Editor's note
John Krull is director of Franklin College's Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students. The views expressed are those of the author only and should not be attributed to Franklin College.
If Indiana’s new governor, Mike Braun, wanted to make clear he was the most sane, balanced and truthful of the three men taking oaths of office on inauguration day, he succeeded.
Admittedly, that is a low bar.
Incumbent state Attorney General Todd Rokita and new Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith delivered remarks that were disingenuous at best and downright duplicitous at worst.
Rokita started the speechifying.
No one outside of the Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission and the Indiana Supreme Court knows exactly how many investigations into Rokita’s conduct are taking place right now. He already has been reprimanded by the state’s high court once—with two of the five justices, including Chief Justice Loretta Rush, contending that his punishment should have been more severe than a slap on the hand.
Right after Rush administered the oath of office for the problem-child attorney general, Rokita delivered a short speech that all but spat in the chief justice’s face. He ignored the oath he’d just taken to faithfully enforce the state’s laws and defend the Indiana and U.S. constitutions and instead declared his intentions to be an unrelenting culture warrior for the next four years.
He pledged his undying opposition to “lawfare,” overlooking the fact that, here in Indiana, he’s the only one who has indulged in it. His unreasoning campaign to persecute Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an Indiana obstetrician and gynecologist—a persecution that involved serial legal evasions and misstatements of fact on his part—prompted the Supreme Court’s reprimand of Rokita.
The justices who voted to go easy on him doubtless hoped the mild punishment would teach the attorney general a lesson.
Rokita’s inaugural speech demonstrated that he is a slow learner.
While he challenged the chief justice, Rush sat stone-faced on the stage, refusing to clap for Rokita’s pandering applause lines.
Then there was Beckwith’s hurried address.
The freshly inaugurated lieutenant governor already has aroused concerns that, as an acknowledged Christian nationalist, he will attempt to use the power of his office to impose his religious and social views on others. Exploration of those concerns can be found here, here and here.
Beckwith didn’t dispel such fears with his remarks. His short speech built to a conclusion that strongly suggested that George Washington delivered an extended Christian sermon during his first inaugural address.
Washington, a deist, did no such thing.
Here’s what the Father of the Country did say:
“Having thus imparted to you my sentiments as they have been awakened by the occasion which brings us together, I shall take my present leave; but not without resorting once more to the benign Parent of the Human Race in humble supplication that, since He has been pleased to favor the American people with opportunities for deliberating in perfect tranquility, and dispositions for deciding with unparalleled unanimity on a form of government for the security of their union and the advancement of their happiness, so His divine blessing may be equally conspicuous in the enlarged views, the temperate consultations, and the wise measures on which the success of this Government must depend.”
After Rokita and Beckwith performed their acts of misdirection and denial, Braun spoke.
His speech, like most inaugural addresses, contained more platitudes than specifics. It focused more on the what—containing health care costs, encouraging innovation—than on the how.
That’s because the “how” always involves costs.
Still, Braun’s address was by and large free of cant and suggested a willingness to respect the views of others. He, unlike Rokita and Beckwith, seemed to understand that he is the governor for all the state’s people, not just those who voted for him.
True, Braun did deliver a curious broadside at the federal government he has been part of for the past six years and waxed poetic about the virtues of state’s rights. It’s always a bit jarring to hear a member of the party of Abraham Lincoln advance the political arguments of Jefferson Davis, but such uninformed inconsistencies dot the landscape these days.
And it’s hard not to sympathize with the new governor.
Not only does he have to make the case for change in a state government that his own party has controlled for 20 years, but he has to deal with two partners—Beckwith and Rokita—who would sell him out at bargain pricing.
His is no easy task.
Let us wish him well with it.
© Copyright 2025 The Statehouse File, Franklin College's Pulliam School of Journalism