(Devan Ridgway, WTIU/WFIU News)
As part of WTIU/WFIU News’ 2022 primary election coverage, reporter Mitch Legan invited the Republican candidates for House District 45 to discuss their policy positions.
The GOP faceoff will be one of the most closely watched primaries May 3 because it pits two current Indiana representatives against each other. Incumbent Rep. Bruce Borders is defending his seat against Rep. Jeff Ellington, who announced after redistricting that he’d run in HD 45.
Ellington has served Indiana’s 62nd District since late 2015, but Greene County, which makes up a majority of 62, will be incorporated into HD 45. The new legislative maps will go into effect after the November elections.
Rep. Jeff Ellington’s interview is available here.
READ MORE: Full election coverage, live results and updates
This transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
MITCH LEGAN: You’ve been representing House District 45 in the General Assembly for a while. Can you give me your history there? How’d you become a representative?
BRUCE BORDERS: Well, I actually used to be mayor of the City of Jasonville many, many years ago. I'm 62 now. I was first elected into the office when I was 28 years old. Served eight years as a mayor and then later on was approached by retired (state) Sen. John Waterman about running for state representative in District 45 after Rep. John Gregg had retired. And to make a long story short, the first time I ran, I lost – but barely. And so (I) ran again the next cycle and ended up winning. Later on when they did the map redistricting, I lost barely again. Then I came back and ran again and ended up winning. So I've actually lost twice. But overall I've served 16 years, which is a combination of eight, two-year terms.
MITCH LEGAN: Redistricting has gotten you into the situation that you’re in now with the primary coming up. I assume that you’re not pleased with Rep. Ellington’s decision to run in (House District) 45?
BRUCE BORDERS: Right. The bottom line is he does not live there. He claims that he does. You’re gonna find the vast majority of his vehicles, of his assets, his businesses over here in Bloomington. Where he's claiming to have moved into, it’s an old woolen factory there in Bloomfield. What I contend is that he simply owns an address, but that’s not his residence. There don’t seem to be any signs of life over there.
He felt like he could win this year if he remained in District 62, but he would have trouble during presidential years because there’s a heavier Democrat turnout in Monroe County. Even though, you know, the City of Bloomington had been carved out. The bottom line was that he was looking for an area where it would be easier for him to run. So that’s why he and his wife had purchased this old factory building four years ago.
ML: What makes you the right guy for District 45? Maybe not so much of what Rep. Ellington has done, but what makes you the right guy?
BB: Well, for one thing, I do tell people the truth. I absolutely do. And I’m going to segue back on to something as well. (Ellington) had signed a no tax pledge, that he would not increase taxes. Well, he voted for the gas tax. And not only did he vote for it, but what he voted for was a bill that put it on autopilot. And so every year, that tax increases with inflation. So it didn’t just increase that year, it goes up. I did vote against that bill because I don’t like taxes going on autopilot. If we’re going to increase taxes, we should be accountable to the voters for that.
And the other thing is he also increased registration fees. And what we found out doing opposition research is that two of his primary vehicles that he drives around in – one is a Mercedes-Benz and one is a Lexus, they’re both very nice luxury vehicles – what he did is he voted to raise your taxes, my taxes, and then to raise everybody’s registration fees, and he was cheating. I mean, he was putting state representative plates on those vehicles. And he had never registered (them) in the State of Indiana.
ML: What do you feel your biggest accomplishment from your time in the General Assembly is? What can you point to? What are you proud of?
BB: The first year that I was in (the General Assembly), they had a structural deficit. And it wasn’t just me, but the bottom line is, we were able to offset and to pay back a lot of those deficits. We also started restoring the Teachers’ Retirement Fund. It was billions of dollars in the hole, and we’re still not caught up where it needs to be, but we did start restoring it.
We’ve been able to lower taxes. I was co-author on the bill this year that reduced taxes from I think 3.23 percent down to 2.9 percent over a period of time. (But) I can’t take credit for that. The real man that deserves the credit for that is (HD 41 Rep.) Dr. Tim Brown. Again, I co-authored the bill, as did many others, and he was kind enough to put us on there. But for me to take credit for all that stuff is wrong and it would be ungodly. So I’m just glad to be part of a team that was able to do that. As a former mayor, I hated debt and I hated taxes. When I came in as mayor of the City of Jasonville, we were, I think, close to $4 million in the hole, which was a lot more money then than it is today. But with the Lord’s help, we were able to basically pay back those debts 27 years early.
