workforce benefits the whole country.

- AI-driven layoffs have left a generation of coding graduates underwater on loans they were told would pay off quickly.

- Daycare must be treated as part of the education infrastructure — parents leaving the workforce to care for children is a policy failure.

00:11:34 Q: Would you have supported the Build Back Better plan’s investment in childcare as human infrastructure?

- Yes — investing in people is the core message of his campaign.

- Revenue is available through closing tax loopholes, raising the corporate tax rate, and taxing the wealthy.

- The economy can afford to put people back at the center of policy.

00:13:29 Q: In last week’s IN-04 debate, you said you opposed a federal assault weapons ban. Why?

- Gun culture is central to where he grew up; the Second Amendment is a constitutional right and should not be eroded before other options are exhausted.

- Prefers investing in mental health, drug intervention, and community economic improvement — raising the minimum wage should lower crime rates.

- Supports registration, licensing, and mandatory safety training, but insists all of it must be free, like voting — no effective poll tax on a constitutional right.

- The insurance mandate idea is where he draws the line; cost should not be a barrier to exercising a right.

00:17:40 Q: Can ICE be reformed, or does it need to be abolished?

- Abolish ICE — they have proven untrustworthy and operate like a gang at $85 billion and counting.

- Replace with caseworkers who help people navigate the pathway to citizenship or residency.

- The killing of Alex Pretti — a licensed gun owner shot in the back by ICE agents — illustrates exactly why the agency cannot be reformed.

- The agency’s own arrest data shows only a small minority of those detained have any criminal record.

00:19:23 Q: You were the loudest yes on Supreme Court expansion in last week’s debate. To what number, and how do you answer the “race to the bottom” objection?

- Expand to 13 justices (revised upward from his initial answer of 12 after Scott pointed out you need an odd number for majority rulings).

- Structure it as six conservative, six liberal, plus one mutually agreed-upon neutral party.

- Pair expansion with term limits and a rotating schedule so every president gets at least one pick and no justice accumulates unchecked power indefinitely.

- 13 corresponds to the number of federal circuit courts — the same logic that originally produced nine.

00:24:17 Q: Do you support statehood for D.C. and Puerto Rico?

- Yes to both, and Guam as well — all U.S. territories should become full states.

- America should not be an imperial power with permanent territorial subjects who have no voting representation.

- Every territory should have some form of voting representation in Congress.

00:25:19 Q: Do you support abolishing the Electoral College?

- Yes — presidents should not be able to win without winning the popular vote.

- Also supports the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact as an interim workaround; Virginia just joined that week.

00:27:20 Q (Bonnie, Crawfordsville): What are your proposals on housing affordability and homelessness?

- Raise the minimum wage and cap rent increases — out-of-state corporate landlords are buying up Crawfordsville properties and hiking rents without making improvements.

- Medicare for All would free up household income currently drained by health costs.

- We have more vacant homes than unhoused people; retrofit vacant big-box storefronts like old Sears locations into government-funded housing.

- Supportive of public housing in concept but was candid that he needs to research the policy specifics before making firm commitments.

00:31:42 Q (Tabitha, Covington): What will you do for the autism, neurodiverse, and disability community?

- No specific policy plan yet; honest about that gap.

- Broad investment in the social work profession — more social workers, higher wages, more funding for social work schools.

- DCS and case management agencies are dangerously understaffed.

- ABA therapy and similar autism interventions would be covered under his Medicare for All plan because if a doctor says it’s health care, it’s health care.

00:33:41 Q: Would abortion be covered under your universal healthcare plan?

- Yes, unequivocally — abortion is healthcare, it’s between a patient and their doctor, and it’s a human right.

- The Hyde Amendment would have no place in his system.

00:35:13 Q: Social Security is projected to go insolvent around 2032 with automatic benefit cuts of roughly 28%. What’s your plan?

- Remove the payroll tax cap — Elon Musk pays Social Security taxes only on his first $180,000 while working people pay on every dollar they earn.

- Lifting the cap alone would dramatically extend Social Security’s solvency; Whetstone declined to put a specific year on it.

