Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith is among several Hoosier Republicans backing a new lawsuit against the state GOP, claiming that party leaders “undermined the rights of delegates” by making convention changes beyond their authority.
Joseph Bortka, a 2024 state convention delegate and current Marion County Republican precinct committeeman, filed the lawsuit Sunday in Marion County Superior Court.
The suit names the Indiana Republican State Committee, 2022 convention chair Ed Simcox and 2024 convention chair Randy Head as defendants.
The complaint alleges that party leadership repeatedly silenced delegates, bypassed convention procedures, and rewrote internal rules without consent.
“It’s fundamentally a shareholder suit, the delegates as shareholders and the State Committee as the board of directors,” Bortka said in a statement. “When the State Committee frustrates attempts to rally the Party’s collective will by silencing properly brought motions on the convention floor without a vote, or rewrites the rules to undermine the will of its Republican membership, they violate their fiduciary duties to the Party.”
The complaint alleges that party leadership “refused to allow” certain issues to be voted on by the convention — including motions and resolutions proposed by delegates — while “misleading the convention” about their rights and changing rules in ways that “undermine the rights of delegates and the rights of the convention as a body.”
The lawsuit specifically pointed to proposals that sought to amend party convection rules and platform positions.
Among other claims, Bortka argues that recent rule changes made by the state committee — including the removal of Robert’s Rules of Order as the convention’s procedural guide and blocking motions from being heard — are part of a broader attempt to consolidate power at the expense of delegates’ rights.
The lawsuit seeks a declaratory judgment affirming that the biennial convention is the party’s highest authority and an injunction preventing future convention chairs from “arbitrarily blocking delegate action.”
“No other recourse exists to resolve this dispute save for the court,” Bortka wrote in the complaint, citing failed attempts to seek remedy through internal party channels.
The filing does not seek monetary damages but instead requests the court enforce internal party rules and grant access to party records for transparency.
Various Republican activists and organizations — including Beckwith, the Hoosier Freedom Caucus, Indiana Republican Assembly, and Tea Party groups — are supportive of the lawsuit, according to a press release issued by Bortka.
Neither the lieutenant governor’s office nor the Indiana Republican Party responded to the Indiana Capital Chronicle’s request for comment.
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