Indiana attorney general candidates pressed to explain themselves
INDIANAPOLIS — The men running for attorney general in the state of Indiana face a tough challenge in a political season dominated by higher-profile races.
Republican Curtis Hill and Democrat Lorenzo Arrendondo spend much of their time explaining the job and trying to inspire people to care.
“It feels a little like ‘Horton Hears a Who,’” joked Hill, referring to the Dr. Seuss book about an elephant who discovers a tiny, overlooked planet. “It’s like we’re shouting, ‘We are here. We are here. We are here.’”
With most of the political oxygen sucked up by heated races for president, U.S. Senate and governor, Arrendondo said he also finds himself educating voters.
“Most people think we’re the lawyer for the governor,” he said. “That’s not it at all.”
Defining the job is enough of a concern that both candidates — each of whom brings deep legal experience to the race — have posted explanations of what the attorney general does on their campaign websites.
The attorney general is, indeed, the state’s chief legal officer who advises agencies, defends laws challenged in court and prosecutes on behalf of the state.
The person also oversees a team of 160 lawyers involved in duties related to consumer protection — from medical licensing to policing telemarketers.
As current Attorney General Greg Zoeller explains, the job is to help “protect the rights, freedoms and safety” of Hoosiers. Now in his second term, Zoeller has opted not to seek re-election.
Arrendondo and Hill have been working to make their cases to the voters since being selected by their respective party’s delegates this spring. And each has the potential to make state history.
Hill, if elected, would be the first black Republican in the office — and only the third African-American in the job. He is a four-term prosecutor from Elkhart County.
Arrendondo, who spent 34 years as a trial judge in Lake County before retiring in 2010, would be the first Latino to be state attorney general.
Neither claim those identities as reason to vote for them. But their experience and biographies, they say, do inform their views.
Hill, the father of five, was raised in Elkhart at a time when segregation was slowly slipping away. When his father tried to build a home in the then-white part of town, neighbors told him he wasn’t welcome and offered him a payoff to leave. Their family home was later bombed.
For Hill, a remarkable part of the story was that his father would become deeply involved in efforts to repair the city’s damaged race relations. He became active in both the NAACP and the local Jaycees.
“With a father like that, I couldn’t go wrong,” he said.
As a prosecutor, he’s built a reputation as tough on crimes involving drugs and violence.
In 2010, he pursued murder charges against four teenagers whose friend was killed during a botched burglary.
The five had broken into an Elkhart home to steal money for marijuana. The homeowner fatally shot one teenager. The other four were convicted of murder and sentenced to spend decades in prison. The Indiana Supreme Court later overturned the convictions, saying the teens’ actions didn’t cause their friend’s death.
Hill said he is unapologetic for his efforts to combat crime in his community. But, as attorney general, he said a priority will be advocacy for public and private programs that aim to strengthen families and intervene with troubled teens before they turn to crime.
“We can’t prosecute our way out the problems of crime,” he said.
For Arrendondo, his tenure on the bench as the longest serving Latino judge in the country informs his views.
He grew up the 10th child of an immigrant father who went to work in the steel mills of northwest Indiana.
His father’s death, when Arrendondo was 14, convinced him to seek another line of work. He labored in a steel mill for a year after high school to pay for college, where he earned a teaching degree.
He later went to law school in a program aimed at attracting minorities to the legal profession. After work as a deputy prosecutor and in private practice, he was elected judge in his hometown of East Chicago.
As a judge, Arrendondo helped usher in changes to the Lake County court system. Those included more access to translators for non-English speaking litigants, and the creation of a “children’s room” to reduce stress for kids whose parents were in court.
If elected, Arrendondo said he’ll to continue to be a role model for the Latino community, but he will also work to increase access for every Hoosier to the attorney general’s role as consumer protector.
Among his ideas is sending staff lawyers to meet with the elderly and other potential fraud victims around the state.
“The attorney general is really the people’s lawyer,” he said. “One of the most important things we can do is to bring the attorney general’s office to the people.”
Maureen Hayden covers the Indiana Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach her at mhayden@cnhi.com.