11/01/2010 - Candidates For Lesser Known Offices Offer Civics Lessons (Trib Star)

By Maureen Hayden

It’s hard enough to get name recognition when you run for statewide office. Imagine having to spend time getting recognition for the office itself.

But that’s what the major party candidates for state treasurer and state auditor have found themselves doing this election season: Giving voters a civics lesson on Indiana government.

“It’s not the West Wing,” said Pete Buttigieg, the 28-year-old seeking to unseat Treasurer Richard Mourdock “It’s not an office people wake up in the morning thinking about.”

The Democrat Buttigieg and the Republican Mourdock have their disagreements, but they concur on the obscurity of the office. On the campaign trail to win re-election, Mourdock has found himself explaining time and again that it’s his job to be the “investor in chief” for about $7 billion in the state treasury.

Among the questions most frequently asked when he introduces himself as the safekeeper of the state’s money, Mourdock said, is this: “Do you have any free samples?”

“Even more frequently, they’re surprised it’s an elected position,” Mourdock said. Echoed Buttigieg: “They ask: ‘We have a state treasurer?’”

Both candidates said they often get asked by voters about what they’ll do to bring down property taxes or increase funding for public education. They can’t do anything about either.

Nor does the state treasurer oversee the Department of Revenue, the State Board of Accounts, or the State Budget Agency. Those are all overseen by the director of the Office of Management and Budget — a position appointed by the governor.

In fact, the state treasurer in Indiana has only 18 employees.

But the treasurer has billions of dollars to invest, which is how the position has been elevated in attention this campaign season.

Mourdock made national headlines last year when he filed a lawsuit to block the federal government’s bailout of Chrysler through a quickly engineered bankruptcy plan.

Mourdock argued the plan violated bankruptcy rules by moving unsecured stakeholders, including the United Auto Workers union, ahead of the secured debt-holders that included Indiana pension and highway funds.

Mourdock’s effort failed but he won friends, and enemies, along the way.

Buttigieg has campaigned on the controversy, questioning why Mourdock initially invested in Chrysler, and then later spent $2 million in legal fees to fight the bankruptcy.

At least there’s some controversy in the race for the candidates to fight about.

A question that’s consistently arisen in the race for state auditor, which pits incumbent Republican Tim Berry against Democrat Sam Locke and Libertarian Eric Knipe is this: Should there even be an elected state auditor?

Berry, Locke, and Knipe have all had to justify the existence of the low-profile office, said political analyst Brian Howey, editor of the Howey Politics Indiana.

“If you ask 20 people on the street, ‘Who is the state auditor?’ Maybe one would know his name,” Howey said.

 Or what he does.

 The “Auditor of the State,” as explained by the current auditor’s website, has four duties: paying the state’s bills; paying state employees; disbursing tax distributions to local entities; and accounting for the state’s funds.

Howey thinks that’s a job that should be filled by an appointee of the sitting governor, along with the jobs of treasurer, secretary of state, and public school superintendent. Jobs, he said, which are in the Indiana constitution as elected offices, but may be better suited to be held by “bureaucrats.”

 But as for now, all but the last one is on Tuesday’s ballot.