J.D. Ford, Indy Pride Parade 2023 – Photo: Dominic, Public Domain
Indiana State Sen. J.D. Ford (D-Carmel) won the Democratic nomination for Indiana’s 5th Congressional District in the May 5 primary election.
Ford, the first openly gay person elected to the Indiana General Assembly, will face Republican U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz in the general election. In 2019, he proposed a bill to protect minors from conversion therapy. A year later, he introduced legislation to prohibit schools that discriminate against LGBTQ people or other protected groups from receiving taxpayer-funded school vouchers.
The 5th Congressional District is rated R+8, meaning it typically votes about eight points more Republican than the national average. It is generally considered a “safe” Republican district.
However, the suburban district also has a relatively high level of educational attainment — a metric often seen as favorable for Democrats, as college-educated voters have increasingly backed Democratic candidates during the Trump era.
In the Republican-friendly election cycles of 2022 and 2024, Spartz’s performance largely mirrored both President Trump’s margins and the district’s partisan lean. But in 2020, a more favorable year for Democrats, she won by just 4 points.
As Indianapolis-based PBS affiliate WFYI reported in January, Ford said his decision to run was inspired by a controversy over mid-decade redistricting. At the urging of President Donald Trump, most Indiana Republicans attempted to redraw the state’s congressional map from a 7-2 Republican advantage to a 9-0 Republican map as part of a broader effort to preserve GOP control of Congress.
A handful of Republican lawmakers voted against the plan, preventing its passage and preserving the current map. Most later lost their primaries to Trump-backed challengers on Tuesday night.
“I couldn’t stand by the sidelines anymore, and I wanted to throw my hat in the ring and give Hoosiers a real option in this race,” Ford said of his decision to run.
Spartz announced in 2023 that she would not seek another term, only to reverse course and run again in both 2024 and 2026. On Tuesday, she underperformed expectations, earning just under 60% of the vote against primary challenger Scott King, an Army veteran and electrical engineer. Three other Republican incumbents in Indiana also received less than two-thirds of the primary vote.
Meanwhile, Ford easily won the Democratic primary, earning nearly 43% of the vote and finishing 25 points ahead of his nearest opponent in the seven-candidate field.
Ford used his victory speech to urge supporters to continue working together to “take back the United States Congress” and criticized Spartz for her loyalty to President Donald Trump, whose approval ratings have recently declined.
“My opponent, Victoria Spartz, has pledged blind loyalty to the chaos of Donald Trump, but it goes beyond that, because she has become an agent of that chaos,” he said. “She pretends to be a maverick and then buckles at the last minute every single time.”
The U.S. Department of Justice has launched investigations into three dozen Illinois school districts, alleging that they may have failed to allow parents to "opt out" of lessons involving LGBTQ content.
The investigations, announced last week by the department, will also examine whether 35 school districts and Chicago's largest charter school network allow transgender students to use bathrooms or participate on sports teams that align with their gender identity, rather than their assigned sex at birth.
In its news release, the Justice Department said it would determine whether the districts are adhering to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the federal law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funds.
A Kentucky bill that sought to bar transgender people from teaching has failed.
State Sen. Gex ("Jay") Williams (R-Verona) introduced SB 351 in early March to prevent transgender people from obtaining or keeping teaching certifications.
Under the bill, anyone reported to state education officials as potentially transgender would have been required to undergo medical exams and submit the results to obtain or renew a teaching license.
The bill also would have barred teaching certificates for anyone "who has been treated for or diagnosed with any disorder that is excluded from the American with Disabilities Act of 1990 by a licensed medical professional, as these disorders were defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders at the time."
Boston University's president is apologizing for a now-rescinded policy that prohibited Pride flags and pro-LGBTQ signs in windows and other publicly visible spaces on campus.
In the weeks since spring break ended on March 15, students and staff have protested the removal of Pride flags and pro-LGBTQ signs, including those displayed in individual professors' offices, to comply with the university's policy opposing displays that are not "content-neutral," as Metro Weekly previously reported.
The university has denied singling out symbols of LGBTQ identity.
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