- Cautious about whether surplus revenue could also be used to increase benefits — said he hasn’t fully researched that angle yet.

00:37:46 Q: What do you understand about this political moment that your older colleagues in Congress do not?

- Personal data is being bought, sold, and weaponized — his campaign uses purchased voter data to target ads, and most legislators don’t even know that’s possible.

- He purchased his own data before the campaign began and found the results alarming.

- Regulation of who can buy personal data and for what purposes is urgently needed, and younger members are best positioned to explain why to colleagues who barely know how to use a computer.

00:40:28 Q (Aaron, YouTube): Which political figures, living or dead, inspire you?

- Among current members: Thomas Massie — for his willingness to break with his party on principle (specifically on Epstein file transparency); Whetstone said he’d work with any Republican on minimum wage or universal healthcare.

- On the Democratic side: AOC — “She’s our next president.”

- Historically: his father, a union Democrat who drove a 14-year-old Whetstone to Tea Party meetings to heckle the speakers; and Bernie Sanders.

00:43:10 Q: It’s the eve of 4/20 — is it time to legalize cannabis federally?

- Yes — it’s a revenue source, it’s a public safety improvement over an unregulated market, and it’s comparable in risk to alcohol.

- Legalize, tax, regulate, decriminalize, reduce prison populations, restore lives.

- Acknowledged he usually avoids the topic because people assume it’s the only reason young candidates run.

00:45:16 Q: Indiana agriculture depends on migrant labor, yet your district’s voters largely back Trump’s immigration crackdown. How do you talk to farmers about this?

- Farmers don’t bring up migrant labor — they bring up the cost of fertilizer and lost export markets, particularly the loss of Chinese demand for American crops and the rising cost of sulfuric acid due to trade war disruptions.

- Proposed a government purchasing program to buy surplus agricultural output and direct it to free school meals and unhoused shelters, creating a domestic market floor.

- Farmers know agriculture depends on migrant labor; they avoid the subject because it’s uncomfortable.

00:47:26 Q (Colton, ProgressiveIndiana.net): What are your thoughts on data centers?

- Call for an immediate moratorium — supports Bernie Sanders’s nationwide pause on new data center construction.

- Indiana is ground zero; community opposition near Lebanon and Monrovia has been nearly unanimous, yet politicians keep ramming approvals through.

- We have more vacant homes than homeless people, yet we’re demolishing livable structures behind barbed wire to build data centers.

- Government should have heavy oversight of any future construction — protecting water tables, requiring sustainable energy and closed-loop cooling, and regulating AI companies’ data-scraping practices.

- Skeptical of the China national security argument; believes good-neighbor diplomacy reduces confrontation more reliably than an AI arms race.

00:52:48 Q: If Democrats take the House and Senate but Trump is still there with a veto, what can actually get done?

- Believes Trump would sign minimum wage increases and rural transit and internet investment because those benefit his base and feed his legacy.

- Medicare for All would not pass Trump’s desk.

- Would support impeachment if given the votes — he was clear Trump has committed impeachable offenses — but framed it as a separate track from legislating.

00:54:58 Q: Trump ran as a right-wing populist. You’re running as a progressive populist. Same anger, different targets. How do you convert his voters?

- He grew up next to Trump voters in a trailer park; those conversations are the template for his campaign.

- Canvassing apartment complexes and trailer parks — places where the top-down economic squeeze is viscerally real — has produced broad support across socialist, Democrat, Republican, and Libertarian voters.

- Trump voters know they’re getting screwed; they just got conned into blaming the wrong people. Whetstone’s pitch is that he comes from the same place they do.

00:57:25 Q: What’s the most important thing a congressperson can do that has nothing to do with legislation?

- Be genuinely embedded in their community — not just holding town halls, but keeping their barber, their doctor, and their daily life rooted where their constituents live.

