Video:

Transcript:

Nathan Gotsch: Good evening. Thank you so much for being here. My name is Nathan Gotsch, and I'm the Executive Director of Independent Indiana.

This organization started three weeks ago, and it is incredible to see all of you here tonight. So glad to have you ll join us. I have been the public face of Independent Indiana thus far, but I'm not the only person on the team, and I want to thank the team members. First of all, Orion McCormack, our project support specialist, made everything happen tonight. Can we give him a round of applause?

We also have a couple of our board members here tonight. Amer Patel is here, and also Roger Deetz. Where's Roger? So if you guys could — well, he's already standing — but Roger, could you stand so people could recognize your efforts as well?

We have a special announcement before we get started tonight, and it's really exciting for me to be able to do this. In Indiana, as hopefully you have all heard, independent candidates have been running and winning at rates that are surprising a lot of people.

And there have also been efforts around the country to try to form something for people that don't feel like the two parties are serving as well. One of those a lot of people may have heard of was the Forward Party, founded a few years ago. Another recently was No Labels.

Those are national efforts, and one thing they have in common is they had the same national organizing director. This is the person who built the infrastructure for them to form state parties — in the case of the Forward Party — and to build out a presidential campaign volunteer team that turned out they couldn't find a candidate for, so they didn't ever use it, but built the infrastructure.

The person who did those things is here with us tonight. His name is Will Conway, and I am very proud to announce that Will is joining Independent Indiana as our Director of Operations effective today.

So I'm gonna have Will come up, have a seat next to me here, and tell us why you decided to join our little pirate ship.

Will Conway: Pirate ship feels right. I like it. I don't know — we first talked, what, 18 months ago?

Nathan Gotsch: Yes.

Will Conway: Yeah. So everybody, I get a ton of emails from well-meaning people all around the country who are trying to fix things. They don't necessarily know what to do. I'll give an example from an email I got about two hours before Nathan emailed me. Somebody said they wanted to run independent candidates for Congress in a hundred seats around the country. Basic math: $2 million to run a congressional race times a hundred — you need $200 million. I said, do you have $200 million? He said, I have $8,000. I said, okay. Give me a call in a couple months; we'll see how it goes. I get a lot of emails like that — people just trying their best.

So I get connected to Nathan. There was a warm intro from somebody we both know, and I thought it was going to be a call along those lines. I get on a call with Nathan and very quickly figure out it's not that same conversation.

One thing I learned at the Forward Party and No Labels early on: I thought it was going to be much easier to build a national political party in purple states — the Pennsylvanias, the Michigans. It actually was the exact opposite. Republican-led, Democratic-led — it didn't matter. It was states with no competition, one-party rule, and most people — even people in that major party — felt completely unrepresented.

Indiana is a perfect example. On the national level, people think Indiana is a Republican state, and it is. But as Nathan will point out again and again: 52% of independents who run in this state actually win their elections. To be clear: 35% of Democrats win their elections in Indiana. 61% of Republicans.

The reality is this is a state where people think for themselves, but the politics of the state are not designed to let that happen. We have straight-ticket voting. We have semi-closed primaries. But the reality is independents in this state can win.

There's this problem: an independent wins and then they're independent. By definition, there's no support structure, no campaign apparatus, no political infrastructure, no money to promote themselves, no way to run for higher office, no rising tide for other independent candidates.

Independent Indiana is built to allow independents to make elections more competitive and, as a result, build infrastructure in the state to allow for competitive elections where they haven't existed. Anybody who’s a fan of democracy is a fan of more competitive elections and better candidates. That's why I'm excited to be here. It's exciting to be in this room, and I'm excited to see this thing take off. This is pretty cool.

Nathan Gotsch: Thank you.

Will Conway: Thank you, everybody.

Nathan Gotsch: Okay, so let's meet our panelists. The first panelist is a 26-year state legislator. He was a Republican from the New Castle area, Lewisville. He retired from the state legislature, decided to run for town council — as an independent — and because he knows it's good to have a friend on town council, he got a buddy of his to run as an independent as well. They both were elected in 2023. I think he's the most interesting man in Indiana politics. Please welcome Tom Saunders.

