On Monday morning, John Rust, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Seymour, officially filed his certified petitions with the Indiana Secretary of State’s Office at the Statehouse.
Trish Whitcomb, a Seymour Democratic candidate for Indiana House District 69, also officially filed Monday morning at the same office in Indianapolis.
Whitcomb, the daughter of former Gov. Edgar Whitcomb, is currently uncontested in the Democrat primary for Indiana House District 69. She is running to unseat incumbent Republican Jim Lucas, R-Seymour, in the general election.
District 69 includes the central and eastern half of Jackson County and parts of Bartholomew, Scott and Washington counties.
“Our campaign slogan for the District 69 race is ‘Win with Whitcomb,’” Trish said. “It was my dad’s campaign slogan, and he served the state with the sensibilities that come from growing up in southern Indiana, sensibilities like caring for neighbors, supporting local businesses and respecting the rights and freedoms of others. I will never forget where I came from.”
Whitcomb graduated from Seymour High School and earned a degree in education from Butler University. She is the former executive director of the Indiana Retired Teachers Association and is the former president of the Indiana Federation of Democratic Women.
Upon his filing, Rust submitted 17,369 petition signatures gathered in every Hoosier county.
Marion County Superior Court Judge Patrick J. Dietrick ruled in December that the Indiana law preventing Rust from running against Jim Banks in May’s Republican U.S. Senate primary was unconstitutional. The law states that a candidate must have voted in the previous two primary elections for the party they wish to represent.
Dietrick wrote in his ruling on Dec. 7, “When the immense power of the state is turned toward and upon its citizens in such a way that it imperils a sacred and cherished right of those same citizens, the state’s actions must be for an articulated compelling and pressing reason, and it must be exercised in the most transparent and least restrictive and least intrusive ways possible. [The law] fails in this regard. It unduly burdens Hoosiers’ long recognized right to freely associate with the political party of one’s choosing and to cast one’s vote effectively.”
Rust voted in the Republican primary election in 2016 and in the Democratic primary election in 2012. He did not vote in 2020.
The day after Rust’s injunction was granted, the Indiana Attorney General’s Office filed a notice of appeal of Dietrick’s ruling with the Indiana Supreme Court on behalf of Secretary of State Diego Morales. The Indiana Supreme Court has set oral arguments in Rust’s case for 9 a.m. Monday. The hearing will be livestreamed by the court at in.gov/courts/supreme/arguments.