Indiana Governor candidate Q&A: Former Attorney General Curtis Hill on the issues

Former Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill says the voters he talks to amid his campaign for Indiana governor have moved on from the groping allegations that tainted his public image ― allegations he still vehemently denies.

"When I talk to people, they're interested in, what did I do as their attorney general, what did I do as prosecutor, what are we doing to get the job done?" he told IndyStar in December. "So I think most people see that for what it was from a political nature and have moved on beyond it."

A 2018 IndyStar investigation first unveiled the allegations. A federal judge dismissed the subsequent lawsuit and a special prosecutor declined to file criminal charges, but the state Supreme Court later suspended Hill's law license for a month. Hill then narrowly lost the Republican nomination by state delegates for a second term.

Come May 2024, Hill will face voters, not delegates. So will six other Republican candidates for governor: Fort Wayne businessman Eric Doden, Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch, former Commerce Secretary Brad Chambers and Indianapolis mom Jamie Reitenour. Donald Rainwater is running as a Libertarian and former state schools Superintendent Jennifer McCormick as a Democrat.

IndyStar asked Hill, as well as the seven other candidates for governor, a set of questions about issues relevant to the 2024 race, some of which were submitted by readers. This interview is edited for length and clarity.

Q: What do you think sets you apart from your competition in the Republican primary?

A: First and foremost, I have actual executive leadership in state government. Being the attorney general, I was in charge of an executive department that had real responsibility. My history as a prosecutor, my history as attorney general demonstrated my ability to make decisions on a regular basis.

We have a few folks in the race, good people that they are, but have never served in elective capacity. So that's a crapshoot for the public in terms of what they will do when under the heat of fire. For folks who have served in the legislative process, well, there's a big difference between the legislature and how that process operates in terms of getting votes and participating in a group-think project, and having executive leadership. There's an idea that we should have a businessman running government, and I certainly believe that business has its place in government ― there are certain aspects of how you run a government that have a business application ― but the bottom line is it's still government, and we have to recognize that.

Q: What would be your first priority as governor?

A: My first priority as governor is to do whatever I can to restore faith in our institutions. I think that our justice system has been marginalized nationally as well as locally. I think that weaponization of race has really been a problem across the country and here in the state, and the sexualization of children. These are all problems that people are really reeling over in terms of, what do we do about it?

Parents have found out during the pandemic that their children weren't being taught the things they thought they were being taught. So our education system was under fire, and rightfully so. So we need to do things to restore the faith that people had in these institutions by breaking them down, by understanding what's happened, what we can do to fix it, and then getting to work and getting it done.

Q: In many ways today’s Republican Party has factions defined by one’s posture toward Donald Trump. What’s yours?

A: I think President Trump did an outstanding job as president from a policy standpoint. I do support the president. I don't agree with all that he does. I don't agree with all that he says, like anyone else. I'm looking at it from the perspective of what's necessary, what's needed to restore the strength of this nation.

When I look at the border situation since Joe Biden has come into office, it's deplorable. We have 200,000 people a month coming in across our border, and that impacts Indiana on a regular basis. That wasn't happening under Donald Trump. So whatever you think about Donald Trump, pros or cons, he was doing something at the border. Whatever you think about Donald Trump, he did something about Israel in the sense of moving the embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. That's something that the Israeli people have wanted, the Israeli government had wanted for a number of years. Folks from the U.S. would say, "Oh, we're friends of Israel, but we can't do that, we'll destabilize the Middle East." I like the fact that he seized opportunities to take action that needs to be taken. So from that perspective, I think he is someone who, in the current setup, I would support.

Q: Do you believe the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump?

A: I don't have sufficient information to make such a bold statement. What I know is that there were inconsistencies and problems with how the election took place. Typically, there are problems with every election. But I can give you an example. I went to bed about 2 in the morning in that 2020 election thinking Donald Trump had won, and I woke up in the morning and found out that he hadn't. So there were some unusual things that occurred in that election cycle that would give one pause. Some of the concerns are the changes that took place in the election process prior to the vote ― there were states that changed the rules.

I think that President Trump and Republicans would do better and do well to look forward rather than backwards in terms of what happened in 2020. Regardless of what happened in 2020, that doesn't get you anywhere for 2024, 2024 means you move forward. If there were some concerns or problems about what happened previously, put things in place so that those don't happen, but look forward.

Q: Where do you stand on Indiana’s new abortion law, and what changes to it would you support?