And so I’ve always been a strong fiscal conservative, I’m a very strong social conservative and very, very much pro-life. And it’s based on my faith and my love of Jesus Christ, quite frankly. I was born and my mother gave me life, and I want other babies to have that opportunity. I always tell people that your right to bear arms isn’t so you just so you can go squirrel hunting, it’s so you don’t become the squirrel that’s hunted. So no question, I’m fiscally conservative, socially conservative. And I’m just really (grateful) to be part of a team that has gotten Indiana back in on solid footing financially.
ML: What is the biggest issue facing your District 45?
BB: There are two big issues. One of the problems that we’re having is we’re literally having children born at lower than the birth rate. And that’s driving a lot of these problems as far as getting employees. I tell people that – I’m part of the Baby Boomer generation – now we’ve got all these people retiring, and we just don’t have enough young people coming into the workforce to meet the needs of that. And so we really, truly do have to start having larger families. Because if you think the problems are tough now, they’re going to be catastrophic in the future. Everywhere you go people are trying to hire. Everybody thinks this is because the economy is so good. Well, the economy is ok. But the bigger issue is that there just aren’t enough young people to go in and fill those tasks following the Baby Boomers. And so that’s going to be an issue.
And another issue in District 45 – the coal mines. One of the bills that we had this year was trying to deal with a lot of the banks from out east that are trying to make it very difficult for the coal mines to actually borrow money. You know, they’re trying to go to green energy. On some surveys I’ve read, the State of Indiana gets about 82 to 83 percent of its electricity from coal. So we can’t be shutting down our mines and expect for people to be able to pay their electric bills, to pay their heat bills and so forth. And so we’ve got to protect the coal mines and be able to allow them to get access to loans just to buy new equipment, to upgrade old equipment. I talked to one of the heads of one of the mines down in my district and she works with the accounting portion of it. And she said, “We used to have about 44 banks that we could get money from.” And she said now, (they’re) down to like four. And she said even though we’re profitable, even though we have good business practices, she said that drives up our interest rates. It makes it hard to buy a new what they call “perpetual miners” that are down below the ground to do the mining.
So again, I think two of the biggest issues we’re facing are just simply a lack of young people to fill the workforce, and then also to make sure that the coal industry is protected. Heaven help us if we do lose it because people are struggling right now. They’re literally struggling just to get to work because the gas prices. And if electric prices go up – and natural gas is also under attack as well. We can’t go down this road and expect for our children and our grandchildren to have good lives at all.
ML: Can you give me an example or two of it of a time where you maybe reached across the aisle? (When) you worked with Democrats on an idea, issue that they felt passionate about?
BB: Oh, yeah, absolutely. For example, we have the Goose Pond (Fish and Wildlife Area) down in my district. And the bottom line is we’re seeing a lot of eagles and so forth in there. I’ve got some friends that are very strong on environmental issues, which I am as well. And I think it’s unfortunate that as a Republican Party, that frequently, it’s like, if we dare to protect nature for the future of our children, that somehow we’re labeled a tree hugger and so forth. And I’m thinking, “Wait a minute, our children have a heritage.” We all love to visit state parks and national parks or county parks and so forth, so I’ve reached across the aisle a lot with a lot of my colleagues in the Democrat Party on just on protecting the environment for the future of our children.
ML: Taking a look at the (past legislative) session. I believe I have it correct that you voted in favor of the education issues bill that was kind of a hot topic, (House Bill) 1134. Do you see issues with the current education here in the state right now?
BB: The bottom line was that we wanted parental involvement. You know, the Indiana State Teachers Association did a great job of working up the teachers and keeping them upset and nervous about it. But it really wasn’t saying that parents had to approve every lesson plan and so forth. But parents did at least have a seat at the table. And we wanted that. And what I found is that as I actually explained the bill to parents and to teachers, they were like, “No, this isn’t bad at all.” I mean, a lot of them are already doing their lesson plans ahead of time anyhow, putting them up on their education management tool. And so that was not an attack on education in any way, shape, or form. It was just to make sure that parents had a seat at the table.
ML: Another bill that was hotly contested this past session was (House Bill) 1041, the trans athletes in schools bill. I saw Speaker Houston came out and said almost right after that, you know, he was planning on overriding that veto. Would it be safe to assume that you would also vote to override?