00:58:05 Closing remarks and campaign information

Thanks again to John Whetstone for joining us. For more information, visit his campaign website at https://www.whetstoneforcongress.com/

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Produced by:

Progressive Indiana Network :

https:/www.progressiveindiana.net

Moderator:

Rachael Chatham: https://rchathampr.com/

Candidates:

Mary Allen: https://www.maryallenforcongress.com/

Chris Rector: Campaign Facebook Page

Tabitha Zeigler: https://tabithazeiglerforcongress.com/

Mario Foradori was invited and RSVP’d, but has since stopped participating in campaign events; he has made no official withdrawal announcement.

SUMMARY:

Three Democratic candidates for Indiana’s 8th Congressional District debated across ten policy categories — foreign policy, accountability, immigration, affordability, healthcare, education, human rights, taxation, social security, and labor — followed by a rapid-fire speed round and closing statements. All three candidates broadly agreed that the Trump administration has gone beyond the bounds of constitutional governance and that working families have been abandoned by both parties’ leadership. Chris Rector, a 25-year Army veteran and service-connected disabled veteran from Knoxville, Tennessee now living in the 8th District, brought a blunt, movement-politics energy and a focus on the struggles of working and struggling families. Mary Allen, an at-large city councilor in Evansville, healthcare worker, and former small business owner, emphasized her track record of showing up and her experience seeing where policy hits people in the real world. Tabitha Zeigler, a multi-generational Hoosier, 20-year union member, working farmer, and LGBTQ+ community member, left her position at the U.S. Postal Service to run and brought firsthand experience with autism, domestic violence, and the economics of rural life.

Progressive Indiana Network is powered entirely by our subscribers. To help us continue presenting special events like this, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

BREAKDOWN:

00:00:20 - Introduction

- Rachael Chatham introduces herself as an independent journalist from Southeast Indiana and the debate moderator; credits Scott Rogers of HoosLeft with running production and the Progressive Indiana Network as the presenting organization

- Notes that Mario Foradori originally RSVP’d but has been unresponsive and did not participate, though he remains on the ballot

- Outlines the format: two-minute opening statements, ten policy questions, a speed round, and closing statements

00:02:07 - Opening Statements

- Chris Rector: 25-year Army veteran, service-connected disabled veteran, certified peer support specialist with the VA, and former sheriff’s investigator; frames his candidacy around working and struggling families; vows not to reach across the aisle to “wannabe white Christian nationalists, fascists, racists, and corrupt politicians”; says fighters fight, and this is our home

- Mary Allen: healthcare worker for 15 years, nonprofit organizer, small business owner, and current at-large city councilor in Evansville; union household upbringing — her father was a Teamster truck driver; three adult daughters and two grandchildren; never missed a meeting or vote on city council; recently sold her business to focus full-time on the campaign

- Tabitha Zeigler: multi-generational Hoosier with roots to at least 1822; steelworker and farming family background; still lives on a working farm; 20-year union member with the airlines and U.S. Postal Service; left her USPS position to run; LGBTQ+ community member, domestic violence survivor, autistic, and parent of three autistic children

00:08:19 - Q1: FOREIGN POLICY — The War with Iran, Gaza, and the U.S.-Israel Relationship

The U.S. has been at war with Iran for six weeks, initiated at the urging of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has triggered an international energy crisis. Gaza and the West Bank remain under occupation. Both the war and the U.S. relationship with Israel have divided Democrats. Where do you stand on the war with Iran, and is it time to fundamentally reevaluate the U.S. relationship with Israel?

- Allen: calls it a war of choice; says Congress is abdicating its constitutional responsibility to declare war; calls for repealing outdated war authorizations; speaks as a veteran and member of Veterans for Peace; warns that our enemies are becoming our friends and our friends are becoming our enemies

- Zeigler: says the U.S. is supporting a genocide not just in Palestine but in Lebanon and Syria as well; argues for diplomacy over war; says her millennial generation has effectively been at war since 9/11 and she has watched too many friends come back not okay

- Rector: draws on his own military service; calls the spending of a billion dollars a day on war criminal when that money could fund universal child care and healthcare in the 8th District; criticizes Democratic leadership in D.C. for going along with it

00:14:21 - Q2: ACCOUNTABILITY — Impeachment, Criminal Prosecution, and the Limits of Removal

President Trump has defied court orders, weaponized the DOJ, attempted to strip birthright citizenship by executive order, launched an unconstitutional war without a single vote of Congress, and committed what one resolution calls outright tyranny. House Democrats have introduced multiple impeachment resolutions while party leadership has largely sat on their hands. Is impeachment on the table on day one? Is removal even enough, or are we talking about criminal prosecution?