A: I think it's a great step in the right direction in the sense that Indiana prohibits abortion. I believe firmly that there is an exception. a process for rape and incest and health of the infant. My concern there is that there is no accountability, no verification process. I think that is a concern. I'd want to talk to the General Assembly about how we're managing the rape and incest exception to make sure that it's not abused.

That aside, I think what I want to support is making sure that if we have a rigid standard on pro-life, and I agree that we should, we need to make sure that we do everything that we can to be of assistance to mothers or women who find themselves with an unexpected pregnancy or an unwanted pregnancy. We have to make sure that there are services that are ample during the pregnancy and after the birth to make sure that they're given every opportunity to be successful, and to raise a healthy, happy family.

Q: Gun violence is an epidemic in today’s American society. How should Indiana respond?

A: It's not just gun violence, it's violence altogether. We should be very, very direct and forceful. What we need to understand about crime is that in any community, there's a very small number of people who commit the vast majority of crime. And once you understand that, then crime can be somewhat predictable. And therefore, you can put things in place to curb it. A lot of violent crime is predicated on single-parent families, on poverty, on different issues within a community that will be a good predictor of what will happen going forward. So what we have to do is identify those signals of where crime is occurring, why it's occurring, and throw resources towards that to try to prevent as much criminality as possible.

On the backside it's making sure that we hold people accountable. The tough crimes ― murder, rape, child molestation ― everybody pretty much agrees on how to handle those folks. You commit a murder, you're going to jail for a long time. But what if you steal a Twinkie? Nobody wants to lock somebody up for stealing a Twinkie. What do you do with the tenth time that you stole the Twinkie? And that's the nature of our justice system. The vast majority of people who are filling up our prisons are not the murderers. The murderers are easy. It's the people who are chronic offenders who go over and over and over again, and we don't want to lock them up, but we get to a point where, what choice do we have because they are dredge on society? So we have to identify all of those issues. I get frustrated when I hear people say that we have too many people in prison. That's not the right question. The question is, do we have the right people in prison?

Q: The 2023 legislative session dealt with culture war topics such as LGBTQ issues and school library books. Where do you stand on those issues?

A: I certainly think that gender-affirming care, particularly for minors, is very frightening. The fact that we would engage in or allow children to mutilate their bodies, for the sake of an identity aspect, bothers me. Now, I'm a freedom guy. So if you're talking about an adult, someone who's 30 years of age and they want to go through that process, I might think it's a silly idea, but I certainly believe in one's freedom to choose even something that I wouldn't choose. I'm OK with that. But this idea that children, who have to get permission to get a tattoo, can somehow make decisions affecting their sexuality without their parents' consent, that's a problem for me.

Parents are responsible for their children, and parents have a right to determine where their children are, while those children are still a minority. So I think that everything that we can do to protect children from those types of overreaches is necessary.

From the perspective of the types of things that we're seeing in our public libraries, in our schools, from a readability standpoint: I'm not a book-ban person, per se. I think the best solution there is to identify a standard for what type of materials are appropriate for certain grade levels and adhere to those standards. I've seen very rough sexual content that's designed for children under the age of 10 that I wouldn't have for my children, I would hope that most parents wouldn't want for their children. But we have to have a standard that, when is it OK to allow a child to be taught something about sexuality, and a parent has an absolute firm right and duty to be engaged in that process.

The standard should be set in combination with the school and parent associations that are working things out and discussing it and putting all their marbles on the table. I don't think it's government's responsibility. The legislature can facilitate, but ultimately these decisions need to be made at the local level.

Q: Should citizens have a right to collect signatures to put questions on the ballot without legislative approval?

A: I don't want to say that they shouldn't, but my short answer is no. I don't like ballot initiatives because they take away the legislative process. The beauty of the legislative process is that, the way it's supposed to be done, is it engages public input and debate and discussion. What happens with ballot initiatives is it's a matter of how you poll or ask the question. If you make the question in a particular way, you can pretty much assure how the answer is going to come out. So I don't think it's a very solid way of making changes.

I think the legislative process is designed to start with a thought or an idea, to run that idea through the halls of the General Assembly, to open it up for debate, to engage, and then to make a decision, and then primarily, importantly, to be accountable for the decisions that are made.

Contact IndyStar state government and politics reporter Kayla Dwyer at kdwyer@indystar.com or follow her on Twitter @kayla_dwyer17.