Mike Wolanin | The Republic Columbus City Council District 6 candidate Jay Foyst and his wife Rachel look over election numbers during the Bartholomew County Republican Party election results watch party at The Forge of 4th in Columbus, Ind., Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2023. Foyst won his election.
A special judge on Wednesday upheld the candidacy of Republican Joseph “Jay” Foyst, who was elected to the Columbus City Council this past November amid a lawsuit challenging his eligibility.
The lawsuit, filed in September by Bartholomew County Democratic Party Chair Ross Thomas, seeks a court order for Foyst to be deemed an ineligible candidate in the Nov. 7 municipal election.
While the lawsuit was pending in court, Foyst won the Columbus City Council District 6 seat in the election with 59.5% of the vote, defeating Democrat Bryan Munoz, who received 40.5% of the vote. Foyst was sworn in on Jan. 1.
Special Judge K. Mark Loyd has presided over the case since September after Bartholomew Circuit Court Judge Kelly Benjamin recused herself.
Foyst told The Republic on Wednesday that he was “grateful” for the judge’s decision and thanked his wife, the Bartholomew County Republican Party, attorney and others for their support during the lawsuit.
“I’m grateful for the outcome, and I look forward to serving the people of District 6,” Foyst said. “They put me here for a reason, and I want to represent them well.”
Thomas, for his part, said he plans to appeal the decision.
“(I) absolutely plan to appeal and really have seen this as a case that was going to be decided in the court of appeals really from the beginning,” Thomas said. “We were certainly hoping that the judge would rule in our favor because I think the law is on our side.”
The legal battle over Foyst’s candidacy started this past summer, when Thomas filed a formal challenge against Foyst, arguing that his candidacy was invalid because the Bartholomew County Republican Party had failed to file its notice for a party caucus with the clerk’s office by the required deadline.
Foyst was initially selected as the Bartholomew County Republican Party’s nominee during a party caucus in July. The caucus was convened after no Republican filed to run for the office in the party’s May primary, leaving a vacancy in the Nov. 7 general election.
The election board upheld the challenge in August, but the Bartholomew County Republican Party decided to hold another caucus and selected Foyst once again to fill the vacancy, pointing to a section in the Indiana Code that allowed the GOP to fill the vacancy within 30 days.
Thomas then attempted to challenge Foyst’s candidacy again, but his request was denied by Bartholomew County Clerk Shari Lentz because the deadline had passed to file a challenge, prompting Thomas to file the lawsuit.
In his ruling on Wednesday, Loyd held that the Indiana Code was amended in 2021 to allow political parties to fill vacancies after the normal filing deadline if the vacancies were created by the “successful challenge of a candidate.”
The parties must select the new candidate within 30 days after the vacancy arises and more than 13 days before election day, the decision states.
Loyd ruled that the Bartholomew County Republican Party’s second caucus met those requirements.
“This case involves mostly undisputed facts, and ultimately the legal conclusion turns on matters of statutory interpretation,” Loyd said in the ruling. “The legislature is presumed to act intentionally, and the analysis is nonpartisan.”
Mike Wolanin | The Republic Columbus City Council District 6 candidate Joseph Jay Foyst, from left, his attorney George “Jay” Hoffman III, attorney Peter King, representing the Bartholomew County Election Board, and attorney Ross Thomas take part in a pretrial hearing for Ross Thomas’ lawsuit against Joseph Jay Foyst and the Bartholomew County Election Board at the Bartholomew County Courthouse in Columbus, Ind., Monday, Oct. 16, 2023.