Our next panelist comes from Bedford, Indiana. She is the former mayor, elected three terms each as an independent. Please welcome Shawna Girgis.

Huntington, Indiana, is the home of Dan Quayle, but they don't have a Republican mayor — they have an independent. This independent was a Republican member of the city council. In 2019 he ran as an independent. He won. In 2023 he won re-election again. He's currently in his second term. Please welcome Mayor Richard Strick.

I want to start with each of you telling us how you came to the decision to run — and run as an independent. I'd like to start with Mayor Girgis.

Shawna Girgis: This is a long time ago now, but in 2007 an individual who was unhappy with the primary election results — we'd had a seated mayor unseated by a Republican opponent — came to me and said, would you consider running? My initial response was no. I had a six-month-old, a four-year-old, and a six-year-old, and I loved my job. So I said no. But my mother had just passed away — she was only 54 — and I had the thought: what if I only get 18 more years of living? I want to make an impact. I want to leave a mark.

I asked a few people for input — they gave me really bad advice, to be honest — but at the end I thought: I think I'm going to lose, but it would be worth it just to try. So I did. And that's how I got started.

Nathan Gotsch: All right. Mayor Strick, tell us how you got to the place of running as an independent.

Richard Strick: We had a really well-liked, successful Republican mayor who ran the city as a place where everyone was welcome. Finances were well run, services were being provided, things were being improved — and he lost in the primary. My predecessor's tagline was “For the Love of Huntington,” and the gentleman who beat him, the night he won the primary, posted on social media: “I guess we're done loving Huntington.”

That didn't sit well with a 30-something with a remote job who was starting to question: why am I here and why do I stay here — especially with a front-row seat on city council to watch the car go into the tree? A small group of us began to talk about what if we could do something about this. Eventually I threw my hat in the ring, got the signatures, got on the ballot, and ran as hard and as fast as we could through that finish line. And here I am.

Nathan Gotsch: Tom, you were in the legislature for a long time. You were a Republican that whole time. When did your journey to becoming an independent really start? When did you first start thinking about being an independent?

Tom Saunders: I retired in 2023, and the two previous elections before that, I had talked to people and contemplated running as an independent because I felt like my party was leaving me and I wasn't happy. But I was advised: I don't think you can get elected that way. I honestly think I could have.

Anyway, I retired, went home to a small town, and they said, Tom, why don't you run for city council? I said, I don't want to run for council. I don't even know what party I am anymore.

The State Highway Department was doing a project down the middle of US-40. They had the town divided north and south. The president of the council got on Facebook and said, “If you've got a problem with what's going on, don't call us, call the state.” I went down to the city building and said, that's not the way this works. You need to call the state and get them over here. Get them to the table. We need to find out what the problem is and get this taken care of. She said, “I'm not doing that.” I said, “Then I'm running for council.”

I went down the street and asked a gentleman: I want to run for council. There are three Republicans on the council. I can't do this by myself. I think we can work with Richard, but we need to knock the other two off. Will you run as an independent? So we did. I led the ticket. Richard came in second and my guy came in third. So we took over the town.

Nathan Gotsch: I want to talk about the challenges running as an independent. Mayor Girgis, you talked about how you didn't really want to do this. When you finally decided to throw your hat in, what did you discover when you started your campaign?

Shawna Girgis: I learned a lot really fast — definitely drinking from a fire hose. I had never been in elected office, had worked with elected officials, but not actually run. I learned about the signature process, how many signatures you needed. I quickly discovered that in itself was quite a challenge. I couldn't do that alone. I found a few people — probably a handful — who were excited about the idea of having another option. People I knew well who were connected in the community started talking about this. People just saw me — they didn't even know where I worked because I didn't work in the city — and those folks started helping me.