BB: Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
ML: So why is this such a hot topic issue with the GOP here in Indiana?
BB: Well, it shouldn’t be with just the GOP. I mean, there’s no question that God made us male and female. I always like to tell people, there’s a book by this title “All Truth is God’s Truth,” whether it be mathematical, scientific, so forth. And basically, the bottom line is that there is a major physiological difference. And it really isn’t fair to girls who are competing against males who are – I don’t care what they claim to be going through, you know, a male is never going to be a female or vice versa. I mean, their DNA is different. Their muscular mass is different, their bone structure is different. If you look at the swimmer in Pennsylvania that shattering the women’s records, that is not a female swimmer doing that. That’s a male swimmer who was, you know, doing some hormone injections and things like that. But it’s still not fair to female athletes. And so that’s why I voted for that bill and will continue to. And I think we’re going down a very, just a very slippery slope. And I think that’s an evil path that we’re taking society down. To teach children that this is normal is wrong, and it’s ungodly, and it’s unscientific as well.
ML: So it sounds like you’re a fan of Speaker Huston there, you said you want to override that veto. Do you ever feel that maybe you could get more effective conservative legislation done? And does Speaker Huston ever kind of pull you guys back from that at all? Are you satisfied with his House leadership?
BB: Well, no, actually, I mean, I’m satisfied with his house leadership. But I probably am strongly to the right of where he’s at. But I realize he also has – he’s got a wider mix of people that he has to please than (just) myself. So I tend to be pretty far right, quite frankly, on social issues.
For example, I felt like the mask mandates lasted way too long. One of the things that bothered me is that some of the medicines that we knew that would cure COVID, that would take care of it, doctors were not being allowed to prescribe them and so forth. Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin – I’ve got a number of friends that, literally, they were going to like rural farm supply stores and getting Ivermectin and measuring it out. They call it horse paste. But it’s not a paste. And they were calculating out the dosage they should have. And they were getting over COVID in just a matter of – it was like eight hours for both he and his wife. And so, for whatever strange reason, a lot of things that we knew that could have worked were being denied to people medically. And so, my goal was to stop that stuff much sooner than when it stopped.
ML: Just a couple more here, and you kind of touched on this before: abortion. With the changes that we’ve seen to the U.S. Supreme Court, there has been more discussion about the future of Roe v. Wade. Maybe it’ll get overturned. If that happens, again, would it be safe to assume you’d be in favor of some more state-level restrictions on abortion access? Maybe through a special session? Can you give me your thoughts on that?
BB: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it’s an old saying, I think Ronald Reagan may have said it initially, but I'm not sure who to give the credit for, but: “I’ve noticed that everybody who is for abortion has already been born.” And I would agree with that. The bottom line is that it is the death of a child. We are killing a child. And so my goal is to vote to do everything we can to protect the life of the most innocent amongst us, and that would be the unborn baby.
ML: Ok. And then I guess staying national. Would you say – is Joe Biden the rightfully elected president right now?
BB: No, I honestly don’t believe that. Yes, I truly don’t.
ML: Yeah. Ok. Can you expand upon that?
BB: Yeah, if you look at, for example, some of the things that happened – was it the State Farm Arena down in Atlanta, Georgia, where they had the claim that the waterlines had broken and they had to empty it out? And then they actually had footage on the security cameras of all these boxes being brought in and so forth. And then they found out it was just a toilet that was overflowing or something like that. I mean, there were many instances on that. And so, no, I don’t believe that it was legitimate. I really don’t.
ML: My final question here, we kind of asked this before, but you know, what makes you the right guy for the job? Why should House District 45 voters vote for you?
BB: Basically, I really do look at people and have empathy for them and their situations. I’m not going to pass laws and go, “Well, this law applies to you, but not to me.” As I mentioned, my opponent, he passed gas tax increases, increases on paying registration fees, and then cheated on his own. He did it and even continued doing it for months after he was caught.
At the end of my life, I tell people, I answer to an audience of one. And I want to hear, “Well done, you've been good and faithful servant.” Not, you know, “Boy, you sure fooled them.” I believe in God, but I also believe in His Son Jesus Christ. You know, a lot of times people, they talk about God like He’s just this vague concept. But I do believe in Jesus Christ as well. He is my Savior. And He’s my Lord. Whether I'm a state representative or not is a small thing as to whether or not I’ve lived a life that’s pleasing to Him.