- Zeigler: says we have not seen a government like this ever; argues impeachment alone is insufficient and criminal prosecution is necessary; invokes the Nuremberg trials as the appropriate framework; says this goes beyond the president to everyone complicit in war crimes

- Rector: commits to filing for impeachment on day one; cites Rep. Al Green as the only House member willing to say it out loud; says we have to impeach, convict, remove, and prosecute anyone proven to have committed war crimes or genocide

- Allen: supports both impeachment and prosecution; warns accountability cannot stop with Trump; points to the Epstein files as one example of broader lawbreaking that must be investigated; argues Congress must reassert itself against executive overreach regardless of which party holds the White House

00:19:36 - Q3: IMMIGRATION — Abolishing ICE and the Future of DHS

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem was removed and replaced with another MAGA loyalist. Multiple U.S. citizens have been shot and killed by masked, unidentified agents. ICE’s funding would rank it among the top 15 military budgets on the planet. A majority of Democrats now support abolishing ICE outright, though elected Democrats have been reticent to say so. Can this agency be reformed, or should it be abolished? Has DHS outlived its original purpose?

- Rector: will push to abolish ICE on day one and replace it with a reformed version of the pre-9/11 INS; calls the current agency “an armed regime”; says everyone — documented or not — has a right to due process

- Zeigler: 100% abolish ICE; calls it a rebranding from the slave catcher days; praises community organizing in Minnesota as a model for the interim; argues the money should be redirected to immigration judges, lawyers, and USCIS processing capacity to make the system actually work

- Allen: supports abolition and prosecution of agents who broke the law; argues money spent on detention camps should build courts instead; says we can have both humanity and a secure border — they are not mutually exclusive

00:25:29 - Q4: AFFORDABILITY — The Root Cause of the Cost-of-Living Crisis

Grocery prices, rent, healthcare, and child care keep climbing. Saying “we’ll lower costs” is insufficient. What is the root cause of the affordability crisis and what specific steps would you take in Congress to actually address it?

- Allen: argues poverty is a policy choice; calls out the reconciliation bill as the biggest transfer of wealth from working people to billionaires in recent memory; draws on her own experience as a single mother who worked two jobs to afford child care; supports child care for all

- Zeigler: argues $1–2 billion a day in war spending could fund universal healthcare and child care; calls out tariffs and backroom deals; describes the current moment as obscene — Elon Musk becoming a trillionaire while American children are trafficked and starving

- Rector: asks why universal health care and child care remain out of reach while genocide is being funded; describes his work modeling a universal child care program after New Mexico’s free, taxpayer-neutral system; wants to implement it first in the 8th District

00:30:58 - Q5: HEALTHCARE — Medicare for All, the ACA, and How to Get There

The free market will not deliver the healthcare results we need — the rest of the industrialized world has already figured this out. More market competition? A bolstered ACA? A public option? Medicare for all? A hybrid model? What’s your solution and how do you get there?

- Zeigler: looks to European and Portuguese models; argues taxing the 1% appropriately would fund the system; calls out Walmart’s deliberate wage suppression as a mechanism for offloading worker healthcare costs onto SNAP and Medicaid

- Allen: supports a transitional approach — ACA subsidies as a near-term Band-Aid, moving toward Medicare for all or a single-payer system; shares a door-knocking encounter with a recently widowed woman in her sixties, working at Walmart, navigating her late husband’s hospital bills while too young for Medicare

- Rector: points to the VA model as proof that universal healthcare is achievable at low cost — the VA provides glasses, exams, and lenses for a dollar; argues big pharma and billionaires are the only reason it hasn’t happened for everyone

00:36:51 - Q6: EDUCATION — Vouchers, Title I, and a Sustainable Future for Hoosier Educators

The Trump administration has taken a chainsaw to the Department of Education, slashed Title I funding, and pushed voucher schemes that siphon public dollars into private and religious schools. Cory in Clay City is studying to be a music teacher and wants to know: how will you ensure that Cory and all Hoosier educators will have a sustainable career?