It was a fast and furious race, and then all the things that go with it: setting up forums; coffee talks in people's houses; always carrying petitions; raising money; ads. I learned so much in those very first few months. It was an education I didn't know I was going to get.

Nathan Gotsch: Was somebody helping you — advising you — on what it took to run a campaign?

Shawna Girgis: Very quickly, when I got the signatures I needed, a few influential individuals — in this case the ones I had confidence in happened to be Democrats — started giving me advice and information. I had a small kitchen-cabinet meeting once a week. I would create a list of tasks to do, and I was about doing them.

Nathan Gotsch: I saw you nodding when she talked about the excitement when you told people you're running as an independent. Can you talk about that and what you experienced when you let people know, hey, we're going to do this and I'm going to do it as an independent?

Richard Strick: When my predecessor was beaten in the primary, it was already a shot across the bow for a lot of us concerned with good governance. There was built-in frustration and skepticism about what we’d just done. Being able to harness that was key.

One of my secrets was treating it like planning a party. You're going to plan a lot of them — backyard parties, wherever. The key to a good party is that you actually enjoy the party. So we invited people to come and find a role. Our youngest volunteer was five; our oldest was 87. We'd put them in positions to succeed and give them simple tasks — inviting friends, hosting 10 people in your home and I'd come talk to them.

When we did a campaign headquarters, it was “come do life down there.” I don't need you to hand out brochures. If someone asks for them, great — nobody ever asked. If you have to watch the grandkids, bring them. If you have homework, bring it. If you want to play chess with your friends, do it there. People would drive by and see laughter inside campaign HQ. Nobody wants to be outside that party. It becomes magnetic.

Nathan Gotsch: Tom, you've been in the political game a long time. You started as a Republican. You worked on Republican campaigns; you won Republican campaigns. Can you talk about how you see things have changed from the grassroots? When we first spoke, I asked you: you live in a Republican area — I would assume Republicans just want to keep voting for Republicans. Tell me what's really going on from your vantage point.

Tom Saunders: In Henry County, Republicans dominate the county. Democrats really don't have anybody to vote for. A lot of people only have one choice, and they may not want to vote for the Republican, but there's no other choice.

I was proud that when I was running, the town of Middletown and the city of New Castle are heavily Democratic, but in my third term as county assessor, I carried New Castle and Middletown. People said, Tom, that's not supposed to happen. Well, you have to go out and work with them. Hear their side. A lot of times it's just listening.

I was the Republican county assessor, and the Henry Township (New Castle Township) assessor was Democrat. Mildred and I never let politics get in the way of what we were supposed to be doing and what was good for the county.

It seems like that was getting farther away. When the Democrats walked out of the Statehouse under Mitch Daniels and left the state for 32 days — I understand why they did it, because Mitch would've sent the state police after them and hauled them back. My first year in the General Assembly, we walked out for eight days and the state police came after us. They said hide. We hid behind trees. They saw us.

But I had Democrats reaching out to me. The Republicans fined them, took all their pay for the year. We treated them very badly. I said, you know, guys, one of these days that pendulum's gonna swing back the other direction.

I like to work with people. I think the worst thing that's happened to the state is the supermajority, where we don't hear the other side's concerns. A lot of times, people didn’t want to vote for the Republican either, but they didn't have a choice.

Nathan Gotsch: Shawna, I was speaking to a former lieutenant governor last week. I told this person what I was doing, and they said, oh, do you know about Shawna in Bedford? You haven't been in office since 2019. That's a long time in politics for someone to still remember you and have such a high opinion. You won three terms. It's one thing to win that first race. How were you able to continue winning in an area where you didn't have an army of independent volunteers?

Shawna Girgis: I think listening to people is very important. I also did something that hadn't been done in 25 years. We didn't have any kind of plan moving forward. We created a plan, engaged hundreds of people, and then set about doing the things they said. I'd get folks who would challenge me: you can't do that; we don't want that. It was typically the guard before. They'd sometimes threaten me: you're not going to be here if you do this. I'd say, okay. They'd look at me like, what? I’d say, no offense, I didn't come here to do this because of you. I want to do something positive for the community, and my life will not be over if I'm not here next term. They didn't know what to do with me — “what do we do with this blonde chick?”

