Civil war in Vanderburgh GOP ignites with chairman's move against critics

EVANSVILLE — Civil war is the road chosen by the already fractured Vanderburgh County Republican Party, whose leader served papers Thursday seeking to censure and remove intraparty critics from elected positions.

GOP Chairman Mike Duckworth's action against former Libertarian mayoral candidate Michael Daugherty and conservative activists Ken Colbert and Cheryl Batteiger-Smith came 16 days after the May 7 Republican primary in which they were elected to the party's 135-member precinct committee. On that day, Colbert says, the trio and 83 other conservative candidates captured a majority on the committee. The election was certified by the Vanderburgh County Election Board on May 17.

A hearing on Duckworth's complaints will be held before 8th District GOP officers at Vanderburgh Party Republican headquarters at 5:15 p.m. on June 3. Both sides are expected to be represented by counsel. Colbert says a deluge of counter-complaints will soon be filed by conservative "PCs" — precinct committee members — against Duckworth.

More: The future for Vanderburgh GOP is uncertain after Friday action

Duckworth didn't respond to Courier & Press requests for comment, but copies of his complaints supplied by Daugherty and Colbert indicate he is accusing them of not being "Republicans in good standing" and of violating Indiana's two-primaries law, which requires that a candidate's two most recent votes in Indiana primary elections must have been cast in primaries held by the party he or she seeks to represent.

It is the latest offensive in an ongoing Republican civil war in Vanderburgh County.

Colbert has said several times he intends to seek the necessary two-thirds of PCs to remove Duckworth before his term expires in March, and Daugherty has declared he will challenge Duckworth for re-election.

Colbert said Duckworth's tenure as GOP chairman has been disastrous, with top-to-bottom defeats for Republican candidates in last year's city elections. Colbert also cited what he described as near-constant turmoil enabled and encouraged by Duckworth and purposeful exclusion of conservatives from party affairs.

"He's failed miserably in his capacity to lead the Republican Party," Colbert said.

More: Battle to be Vanderburgh elections chief roils over 'harassment'

What are the charges?

In the May 7 primary election, Daugherty stood for precinct committeeman against Richard Colacecchi — the brother of Duckworth's party vice chair. Daugherty won 90 votes to Colacecchi's 34, a 73-27% margin. Colbert and Batteiger-Smith had no opponents for their seats on the precinct committee.

In a field of 24 candidates for 10 delegate positions at the June 15 state GOP convention, Daugherty finished behind just three of them — although one of those was Duckworth. Colbert barely made it in as a delegate, finishing 10th. In a separate race, Batteiger-Smith missed making the cut.

"We're all elected, every one of us," Colbert said. "You can't remove an elected position."

Duckworth will try.

More: New Vanderburgh elections chief picked in temporary GOP ceasefire

According to a copy of Duckworth's complaint provided by Daugherty, Duckworth is moving against him again with an argument that failed when he brought it before the Vanderburgh County Election Board in February.

Then, Duckworth was trying to block former Republican Daugherty's attempt to rejoin the party by running in the primary for precinct committeeman and convention delegate positions.

Duckworth and GOP attorney Chad Sullivan at first laid out Indiana Republican State Committee rules stating that candidates can't seek office if they are not "in good standing" with the party. A Republican in good standing, those rules state, "shall be defined as a Republican who supports Republican nominees and who does not actively or openly support another candidate against a Republican nominee."

Daugherty's 2023 Libertarian campaign for mayor put him in direct opposition to unsuccessful Republican nominee Natalie Rascher. That is openly opposing a Republican nominee, Duckworth argued.

More: Recruitment campaign has Vanderburgh GOP poised for a hostile takeover

But the election board was less interested in Republican Party rules than in Duckworth's claim that Daugherty had violated Indiana's "two-primaries law."

Daugherty voted in the 2022 Republican primary in Vanderburgh County and the 2018 GOP primary in Tippecanoe County. In between, in 2020, he voted in a nonpartisan primary election — a school board election in Tippecanoe, Daugherty said.

The election board zeroed in on a provision in state law stating that a party chairman's approval is needed for a candidate to run "if the candidate cast a nonpartisan ballot at an election held at the most recent primary election in which the candidate voted."

More: Daugherty making a strong move in fractured Vanderburgh GOP

Daugherty's vote in the nonpartisan primary in 2020 "wasn’t the last (most recent) one in which he voted," said election board chairman Joe Harrison, a former GOP chairman himself.

And that's the argument that carried the day. The board voted 2-1 to allow Daugherty to run in the May 7 primary.

Afterward, Duckworth exercised his prerogative as GOP chairman to replace Republican Harrison on the board with Sullivan, the lawyer who had represented him in his attempt to block Daugherty.

More: Vanderburgh GOP head axes election board member after Daugherty vote

'We're a party in turmoil'

Colbert's two most recent votes in primary elections in Indiana were cast in the 2024 and 2022 Republican primaries — and if 2024 doesn't count because that's when he was elected, he voted in 2020's GOP primary too. Same deal with Batteiger-Smith.

Colbert said it would be a "blatant lie" to accuse him of violating the two-primaries law or openly supporting another candidate against a Republican nominee.

"Anything repugnant to the Indiana Constitution is unenforceable," he said. "So I don't care if the Democrat or Republican Party has come up with policies. If they violate state law, they're not enforceable."

More: What's a loyal Republican or Democrat? Vanderburgh election hopefuls kicked off ballot

But Duckworth's accusation that Daugherty openly opposed Rascher might gain more traction with a partisan body like the 8th District GOP committee than it did with the election board. And the state party's rules do allow for elected precinct committee members such as Colbert, Batteiger-Smith and Daugherty to be removed for "cause."

What's cause? The GOP rules define it as willful violation of the rules, a state party resolution or election law — and "gross misconduct affecting the party organization."

Johnny Kincaid, a GOP precinct committeeman, past candidate and host of the Republican-themed podcast, "This Week in Evansville," said the 8th District committee would have to remove party officers who were duly elected and certified by the Vanderburgh County Election Board for Duckworth to prevail.

The optics of that would be "really bad," Kincaid said.

"Unless there's just a really strong, compelling case with very specific (offenses)," he said. "If you have a specific case of (Colbert, Batteiger-Smith or Daugherty) publicly supporting a candidate on the Democratic side, then they might have legitimate cause."

The continued infighting makes the party look bad, Kincaid said. It's legitimate cause for other precinct committee members to wonder whether GOP bosses will go after them if they step out of line — at a time when Republicans need to be gearing up to fight Democrats, Kincaid said.

"We're a party in turmoil," he said. "And the turmoil needs to stop."

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Civil war in Vanderburgh GOP ignites with chairman's move against critics