Bill Nash
State officials are allowing Bartholomew County to extend the filing deadline for the May 3 primary to noon on Monday after the county courthouse was closed Thursday and Friday due to the winter storm.
The filing deadline was to have been noon on Friday.
Bartholomew County Clerk Shari Lentz said she was informed that counties who closed their courthouse on Thursday only (or didn’t close at all) still had to meet the Friday deadline. But those who closed their courthouses both Thursday and Friday had the extension until Monday.
All other upcoming election deadlines will remain the same, Lentz said. For example, candidates still have until noon on Friday, Feb. 11, to change their minds and file a withdrawal of candidacy, she said.
Other important deadlines include the end of voter registration for the primary on Friday, April 1 and the beginning of absentee voting on Tuesday, April 5.
In a filing update, incumbent Rep. Ryan Lauer, R-Columbus, now has a challenger in the May primary.
Bartholomew County Prosecutor William M. “Bill” Nash has submitted the necessary paperwork to challenge Lauer, R-Columbus, in the Republican primary.
Nash, who has been county prosecutor since defeating six-term Democrat Joseph R. Koenig in 2003, filed on Jan. 31 to challenge Lauer for the District 59 seat. The filing comes several months after Nash announced he would not seek another term as prosecutor.
Lauer, a former Bartholomew County councilman, succeeded fellow Republican Milo Smith in 2018, and is seeking his third consecutive term in the Indiana House of Representatives.
Nash says a significant reason he’s running is to give people an opportunity to cast a protest vote against what he calls the “culture war mission creep.”
“It seems to me as though a lot of Hoosier Republicans have devoted an enormous amount of time and attention to nonexistent or, at best, extremely hypothetical problems, like rampant voter fraud or critical race theory in elementary schools or Christian pastry chefs being forced to put two dudes on the same wedding cake,” Nash stated in a written announcement.
The “culture war mission creep” has been evident in state Republican politics for approximately a dozen years, Nash said.
While agreeing that the prosecutor has a right to his opinions, Lauer cited his own legislative work that he says includes improving education, boosting the economy and advocating for limited, but responsive government.
“I’m fighting every day for Hoosiers to retain their constitutional rights, as well as their individual liberties and freedoms,” said Lauer, a technical specialist at Cummins Inc. who filed for re-election on Jan. 5.
Nash accused Lauer of wanting to make specifically COVID-19 anti-vaxxers, not anti-vaxxers in general, a “protected class” in the workplace.
“That is fundamentally anti-business, anti-conservative and anti-Republican,” Nash said. “(Lauer) wants to impose yet another limitation on an employer’s right to hire or fire anyone they want, whenever they want, for any reason or for no reason at all.”
In response, Lauer said he believes Nash is referencing his co-authorship of House Bill 1001, which allow employees at private businesses to opt-out of their employers’ vaccine mandates as long as they submit to weekly testing.
He describes Nash’s evaluation as an “incorrect characterization” and “very political.”
Lauer said the bill is meant to respect individual and personal choices, adding that nobody should have to choose between something their doctor advises against – or against their personal religious beliefs – and keeping their job.
“I’ve gotten plenty of calls from people who have been put into that position,” Lauer said.
HB1001 was approved in late January with a 57-35 vote in the Indiana House. However, lawmakers removed a portion of the bill that penalizes a business through unemployment insurance if the employee quits over the vaccine mandate. It will be considered in the Senate within the next two weeks.
Whoever wins the primary will likely go on to face Democrat Ross Thomas, a Columbus attorney. Thomas filed his candidacy on Jan. 6.