The people who wanted something done were at the table, engaged, and we started getting positive things done. Every time, you run on your record: what strides are we making, what things are we getting accomplished? I think that's why people continued to support me. I only made a promise if I was sure we could deliver.

Nathan Gotsch: That's unique for a politician.

Shawna Girgis: I don't know — I'm just being myself. You do upset people along the way, let's be honest, but that's part of it.

Nathan Gotsch: Were you hearing from Republicans privately who said, I can't say this publicly, but they appreciated what you were doing?

Shawna Girgis: For sure — the first time I ran. After that, I was blessed with an excellent city council. We had one Democrat; the others were Republicans, but they truly did what was best for the community. They wanted to work together to get things done. That was so important.

After the first run, I didn't have that happen anymore. People were pretty open about what they supported and what they didn't. There was always the staunch, dug-in guard. They were never going to like me; they were going to do everything they could to discredit me and make my life difficult — and they did. But it's okay.

A wise man told me once — I didn't know it was true until then — sometimes having people work against you is the best thing that can happen for you because they're the wrong people with the wrong message doing the wrong things consistently. People see that and say, oh, they're against her? Yep, we want to be for her.

Nathan Gotsch: I had a conversation with somebody recently. I told them about what you did in Huntington in terms of your elections, and they said, well, there's a university in Huntington — it's not as red as the county. So I looked up the election returns. In 2024 the city of Huntington voted 69% for the Republican nominee for president. You won in 2019, and in 2023 you won by eight points. It seems to me you can't win without appealing to a whole lot of those people who support the Republican nominee for president. How did you do that?

Richard Strick: At the local level, it's about delivering and getting results. It's wise to underpromise and overdeliver. My first campaign, I campaigned on a sewer project — the long-term control plan. It means your city got sued and you've got an agreed order to separate stormwater and sewers. Two candidates were saying, “We're not going to do that.” I said, we have to, and we're going to, and we're not going to kick the can down the road any more.

I explained that a long-term control plan means we're going to stop dumping raw sewage into the Little River that runs through downtown. “Wait, we're doing what?” When you connect with folks in your backyard, you don't have more common ground than your zip code and the red blood that flows through your body. When you humanize yourself and listen to them, labels don't stick. They don't care as much.

They tried to tag me with memes — part of “the squad,” all that. At the end of the day, people said, I don't know, he parts his hair on the side; I don't think he's that radical. People will give you a chance if they think you're sincere and have their best interests at heart.

Nathan Gotsch: Tom, people say: these are local races — different. Somebody couldn't do this for state legislature or countywide or bigger. A lot of folks here know the restrictions on independent candidates are very different than on Republicans and Democrats. Independents need to collect signatures; Republicans and Democrats don't, unless for U.S. Senate or governor. In statewide races, independents have to collect eight times the signatures. For Congress, an independent needs about 4,000 signatures; Republicans or Democrats need zero. As races get bigger, the burdens become more difficult. Indiana is one of only six states with straight-ticket voting; research shows it hurts anyone not running as a Republican or Democrat.

But Tom, you talked about thinking about running as an independent even for state legislature. Can you make the case why it's possible for an independent to be successful at that level?

Tom Saunders: I think it's the person and the community. I worked very hard in District 54 on projects. I made house calls. I'm going to ramble a minute.

When I ran in '96, Frank O'Bannon carried Henry County and the state. I beat the Democrat incumbent, which threw the House into a 50-50 split. I wasn't welcomed with open arms. When that first happened, they passed a law: if it ever happened again, the party that elected the highest-ranking official would control the Speaker's position. They thought Steve Goldsmith would be governor. Surprise — Frank O’Bannon won.

