Dan Carpenter has written Keeping His Eyes on the Prize, a political column in the Indianapolis Star, which begins: “Hoosier Republicans must be asking themselves ‘What in the world was he thinking?’ after their secretary of state dusted off master-slave imagery in a speech to an all-white audience about black voters.” You can find some audio of Sec. Rokita’s remarks posted as an audio file here. See also Rokita’s Civic Lesson an Embarassment to Our State at Advance Indiana, a site run by a self-described “Ronald Reagan” Republican.
In the Carpenter column, the author writes: “We have a problem here, folks, and with a capital ‘p’ that stands for partisanship on the part of public officials who are supposed to be refereeing elections, not helping their pals win them. The most conspicuous recent examples have involved Republicans, but there’s no reason to believe Democrats are above the temptation. Making the office appointive would hardly make it neutral; though we could enact laws and impose rules that at least nixed outright electioneering on the part of secretaries who lacked the embarrassment capacity to police themselves.”
As I’ve written, the partisan nature of the remarks by Sec. Rokita are quite troubling. I’ve also written a law review article making the case that the position of state chief election officer should be a position appointed by the governor, subject to confirmation by a large supermajority (75%) of the legislature—this best assures a non-partisan, professional will hold the job.