Lawson’s speech heats up cool day on courthouse steps
When Indiana Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dr. Woody Myers and running mate Linda Lawson embarked on a two-day caravan little more than a week until Election Day this past weekend, Myers took one half of the state, while Lawson took the other.
While the issues discussed were no doubt very similar, the candidates delivering the speeches could not have been more different.
A physician by trade, Myers has the calm demeanor most would associate with a “good bedside manner.” His delivery is measured, deliberate, clear without being blunt.
Lawson, on the other hand, is a firebrand. The first female police officer in the City of Hammond, she gained her position only after successfully suing the city. She went on to serve for 24 years and retired as a captain.
She later took that fighting spirit to both the Hammond School Board and the Indiana General Assembly, where she served for 20 years until retiring two years ago.
For the local stop on the caravan, Putnam County voters got the fiery half of the ticket.
“Our personalities are completely different but we come together when it comes to issues and boy are we excited,” Lawson told the 20 or so people who braved a damp, chilly October afternoon on Sunday outside the Putnam County Courthouse.
Lawson opened with a topic she knows well, saying she has it in her head and her heart to be committed to criminal justice reform in the state.
She said in her 24 years as a police officer, she saw a lot of things that never should have happened, but also positive things that should be emphasized and expanded.
Of particular note, Lawson said entire police departments, not simply one division, should concentrate on community policing if they want to build and ensure trust within the community. She focused on building partnerships wherever possible.
“Once you have gained the trust of the community, it makes it very hard in an arrest situation to be unkind because you know them, you know their families,” Lawson said.
Moving on to another area of expertise, Lawson minced no words in her opinion of the state’s funding for public schools in the last decade or so, saying things went south under former Gov. Mitch Daniels once the Republicans gained a supermajority at the Statehouse following the 2010 Census.
“Mitch Daniels hates public schools,” Lawson said. “They made a decision to fund schools between the haves and the have nots.”
Two governors later, Lawson said she sees little change.
“We absolutely must do something about the way we fund our schools,” she said.
Lawson noted the complexity of schools that she learned as a school board member, calling each corporation “community within itself.”
Applauding educators for “teaching our future,” Lawson pledged to fight for them.
“I’ve watched teachers be neglected for 10 freaking years,” Lawson said. “By god, we are going to change things about public education this cycle.
Finally, she turned to the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the contributing reasons Sunday’s gathering was outside despite it being a damp 50 degrees.
Putting current Gov. Eric Holcomb in the crosshairs, Lawson called him “a lunatic we have in the governor’s office,” saying the governor put a mask mandate in place, but seemed to change the rules when former governor and current Vice President Mike Pence came to town.
“Who’s in charge here?” Lawson said. “In the state of Indiana, we’ve had more than 4,000 people die due to a virus we could have prevented.”
She then moved on not only to Myers’ expertise as a doctor, but his one-time role as state health commissioner under both Republican Gov. Robert Orr and Democrat Gov. Evan Bayh.
It was in this capacity in 1986 that Myers lent his support to teenager Ryan White in his fight to remain enrolled in school as he faced discrimination and hatred for his AIDS diagnosis.
“Woody Myers literally changed the way we thought about AIDS in the state of Indiana and the United States of America,” Lawson said, adding that she believes Myers is also the appropriate leader in the face of COVID-19.
“COVID-19 is driving me out of my mind,” Lawson said. “I can’t understand why we can’t do the right thing and save lives.”
Overall, Lawson said she simply wants to make a difference in the state with some shared control of state government as opposed to the Republican dominance of the last decade or so.
“The only way we’re going to make a difference in the state is if people can come together and compromise,” Lawson said. “There is no compromise. There is no partisanship. It all comes from the speaker (of the house) and from the governor’s office.
“And your views are not heard,” she told the crowd.