I meet John Gregg, the Speaker of the House. He pats me on the back and says, “Tom, I've heard a lot of good things about you, but to be quite honest, you've got a big red bullseye on your ass, and you're not going to get anything you can go home and take credit for. So you just sit back and enjoy the ride.” Nice to meet you too, Mr. Speaker. John Gregg and I became friends in the end — but that's a challenge.

Frank O'Bannon campaigned on property taxes. The Republicans decide to have a press conference. The leader came to me and said, you know property taxes; we want you in this press conference. I straightened my tie because I'm with the leader and the Ways and Means guy. We're in this room and they start beating the hell out of Frank O'Bannon. There was a door right there. I started doing a sidestep, and when I got to the door, I got down one flight of steps before they got ahold of me. “Where the hell do you think you're going? You don't walk out of a press conference.” I said, well, you do if you don't agree with what the guy's saying. The voters of my district elected Frank O’Bannon and elected me, and they expect me to work with that guy. I'm not going to bad-mouth him because he's a D and I'm an R. Let me see his program, and then I'll voice it.

I did things like that. It played well at home. I think I could have run as an independent and gotten elected, but my advisors — the people who gave me money — said, no. Toward my last four years there, I just wasn't happy. My conscience didn't agree with me. I wasn't sleeping at night. It was time to come home.

Nathan Gotsch: Shawna, did you ever think about running for a higher office as an independent?

Shawna Girgis: It has definitely crossed my mind. However, I'm pragmatic. I haven't seen a successful path forward. It's something that still mulls around in my head, but it didn't.

Nathan Gotsch: But there needs to be more there for someone like you — who's been elected and wants to run and win — to believe you have a chance.

Shawna Girgis: Definitely. For me, yes.

Tom Saunders: An organization — and money.

Nathan Gotsch: We're working on it, and we've got a pretty good start, I think. I wanted to ask about freedom — freedom for voters to pick candidates, and freedom for officials to govern. What freedom do you have as an independent elected official that you may not have if you were a member of one of the two parties?

Richard Strick: I'm free to tick off everyone. That's a big part of it. You don't have to be married to an ideology. There's nobody who says, “somebody said this on your behalf.” I am 100% responsible for what I say and do, and that's plenty to get me in trouble on my own.

As an independent — and frankly, party structure or not — we need more people in the parties to be independent thinkers. The supermajority wouldn't be an issue if the caucus had independent thinking and operations within it and didn't suffer consequences and punishments. That's woven into the fabric of our nation. How do we express that independence in a variety of ways, regardless of structure, platform, or job? People connect with that.

I got advice when I first became mayor: “Mayors who smile more get sued less.” I don't know if that's true, but folks often say, I don't agree with what you did, but I know why you're doing it. I can still respect you. Let's get coffee. They know who I am and what I'm about.

Nathan Gotsch: We're going to start opening up to questions here. I have one or two more, but we've got cards. If you have a question for one of our panelists, Orion has cards and pens. It's okay if nobody has a question. But if you’ve got something, let us know. We’d love— Oh, there we go — got a hand over there.

Tom, we talked about Republicans in these red areas. The map we have of where independents are winning — I'm gonna pass that down to you. Some of you have seen that; it's all over the state. Can you explain why that's happening?

Tom Saunders: No. But I think everybody, when you get elected to office — I know when I got elected to the legislature — I'm going to change the world. You get in there and find out they don't let you change the world. There are 74 of us and all 74 of you are going to vote yes. If you’ve got 13 hands saying no, then we spend another hour beating on you. Now how many no's do I have? If it takes another hour—

The independence is there; you’ve got to have — I can't say that word — you’ve got to have the gumption to stand up for what you believe in. That gets harder. I've been called to the governor's office on several occasions when I disagreed. I can't imagine being called to the White House and the pressure they put on Congress, which in my opinion is missing in action right now.

I think it's the communities they live in, the personality they're dealing with — and luck.

Nathan Gotsch: You talked about people getting called to the White House, which made me think of another group from Indiana recently called to the White House — some of your former colleagues in the Republican caucus. What do you think is really happening? What are they weighing — do they want to redistrict?

