OPINION: Jim Banks's machine put itself ahead of Hoosier Republicans

U.S. Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., in his official Senate portrait. Photo: U.S. Senate / Public domain

OPINION | This is an editorial by the Hoosier Enquirer editorial board. It reflects the board's views. The Hoosier Enquirer does not endorse candidates.

Conservatives have an old complaint about Washington: insiders pick the winners, the money stays hidden, and voters are told to fall in line. Hoosier Republicans spent years saying that was the thing they were against. In the race for the office that runs Indiana's elections, it is what they got from Sen. Jim Banks's operation.

Banks wears the MAGA label proudly. When Banks-linked groups helped knock off Republican state senators who crossed President Donald Trump on redistricting, The Associated Press reported that he hailed a "big night for MAGA in Indiana." Fine. The secretary of state race tells a different story — one about a Senate office, a hand-picked staffer and money nobody can trace.

Two months, one staffer

In March, Banks stood behind Secretary of State Diego Morales, praising him as a "tireless advocate for Hoosier values." By May 21, he and Attorney General Todd Rokita had pulled that support and endorsed Max Engling, a senior adviser in Banks's own Senate office who had formally entered the race only the day before, according to the Indiana Capital Chronicle. Engling learned politics in Washington, where he spent about five years working for former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. McCarthy's campaign committee then chipped in $50,000, the Capital Chronicle reported.

Banks and Rokita said they feared Morales would lose in November, and convention delegates were entitled to make the final call. Nothing here proves anyone broke a law, and we do not claim otherwise. Our point is simpler: the push began inside a Senate office and ended with that office's own staffer at the top of the ticket.

Money you can't see

On June 30, Hoosier Leadership for America, a dark-money nonprofit associated with Banks, sent Engling's campaign $60,000 — more than anyone else gave. The campaign says it returned the money July 14 "out of an abundance of caution." Former GOP rival David Shelton has a complaint pending over the gift, and the campaign dismisses it as "baseless on the merits."

The same nonprofit spent $5.2 million on broadcast ads against Republican state senators this spring, according to AdImpact data reported by the Capital Chronicle, and Hoosiers still have no idea who bankrolled it. Shelton argues that if the group is not a corporation bound by Indiana's $5,000 limit, it has been functioning as an unregistered political action committee. That is an allegation, not a finding, and the campaign disputes it. The Indiana Election Commission ought to settle it where voters can watch.

For years, grassroots conservatives have had a word for this sort of thing: RINO. It means the D.C.-style operator who runs the party like a private firm, takes care of insiders and pays for campaigns with money voters can't trace. In our opinion, dumping an incumbent you endorsed two months earlier, installing an aide groomed in Kevin McCarthy's Washington, and watching a nonprofit tied to you fund him with undisclosed dollars fits that description far better than it fits the image of a MAGA outsider.

We are not alone in saying so. The operator of the X account Republican War Room for Beau Bayh, which presents itself as the voice of Indiana Republicans for Beau Bayh, sent us a statement: "I did not leave the Republican Party. The machine left the idea that character and the law come before the letterhead." The author says they once chaired a county party and withheld their name, saying they fear backlash from the state party; we could not confirm any of it. One anonymous account is not a movement. Banks would still be foolish to wave off the sentiment.

Fifty thousand reasons to ask

Then came Sept. 23, when Engling's committee reported $50,000 from Michael S. Sherfick, as this publication reported. Sherfick pleaded guilty to federal bribery in 2010 and drew a 14-month prison sentence, according to the Justice Department, which says he pocketed more than $30,000 in bribes in return for deputy constable badges and credentials.

We have seen no evidence Sherfick was promised anything, and we do not say the gift is illegal. But a man asking to become Indiana's chief guardian of election integrity should not need a second request to say whether he is keeping it.

This page is not telling anyone how to mark a ballot in this race. It is asking the Republican leaders who built this candidacy to account for it.

Owed: three answers

• Sen. Banks: Explain your relationship to Hoosier Leadership for America, who funds it, and why it sent $60,000 to your own staffer's campaign.

• Max Engling: Give back Michael Sherfick's $50,000, and tell Hoosiers whether you knew of his criminal record before you accepted it.

• Indiana Election Commission: Take up the pending complaint promptly, and do it on the public record.

Indiana Republicans were told their party would answer to them, not to Washington. Now would be a good time to prove it.

Sen. Banks's office and the Engling campaign were not reached before publication. Any response they send will be published.

Written by Hoosiers, for Hoosiers.