- Rector: calls for fully funding public education before any voucher program exists; wants arts and trades programs restored in high schools; frames school choice as a political tool that benefits neither students nor teachers; says music is life

- Allen: agrees on full public school funding; criticizes the appointment of Linda McMahon as Secretary of Education; calls for affordable higher education and expanded apprenticeship and technical training pathways; notes her daughter is a fourth-grade public school teacher

- Zeigler: holds up Finland as a model — teaching is one of the most highly regarded and competitive professions in the country; calls for universal free pre-K, smaller class sizes, proper teacher training and compensation, and trades programs for students who don’t pursue college

00:42:10 - Q7: HUMAN RIGHTS — LGBTQ+ Rights, “Culturally Normal,” and Where Democrats Draw the Line

Gavin Newsom has argued Democrats need to be more “culturally normal” — language that drew immediate pushback from LGBTQ+ advocates. His own state’s LGBTQ+ caucus has called him out for siding with conservatives on transgender athletes. Is Newsom right? Where do you draw the line between smart politics and abandoning the people who need the party’s protection most?

- Allen: says she doesn’t know what “culturally normal” means; filters all decisions through a commitment to loving people well; frames human rights as civil rights for all regardless of identity; says she is a woman of faith and that faith compels her to love all her neighbors

- Zeigler: states trans rights are human rights; invokes the “first they came” framework — once they come for one, they’re coming for you; speaks from personal experience as a gay woman who has been beaten for her identity; argues gender-affirming care is actually more common in the straight community than people acknowledge

- Rector: calls LGBTQ+ issues a manufactured political distraction used by the government to push something else; shares a story from his Texas state legislative race about the representative who implemented the drag ban, now on Trump’s cabinet; says “a little cross-dressing never hurt anyone”

00:48:04 - Q8: TAXATION — Wealth Tax, Corporate Taxes, and the Billionaire Threat to Leave

Gavin Newsom opposed a wealth tax at the New York Times DealBook summit, implying the Democratic tent needs to include billionaires. Warren and Sanders are barnstorming the country arguing the opposite. Do you support a wealth tax? What about raising the top marginal rate and corporate taxes? And what do you say to the argument that the rich will just leave?

- Zeigler: uses Massachusetts as a case study — the wealthy threatened to leave, didn’t, and Boston remains a hub for billionaires; argues higher taxation funds the public infrastructure billionaires also depend on, from roads to public safety; California has more billionaires than almost any other state despite high taxes

- Rector: agrees without reservation; frames the wealth tax as reclaiming what the top 1% has stolen from working families over 50 years; says they go to bed dreaming about beach condos while working families can’t sleep worrying about the electric bill

- Allen: endorses Warren’s two-cent-on-the-dollar wealth tax framework; supports raising the corporate rate from its 2017 cut; draws on her city council work reviewing tax abatements and says we should only reward businesses that offer living wages

00:53:08 - Q9: SOCIAL SECURITY — Solvency, the Payroll Cap, and the Promise to Working Hoosiers

Without changes, Social Security is headed toward insolvency by 2032 — just six years away — at which point benefits would automatically be cut by nearly 28%. Republicans want to privatize it or raise the retirement age. Progressives say lift the payroll tax cap above $176,100 and make the wealthy pay in on their full income. What is your plan, and what do you say to Hoosiers in their 40s and 50s who have paid in their whole lives?

