Seven-year Statehouse run ending for Van Haaften (Courier & Press)
Seven-year Statehouse run ending for Van Haaften
By Eric Bradner
INDIANAPOLIS — As he prepares a run for Indiana's 8th District seat in the U.S. House, state Rep. Trent Van Haaften will close out his seven-year Indiana General Assembly career when the current legislative session wraps up this week.
It's a career that started in 2004, when Van Haaften, then the Posey County prosecutor, was appointed to complete the two-year term of Jonathan Weinzapfel, who had just been elected mayor of Evansville.
Van Haaften now will launch a campaign casting himself as a moderate consensus-builder. It's the kind of campaign Democrats have to run in the 8th District, where voters chose Republican John McCain for president in 2008 even though Barack Obama carried Indiana as a whole.
But as he leaves behind a Statehouse in which his star was on the rise among Democratic leaders, the question is, will such a campaign resonate?
The House Public Policy Committee, which Van Haaften chairs, is assigned bills related to the regulation of drugs, gambling and alcohol, as well as crime and sentencing. He won praise from fellow committee members for his handling of those issues.
"I think Trent's been a phenomenal committee chairman," said Rep. Matt Bell of Avilla, the top-ranking Republican on the committee.
Bell said on that legislative panel, "we are able to work in a bipartisan fashion. These are not issues that fall on party lines. And he's promoted that culture of exchange."
LINK: http://www.courierpress.com/news/2010/mar/07/seven-year-statehouse-run-ending/