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In a fiery debate between the candidates for Indiana attorney general, Republican incumbent Todd Rokita and Democrat Destiny Wells spent a lot of time sparring over the role of the office and hot-button issues such as abortion and immigration.
Moderator and TV news anchor Dan Spehler opened the debate, which aired Sunday on Fox 59 and CBS 4, by asking the candidates to describe what they think the role of the office should be.
“The role of the Attorney General should be one of protector, and that’s what we’ve done since day one,” Rokita responded.
He said he sees the job as protecting jobs and the economy from “bad” Washington, D.C., ideas like the green new deal and better controlling the open southern border to prevent the deadly spread of fentanyl.
Rokita said his role as protector has resulted in his office attaining a 94% success rate in keeping criminals behind bars and the collection of $1 billion from corporate wrongdoers over three years.
Wells framed the office’s role more as one of public service, seeing it as being a continuation of her service in the Indiana Army National Guard where she is lieutenant colonel and as a former deputy attorney general under former state attorney general Curtis Hill.
“We need better leadership in office. I want to start doing things like making sure Hoosiers have medical privacy, that we’re looking at workers, and we’re bringing integrity … back to how we serve Hoosiers,” Wells said.
Later, she accused Rokita of overstepping the office’s authority on the issue of abortion by scaring doctors away from the state and on the immigration issue by taking a trip to the U.S-Mexico border at taxpayer expense.
Spehler specifically asked Rokita about the disciplinary action imposed against him by the Indiana Supreme Court due to public remarks he made in 2022 about OB-GYN Caitlin Bernard, who performed a medical abortion on a 10-year-old girl from Ohio.
Rokita was publicly reprimanded by the court for comments that had “no substantial purpose other than to embarrass or burden” Bernard.
Spehler noted that it’s still possible that Rokita’s law license could be in jeopardy due to subsequent complaints filed against him with the court, and he asked Rokita what would happen if his law license was suspended and he couldn’t continue as attorney general.
“I don’t think my law license can be suspended here,” Rokita said. “We’re talking about something that happened two years ago. We’re talking about 16 words.”
Rokita said that a separate investigation by the Indiana State Medical Licensing Board agreed with him, by reprimanding Bernard for a patient privacy violation. However, it rejected other issues raised by Rokita, with the board president calling Bernard a “good doctor.”
Spehler then asked if Rokita would change anything about how he handled the situation.
“I would never change the fact of what I said, because everything I said was absolutely true.” Rokita said.
Spehler asked Wells how she would approach the role of attorney general when it comes to defending laws she might not personally agree with, specifically the state’s near-total ban on abortion.
“I know what the abortion law is, and I know my responsibility as the attorney general,” Wells said.
“I will not abuse my authority so that I go after doctors and scare them away from the state of Indiana,” she added.
The next question for Wells was from an Indianapolis resident who called her social media posts aggressive. Spehler asked Wells how she would carry herself and interact with the public as attorney general.
“I’ve grown up in an industry where I usually was the only woman in the room, and I think that the times have called for women to be more confident in how they carry themselves, and especially into elected office,” Wells said. “… So yes, I will continue to fight for Hoosiers. I will continue to be aggressive.
“If that’s the question for me, I would say, look at our current attorney general,” she added. “He’s so aggressive that he can’t keep himself within the limits of our rules of professional conduct.”
On immigration, Spehler asked Wells what role he thinks Indiana should play in the policy debate.
Wells noted how Rokita has previously used tax dollars for a trip to the border
“What the Indiana attorney general’s job is not, is not to be using taxpayer dollars to go to the border and then not just go to the border but to hit a political rally on the way home,” Wells said.
“We need to stop preying upon people’s fears. It takes a steady hand and a holistic approach for immigration, not making people scared of their neighbors,” she added. “We need a level headed person who understands, from the state diplomatic level, city to state diplomacy, that we need to engage immigration in coordination with the federal government, who is in charge of immigration policy,” Wells said.
Rokita said he went to the border to gather facts to prepare for lawsuits his office has filed over immigration policy.
“What you can’t do is just go into court and throw a fit. You have to go into court with facts. So I went down to the border and I gathered facts. I gathered them with other attorneys general, and yes, became the first non-border state in the nation to file a lawsuit, and filed several of them,” Rokita said.
The debate ended by having both candidates say something nice about each other. Rokita called Wells a fighter. Wells said Rokita “stays in it for the long haul.”
In closing remarks, Wells said she wants people to be able to walk into the Attorney General’s Office and not know if it is Republican or Democrat led.
“They will just know that there are great attorneys that are protecting their interests,” Wells said.
Rokita said in his closing remarks that he wants Hoosiers who come to the office to know that they have someone in their corner.
“I love this state. I love the people of this state. I work to protect you every day.”
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