Indiana attorney general candidate Todd Rokita, a former secretary of state and congressman, hopes to unseat current Attorney General Curtis Hill, whom Rokita says has overspent taxpayer money while renovating his office.
"Curtis Hill's budgets have skyrocketed with hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on office furniture, cars, satellite offices, even chandeliers," Rokita said.
Hill, also a Republican, had his law license suspended 30 days by the Indiana Supreme Court for allegedly groping four women at a downtown Indianapolis bar in 2018. Hill has vigorously denied the allegations.
But Rokita’s charges against the current state attorney general may not tell the whole story. The Indiana Lawyer calls Hill's renovations frugal, and noted that they included buying less-expensive items over those with a higher price tag, like “chandeliers purchased for $75 to $100 apiece” instead of ones with “sticker prices of $5,000 per fixture.”
In addition, the woodwork was completed by “inmates from the Pendleton Correctional Facility and other rehab work done by prisoners from other Department of Correction facilities,” instead of hiring outside contractors. There are those who say that the office had been neglected for decades and was not up to code when the renovations began.
The renovation may have cost $335,000, but the rehabilitation of the office was not paid for by tax dollars, Indiana Lawyer noted. Instead, the work was funded by “proceeds from the Consumer Settlement Fund.”
During Rokita’s 2018 campaign for the U.S. Senate, the Associated Press reported that “over the past 12 years, Rokita has spent roughly $3 million in public money on media campaigns, mailers and other forms of mass communication, usually ramping up the spending before appearing on a ballot. That figure reflects spending by Rokita that occurred both when he was Indiana's secretary of state and during his time in Congress.”
Rokita lost the 2018 Republican primary to eventual U.S. Sen. Mike Braun.
Using taxpayer funds on unsolicited mass communications is called franking, a matter the the AP looked into in 2018. The AP also noted that the act of spending taxpayer money on “what largely amounts to an ad for an officeholder has long been questioned, leading to efforts to curtail the practice in recent decades.”
During that investigation, the Associated Press noted that “Rokita's spending on mass communications dwarfs that every other member of Indiana's federal delegation. Often it has placed him among the top spenders on franked communications.” One of those taxpayer-funded communications from Rokita was a $27,000 radio ad which ran on a radio station in Ohio, AP reported. Since that station was outside of Rokita’s district, it was a violation of House rules. But, that ad did reach voters in the Fort Wayne area, where he isn’t known as well.
And those actions are at odds with statements he made in 2011, according to the Indianapolis Star.
"With every vote I take in Congress, I am working to cut spending, whether it's millions or trillions," Rokita said in a 2011 news release. "Every dollar we save today is one less our children and grandchildren will have to repay."
Between 2006 and 2018, the Associated Press noted that Rokita has spent roughly $3 million in taxpayer funds for communications related to campaigns.
Rokita and Hill both addressed the Indiana Republican Convention this week. State delegates will vote by mail over the next two weeks with the winner to be certified July 10.