- Rector: currently on Social Security himself; frames the program as belonging to the workers who fund it, not the government; objects to privatization without reservation; stops short of a specific solvency mechanism but says government needs to get out of the way

- Allen: calls it non-negotiable; rules out raising the retirement age; supports lifting the payroll cap and taxing wealthy investment income more aggressively; shares a story from a community event about a retired couple living on one Social Security check — the husband chops his own firewood for heat and grows a garden to cut the grocery bill, and worries he won’t be able to keep doing it

- Zeigler: calls the current structure highway robbery for the wealthy, who draw from Social Security while already holding multi-generational investment wealth; proposes means-testing so high earners no longer draw from the system; says at 42 she already doubts Social Security will be there for her

00:58:23 - Q10: LABOR — The Rank-and-File Drift and How to Win It Back

Democrats call themselves the party of labor, but private sector trade union members — pipefitters, electricians, ironworkers, Teamsters — have been drifting toward Republicans for decades. In a district like the 8th, that drift is the difference between winning and losing. Diagnose why it’s happening and tell us what you would specifically do in Congress to win those workers back — not just union leadership’s endorsement, but the rank-and-file votes.

- Allen: supports the PRO Act; frames union rights as a North Star; credits unions with the 40-hour week, eight-hour day, and child labor protections; says they’ve had our backs and we need to have theirs

- Zeigler: traces the drift directly to Democratic complicity in deindustrialization — NAFTA happened on Democrats’ watch; argues workers in formerly unionized areas watched their factories close and never saw a clear path back; says Democrats have been abandoning the working class for 40 years and workers know it

- Rector: whose father and brother were Teamsters for over 40 years and who has walked picket lines with them; says union members are right not to buy what the elite of the Democratic Party is selling; argues that in Indiana, union organizing won’t work until the state’s right-to-work law is repealed

01:03:07 - Speed Round

- Federal moratorium on new data center construction: Rector — Yes / Zeigler — Yes / Allen — Yes

- Expand the Supreme Court beyond nine justices: Rector — Yes / Zeigler — Yes / Allen — Yes

- Statehood for D.C. and Puerto Rico: Rector — Yes / Zeigler — Yes / Allen — Yes

- Constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College: Rector — Yes / Zeigler — Yes / Allen — Yes

- Federal legalization of recreational cannabis: Rector — Yes / Zeigler — Yes / Allen — Yes

- Free public higher education: Rector — Yes / Zeigler — Yes / Allen — Yes

- Cancel all outstanding student loan debt: Rector — Yes / Zeigler — Yes / Allen — Yes

- Universal federally funded child care: Rector — Yes, and working on a plan now / Zeigler — Yes / Allen — Yes

- Is Hakeem Jeffries your candidate for Speaker: Rector — No / Zeigler — No / Allen — No

- Federal assault weapons ban: Rector — Yes / Zeigler — Yes / Allen — Yes

- Abolish the federal death penalty: Rector — Yes / Zeigler — Yes / Allen — Yes

- Federal minimum wage (currently $7.25 since 2009) — give a number: Rector — $20 / Zeigler — $35 / Allen — $17 (with the caveat that she was thinking incrementally; notes the living wage in southern Indiana is currently about $20.85)

01:06:36 - Closing Statements

- Zeigler: closes on lived experience — multi-generational Hoosier, union member, domestic violence survivor, parent of autistic kids; argues Congress needs people who can speak to those pain points from the inside; contrasts herself with Republican incumbent Mark Mesmer; asks voters who want someone from the working class who understands the struggles to vote for her

- Rector: argues the Democratic Party has lost its way and become the party of the elite; invokes the party’s legacy of movement politics — civil rights, women’s suffrage, LGBTQ+ rights, disability rights — and says those movements were won in the streets, the hills, and the halls of power, not with polite letters; says it’s time to not be nice; thanks the Progressive Indiana Network and his fellow candidates

- Allen: opens by clarifying her minimum wage answer — she supports a living wage indexed to cost of living, currently about $20.85 in southern Indiana; closes on her ground game, her kitchen-table background, and her commitment to being the 8th District’s voice on healthcare, pocketbook issues, dignity, and democracy; asks for the vote on May 5th

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Rachael closes the event, thanks the candidates and PIN, notes early voting is underway with primary day May 5th, and calls the winner’s general election race one of the most consequential midterm elections in modern American history

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