The race for Indiana’s 9th
Congressional District is coming to a close, and Indiana voters will
choose Tuesday between two very familiar candidates, and one newcomer.
Mike Sodrel and Rep. Baron Hill (D-Ind.) have contested Southern Indiana’s
congressional seat each election since 2002, making the 9th district
one of the most competitive swing districts on the national stage. At
the same time, Dr. Eric Schansberg, an IU-Southeast New Albany professor
of economics, is shaking up the race with an independent perspective.
The Incumbent
As a four-term representative, Baron
Hill has spent eight of the last 10 years filling Indiana’s 9th
District Congressional seat. The fiscally-conservative democrat from
Seymour, Ind. is considered a moderate liberal, and though he leans
to the left on issues like healthcare and the war in Iraq, Hill is against
gun control and has been in favor of stricter laws on issues like immigration.
Hill first won his House seat after
longtime representative Lee Hamilton retired, beating republican Jean
Leising by about 5,000 votes in the Nov., 1997 elections. After defeating
Sodrel in 2002, Hill was named co-chair of the Blue Dog Coalition, a
group of moderate Democrats that is known for being fiscally conservative.
Hill voted twice against federal bailout packages for financial institutions
in October.
“I think a lot of what happened on
the housing markets and financial markets is a result of a lack of regulation,”
Hill said in a recent interview with the Indiana Daily Student. “My
opponent, I think, would argue that there needs to be less regulation.
We got into this economic problem that we have right now because there
weren’t regulations in place to stop some of the things that were
going on.”
A strong supporter of Democratic Presidential
nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), Hill appeared at an Oct. 23 Obama
rally in Indianapolis, where Obama called Hill a “good friend”.
Hill said he believes this could be
the first year Indiana goes blue since Lyndon Johnson won the state
in 1964.
“For students, and young people in
particular, this is a great opportunity for them to really make a difference
in how this election is going to turn out in Indiana,” Hill said.
“If they vote like I think they’re going to vote, I think most of
them are going to vote for Senator Obama, and they could be the critical
group of voters that determines this election.”
Though he refused to predict who will
vie for the 9th district in 2010, Hill said this race has
particular significance.
“I find it incredible that Indiana
is a battleground state,” he said. “It’s one of the few swing
districts in America, and that’s one of the reasons it’s had so
much national attention.”
The Challenger
Mike Sodrel first challenged Hill for
the 9th district in 2002, two years after republican candidate
Michael Bailey lost handily - by 10 percent of the vote. A self-described
“lifelong trucker” from New Albany, Sodrel became known for driving
an 18-wheeler truck on the campaign trail (though it should be noted
that Sodrel is an executive at Sodrel Truck Lines Inc., a family business).
Campaigning on a platform of local
issues like job creation, taxes and conservative values, Sodrel has
shied away from regulation of financial markets and taxes of any kind.
Though he said doing nothing to help the economy would have been “the
wrong choice,” Sodrel said he, like Hill, was opposed to the financial
bailout package passed by Congress in October.
“The amount of debt that this congress
has put on our children and grandchildren is just breathtaking,” he
said. “I mean, it’s, the budget deficit will probably exceed $400
billion, then there was a $150 billion economic stimulus. Just add the
numbers up, it’s enough to boggle your mind.”
Trying to win back the seat he pried
away from Hill from 2004-2006, Sodrel said Hill has brought about change,
but not the right kind.
“Well we got change – the price
of gasoline has gone up, unemployment has gone up, consumer confidence
has gone down and the economy has slowed to a crawl,” Sodrel said.
“And now he endorses Senator Obama for president and says we need
more of this kind of change.”
Sodrel’s suggestions for improving
the economy include suspending the capital gains tax, instituting tax
amnesty for Americans bringing in money from overseas, and “taking
the lid off the FDIC”.
The Independent
Dr. Eric Schansberg entered the Sodrel-Hill
fray in 2006. Running as an alternative to “the usual government,”
Schansberg is a Libertarian who has been critical of both Sodrel and
Hill.
“We’ve always seen this as a platform
to talk about issues that (Sodrel and Hill) are unable or unwilling
to talk about,” Schansberg said in an interview. “It’s also been
an experiment to see what a highly-credible third-party candidate can
do, because people say they want change, and I guess we’ll see how
much.”
Schansberg got 4 percent of the vote
in 2006, running on a similar platform. Having taught at IU-Southeast
New Albany as a professor of economics, Schansberg said he is better
prepared to be a congressman because of his intimate knowledge of some
of the core issues in this election.
“I’m more knowledgeable about public
policy, and as an economist, someone who’s taught and written about
these things for more than 20 years, I just have more expertise,”
he said.
Schansberg claims to be the “only
fiscal conservative in the race,” saying watchdog groups like the
National Taxpayers Union would give him an “A” on fiscal reform,
while giving Sodrel a “C” and Hill an “F”.
But his biggest argument against the
Democratic and Republican candidates is that they’re part of a faulty
political system.
“I would encourage students to become
engaged and not settle for the two major parties,” he said, “And
if they’re voting for Obama because he promises change, why not extend
that to Congress and make real change?”