Engling Owns Up to Eight Speeding Tickets, Then Threatens to Sue Bayh Over the Word 'Reckless'

Republican secretary of state nominee Max Engling. Photo: Max for Indiana campaign media kit.

Seventeen days before Indiana finishes choosing the official who will run its elections, Republican secretary of state nominee Max Engling has put a number on his own driving record: eight speeding tickets. Nobody had to dig for it. His campaign printed it in a press release threatening to take Democrat Beau Bayh to court.

The Oct. 17 statement from Max for Indiana demands that Bayh withdraw or redact his latest TV ad, which the campaign says features a law enforcement officer telling viewers Engling has been convicted of reckless driving eight times. Engling says no such charge exists. “Beau Bayh can spend money repeating this claim, but he cannot produce a reckless driving charge against me because there isn’t one,” he said. “If Beau has evidence, release it. Otherwise, pull the ad and tell Hoosiers the truth.”

The same release spells out what the record does hold: eight speeding tickets, “the most recent from 16 years ago, all traffic infractions, not misdemeanor charges or convictions.” The campaign calls the ad “libelous” and “defamation on its face,” and says the officer’s line runs from the :08 to :10 mark of the spot.

The Indiana Republican Party picked it up within the hour. “Max Engling has never been charged with or convicted of reckless driving,” the party posted on X. “Beau Bayh should know better than to mislead Hoosiers. He owes Max Engling and Hoosier voters a correction.”

A threat, not a filing

As of Sunday morning, the lawsuit was still a sentence in a press release. The Hoosier Enquirer found no court filing, and no public reply from the Bayh campaign on Bayh’s X account or in the Indiana outlets we checked. We were also unable to view the ad itself, so every description of its wording in this story comes from the Engling campaign, which is a party to the dispute.

The complaint isn’t brand new, either. Engling’s Oct. 15 release already accused Bayh of “bizarrely lying, claiming I have reckless driving tickets.” The demand to pull the ad, with a lawsuit attached, came two days later, as early voting rolled into its second week.

Anyone weighing how seriously to take the threat should know the legal bar. In Monitor Patriot Co. v. Roy (1971), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the “actual malice” rule from New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964) covers candidates for public office: a candidate suing over campaign speech has to show the statement was made knowing it was false, or with reckless disregard for whether it was true. A filing would also put Engling’s own driving history, and his campaign’s description of it, in front of a judge.

Second ad, second denial

This is the second Bayh attack Engling has publicly called false. In the Oct. 15 release, he also denied Bayh’s claim that he became a millionaire through tech stocks and data centers, saying, “the four stocks I own are worth less than $50,000 total, and I have never sold them.” That release also went after Bayh, pointing to his family’s ties to financier Leon Black and asking why Bayh registered to vote in Indiana in 2014.

The fight lands with Engling chasing. The Free Press Indiana/Bellwether poll of 839 likely voters, taken Oct. 8–11, had Bayh at 43%, Engling at 35%, Libertarian Lauri Shillings at 6%, Lincoln Party candidate Greg Ballard at 5%, and 11% undecided.

Engling also has campaign finance questions of his own still waiting on the Indiana Election Commission, which hasn’t met this fall. One complaint concerns a $60,000 contribution from Hoosier Leadership for America, a dark-money group tied to U.S. Sen. Jim Banks, that the campaign says it refunded. Bayh faces two complaints alleging unreported in-kind contributions from events he headlined. Ballard sued Oct. 15 to force the commission to rule on all four before Nov. 3.

Engling put the standard better than anyone in his own release: “An attack ad is no substitute for evidence. Putting an accusation on television doesn’t turn it into a fact.” The same test applies to a lawsuit that, so far, exists only on a campaign website. Early voting is underway, and Election Day is Nov. 3.

Written by Hoosiers, for Hoosiers.