Welcome to the HoosLeft podcast, a show about Indiana politics, history, and culture from the unapologetic perspective of the Hoosier left. My name is Scott Aaron Rogers and I’m recording from Bloomington.
Today, I continue my series on the Monroe County Board of Commissioners races. To reset, in Indiana, each county is governed by a 3-person Board of Commissioners, who essentially serve as both the legislative and executive branches of county government. Additionally, each county is also served by a seven-person County Council, who control the purse strings. And, obviously, the county courts comprise the judicial branch.
As for the commissioners, each member of the board represents the district in which they live, though all county residents can vote for all three districts. In Monroe County, Districts 2 and 3 come up for reelection every four years on the presidential cycle, while District 1 comes up in midterm years. This year, incumbents Julie Thomas of District 2 and Penny Githens of District 3 are facing aggressive Democratic primary challengers.
As I’ve mentioned several times of the last few weeks, Monroe County, home to Bloomington and Indiana University, is almost entirely under one-party Democratic administration. Therefore, the May primary largely determines the winner come November. Challengers Peter Iversen of District 2 and Jody Madeira of District 3, with substantial financial backing from local builders, have attacked the incumbents as obstructionists, beholden to NIMBY homeowners and rural county residents. In response, incumbents Thomas and Githens have characterized the upstarts as being puppets for the real estate developers. Additionally, longtime Bloomington city councilmember Steve Volan lurks in District 3.
I spoke to Julie Thomas a few weeks back in episode 26, while interviews with Iversen and Madeira have just dropped in the last week, episodes 30 and 31. I recommend catching up on all of those before coming to this installment, but it isn’t necessary.
My guest today is Penny Githens, Monroe County Commissioner since 2019. From her website,
“Penny Githens grew up in Richmond, Indiana. After graduating from Purdue University in 1972 with a degree in Chemistry and Math Education, Penny served in the Peace Corps in Kenya for 2 years. Upon her return she attended IU, earning a masters in Educational Psychology. Penny has held faculty research positions at the Yale School of Medicine and Vanderbilt University, been involved in program development at the Wharton School of Business, and served as a project manager at the IU School of Education. She is the co-author of two books and multiple professional journal articles.
Penny has also been active in autism advocacy for decades, serving as a previous board member for the South Central Indiana Chapter of the Autism Society of America from 1999 - 2007, and for the Autism Society of Indiana from 2003-2005. She has also volunteered as an educational advocate with IN*SOURCE, and been an active member of several Democratic organizations in Monroe County. Penny is also an avid supporter of Hoosier Hills Food Bank & Pantry 279.”
In this interview, we’ll talk about all of the big county issues: annexation, where to erect a new justice center, and balancing the need for more housing with the need to protect the environment. Penny and I also discuss the nasty tenor the campaign has taken on. As I’ve studied this race in depth, I’ve begun to make sense of the divisions in the local party, which both reflect and diverge from divisions in the Democratic Party at the national level. More thoughts on that later.
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Here’s my interview with Penny Githens.
Once again, that was incumbent Monroe County Commissioner Penny Githens, facing a tough primary fight May 7.
After talking with challengers Iversen and Madeira recently, I was interested to hear the other side of this intraparty squabble from Githens. Speaking with Penny, I hear someone who cares, who gives her full time to the job, who is thoughtful, deliberate, and takes all the little details into account. To oversimplify this race, I guess the outsiders would say Penny - and fellow incumbent Julie Thomas - are too deliberate, too deferential to the loudest voices, and too focused on the little details to see the big picture; while the current commissioners retort is, essentially, it’s easy to play Monday morning quarterback, but when you sit in the big chair, you HAVE to account for all of the variables, you HAVE to check all the little boxes, you HAVE to balance many competing interests.
As I said at the top of this episode, I’ve begun to make sense of the divisions in the local party, which both reflect and diverge from divisions in the Democratic Party at the national level. In Washington, think about the centrist vs. progressive split - corporate Democrats vs. Justice Democrats; the Pelosi/Schumer/Biden old guard neoliberals vs. Democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders, AOC & The Squad. Support for the two camps is largely, but not entirely, divided along generational lines.
Let’s zoom out.
I’ve mentioned this before, but the nature of single-member districts with winner-take-all voting almost ensures a two-party system. In political science, this is called Duverger’s Law. The two parties each consist of multiple interest groups held together in coalition. As those interest groups move in and out of the parties, the dynamic of the parties changes. For example, from the 1930’s, party lines had basically been drawn on the economic axis - big business Republicans and working-class Democrats. As the Democratic Party came to fully embrace the Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s, Southern conservatives and rural voters - who had been in league with ethnic, urban working-class voters - began to leave the party as Goldwater, Nixon, and then Reagan invited the racists to jump ship and become Republicans. Party lines were redrawn on the social axis. Those who, in a previous generation, may have been Liberal Republicans (which, as ridiculous as it sounds now, was absolutely a thing) were turned off by the GOP’s far-right turn and went on to become Atari Democrats, New Democrats, Blue Dog Democrats, Clinton Democrats - centrists by many names.
Zoom back in.
As essentially a one-party jurisdiction, Bloomington and Monroe County make an interesting case study. The parties are still organized on social issues. As an open, tolerant, welcoming community, we all basically agree on the culture war stuff. Cultural Conservative Republicans are not going to win here. Period. So, if the Chamber of Commerce wants any influence, they’ve gotta cultivate some business-friendly Democrats. It appears that’s where Iversen and Madeira, and their fundraising advantage, come in.
This is the window through which I’ve been viewing this race, but still, I feel like it’s not that simple. For one, the generational divide isn’t right. At the national level, you’ve got the older corporate Democrats standing in the way of younger progressives. Here, you’ve got the slick, business-backed, younger challengers trying to throw overboard - and this got an affirmative laugh from Penny off air - a couple of old hippies.
So, I’ve still got my finger to the wind. There’s one more chance to get to the bottom of this race. I talked to five-term Bloomington City Councilmember Steve Volan, the final Democrat in this primary, and will post my interview with him in the coming days.
But for now…
Thanks for listening. Thank you to my guest today, County Commissioner Penny Githen. You can find her at pennygithensforcommissioner.com. As for me, you can find me on Facebook, Bluesky, YouTube and TikTok at hoosleft and on most other social media sites at scottrog78. If you want to reach me, send me a DM on the socials or email me at scottrog78@gmail.com. If you haven’t yet done so, when you’re finished here, please go to scottaaronrogers.substack.com and subscribe at the paid level. Help me keep this project going. Until next time, this has been the HoosLeft podcast. I’m Scott Aaron Rogers. Love each other, Indiana.
HoosLeft #32: Making Cents of Local Races
Guest: Penny Githens, Monroe County Commissioner, District 3
https://scottaaronrogers.substack.com/subscribe
https://www.pennygithensforcommissioner.com/
https://bsquarebulletin.com/?s=commissioner
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law
https://www.studentsofhistory.com/ideologies-flip-Democratic-Republican-parties
https://tedium.co/2023/03/22/atari-democrats-history/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Democrats_(United_States)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Dog_Coalition
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