Tom Saunders: I don't really think they do. The governor is saying he is waiting on the legislature. The legislative leaders are saying, no, we're going to follow the governor. I really think it's the governor pushing the members.

I told Todd Huston, the Republican leader, and I told the young man who replaced me: they need to go back 30 years and look at what happened the last time the Republicans tried to do this in the middle of the session. The Democrats went home. There was a good quote from John Gregg about “seeing my shiny white ass jumping that fence down in Sandborn, Indiana.” In the end, the Republicans lost seats and it backfired on them. They have to watch out. I think it's a mistake.

Nathan Gotsch: Richard, do you see your community becoming more politicized? People say local politics are becoming nationalized. Is that happening?

Richard Strick: There are definitely people trying to do that. In that first election, they tried to tag me to the party they thought I was, even though I was literally from the Republican Party and my family's Republican legacy goes back to the Whigs. At the end of the day, you asked about advice. The first advice I got was: don't do this — you'll ruin your future. So I asked somebody else. That person said: if you're going to do it, you need to build a bigger machine than they've got.

That's what we did. We had a bigger bullhorn, a better message, and we got it to more voters. That's what winning campaigns are about. You have to step into that challenge and you can't allow your opponent to define the terms of the debate. You'll always lose that way — you're fighting on foreign ground. If they're trying to nationalize it, you’ve got to personalize it. I think that's true top to bottom.

Yes, the currents are stronger now. We underestimate how subtle it is to get caught up in that ourselves. People say we just need the right candidate. We also need the right voters. We need people to engage, take grassroots ownership of issues, and take responsibility for outcomes. I don’t want to buy the notion that we need to find the savior candidate. That’s not how this nation is set up or succeeds.

Tom Saunders: May I break in?

Nathan Gotsch: Absolutely.

Tom Saunders: I'm senior here. I think we need to educate the voter on what's going on. When people ask, “Tom, when do you get back from Washington?” I say, I don't represent you in Washington. I tried to eliminate straight-party voting. We had a hearing; we were getting ready to vote. The chairman gets a phone call, hangs up, says, “We're not going to be voting on that today.” After the meeting he said, Tom, you had the votes to pass it.

I'm sure Republicans came after both of you the first time you ran for re-election. We can't let you get your foot in the door — then more of them will do it. So every time—

Nathan Gotsch: That's good. That gave me a chance to read your card. You're a pro at this.

This question: how did you navigate voter turnout? Did you see increases off the strength of providing another option, especially among younger voters?

Richard Strick: In 2019, we had two school referendums on the ballot, so voter turnout wasn't an issue for us. It was about getting our message to break through.

Nathan Gotsch: What about for you?

Shawna Girgis: I worked on voter turnout. One of my family members said, is this all you're going to talk about — getting people to vote? I said, it’s one of the major things. I was afraid people would say, “Oh, she won before; she's going to win again,” especially the third time. If only the angry people show up, I'm going to lose. So turnout was one of our major strategies.

Nathan Gotsch: Tom, if redistricting happens, does that open opportunities for independents?

Tom Saunders: I believe so, especially with the way Congress has been operating lately. If you get the right candidate, some people to help them, and finances — if I were 20 years younger, I would do it. My wife might divorce me, but yes, I think it opens it up. With the mindset in Washington right now — they're just missing — you're going to have to get rid of party affiliation and vote for the person, not the party.

Nathan Gotsch: This may be for you, Mayor Strick. What do you say to the statement that in Indiana the election is won in the primary when independents can't vote in the primaries — in other words, a vote for an independent or third-party candidate is throwing away your vote?

Richard Strick: Elections are still decided in the general, would be my answer. As an independent, I do vote in the primaries. I don't necessarily vote for who I'm going to be running against, but then you go run the rest of the campaign. Honestly, the primary gives you a chance — it's like the playoffs. If you're the second game, you get to watch the first one and see what you're up against. I find that advantageous.

Nathan Gotsch: You want to add to that?

Shawna Girgis: I definitely agree. I'm a little different than you — I didn't grow up in a party. I'm a legitimate independent — never been since birth—

Richard Strick: Unaffiliated.

Shawna Girgis: I don't know if my dad would say that, but when I turned 18 and could vote — technically we all start as independents before they say, pick a side. I didn't do primary voting. There was reasoning behind that. I enjoyed watching them do their thing — strengths and weaknesses. It helped formulate my strategy. I always told my folks: I'm going to work twice as hard, probably spend twice as much money, and have twice as many volunteers as you. They said, okay — we know.

Nathan Gotsch: Given that clerks and the Secretary of State control elections in Indiana, do independents need to focus on those races?

Richard Strick: Independents need to focus on every race. Absolutely.

Nathan Gotsch: That's succinct. Tom, as our state legislature expert: independent or Democrat, should our number one priority be to break the supermajority?

Tom Saunders: Yes. I think the state would work much better if they had to reach across the aisle. If they do this redistricting, they may take care of it themselves.

Richard Strick: I hear that from other Republican legislators and former Republican legislators — they know the supermajority is bad governance.

Tom Saunders: The current ones won't say that, though.

Richard Strick: Not on a mic.

Tom Saunders: Not with a microphone in their mouth.

Nathan Gotsch: I think that's all the questions. Were there any more floating out there? Okay. Will you please thank our panelists?

I think we're good.

I want to thank all of you for coming out. If something you've heard tonight sparks your interest — if you want to get involved in our organization or potentially support us financially — you can do that right now. I know you're all going to take your phones out in a second to turn them back on. If you go to independentindiana.org/join, there's a form there. We will reach out to you within 48 hours. You'll probably hear from Will, actually, because he's in charge of that. Independentindiana.org/join. We'd love to have you be a part of what we're doing. Even if you're just curious enough to get our email updates, we'd love to have you participate that way as well.

Thank you so much for coming and for being part of trying to make our state a better place today.

Tom Saunders: Hey, Nate?

Nathan Gotsch: Yes.

Tom Saunders: May I say something?

Nathan Gotsch: Yes.

Tom Saunders: I'm a has-been, but I'm the Forrest Gump of Indiana. I have a book out. You were going to plug it —

Nathan Gotsch: I forgot. I promised him — I'm reading his book right now. It's called How Did You Get Here, Tom? Right?

Tom Saunders: No — Tom, How Did You Get Here?

Nathan Gotsch: Tom, How Did You Get Here? This guy — I'm going to give you a little tease — he was pen pals with Richard Nixon when Nixon was president and Tom was in high school. And that's not even the craziest story in the book.

Tom Saunders: I always told stories and people said, you need to put those down. So we did.

Nathan Gotsch: Look up Tom Saunders' book on Amazon — it's on Amazon. I just got it two weeks ago. If you want to learn how the state legislature really works — or doesn't — I know this is going to shock you: he tells it all.

Tom Saunders: Can I tell a story?

Nathan Gotsch: Yes. We'll close with a final story here.

Tom Saunders: We were in the middle of a budget negotiation. I'm new; I don't know anything. If you wanted something at the courthouse, you walked across the hall. There's a little room they stuck us in, and you're in that room for four hours. It doesn't become pleasant. They're arguing about what Frank O'Bannon would accept if we gave him this recommendation. I excused myself to go to the bathroom. While I was out, I went to the governor's office, asked to see Frank O'Bannon. I said, Governor, would you accept this if we offered it? He said, yeah, I'll even come down to your caucus room and tell you. I said, okay.

I go back downstairs. Paul Mannweiler was the leader. I said, the governor said he'd accept this if we offered it. He goes, how do you know that? I said, I asked him. “Who gave you that authority?” I said, I didn't know I needed that authority. We're here to work together, aren't we? “He won't come down here.” We didn't pass the budget. We came back for a special session. The governor comes down, talks to the Republicans, and we pass a budget. All you have to do is talk to people.

Nathan Gotsch: I think we should applaud that — and that can be our close.