Bosma Identifies Kittle As The Person Who Offered Him Unlimited Contributions To Kill HJR-3

The Indianapolis Star has finally been shamed into covering the public flap created when House Speaker Brian Bosma recently announced during a State House press briefing that he had been offered unlimited campaign contributions by one of the opponents of HJR-3 if he agreed to kill the proposed constitutional amendment. Bosma refused to identify the offeror at the time, but the AP's Tom LoBianco, citing numerous sources, identified the person making the offer as former Indiana GOP Chairman Jim Kittle. Speaker Bosma acknowledged during an interview with the Star's Barb Berggoetz today that Kittle was indeed the person who made the offer.

On Wednesday in an interview with The Star, Bosma publicly acknowledged for the first time that the person was Jim Kittle Jr. — a prolific GOP fundraiser and former state party chairman . . .

“The exact quote was: ‘There will be unlimited campaign contributions if this thing can just go away,’ ” he said.

“I thought it was highly inappropriate,” Bosma reiterated Wednesday. “I didn’t think it crossed any criminal line. But I was very uncomfortable with it.”  

Bosma characterized Kittle’s offer as atypical and decided to make it public to show intensity of the lobbying effort on the gay marriage ban. 

“It’s not unusual for people to come to me to support a position,” he said. “Rarely, if ever, is it connected with any pledge of campaign support. I’ve never heard anyone ever say anything ever about unlimited anything.” 

When he told Kittle how he thought it sounded, Bosma said, Kittle changed the offer to “virtually” unlimited campaign funds. Bosma said Kittle he didn’t specify exactly to whom the money would go

For his part, Kittle tells the Star that Bosma is mischaracterizing their conversations about HJR-3:

Kittle said Wednesday, while vacationing in Mexico, that Bosma “mischaracterized” their conversations.

“I expressed my opposition to the marriage amendment and also expressed my belief there would be strong political support for those who had the courage to oppose it or at least amend the (constitutional) amendment,” said Kittle, owner and board chairman of Indianapolis-based Kittle’s Furniture. His company contributed $5,000 to the Freedom Indiana coalition which opposed the amendment and he played a key role in helping find financial support for the group.

Kittle denied he promised “unlimited” campaign funds for GOP lawmakers who would vote against House Joint Resolution 3, which lawmakers passed in February without the civil union ban, thus keeping it off the November ballot.

“Any implication or anything that can be construed as inappropriate or untoward, that’s simply not true,” Kittle told The Star. “I’ve been around politics for a long time. And I know the difference.” . . .  

Kittle said didn’t cross the line. He said Bosma told him he was concerned some House Republicans could draw primary opponents funded by social conservative groups if they voted against the amendment or agreed to remove the civil union ban.

But Kittle said he just told Bosma there would be “significant or substantial support” for them from the businesses, universities and many groups that opposed the amendment. He added, though, he wasn’t there representing anyone but himself, but acknowledged his support of Freedom Indiana.

“I think I had some credibility with Brian and that certainly was one reason I met with him and thought my counsel and offer to support folks who did stand up against it probably had some validity,” Kittle said.

The article goes on to discuss whether the offer might be considered a bribe. Of course, they reference the state's bribery statute and not the federal bribery statute and conclude Kittle's offer probably doesn't rise to a criminal level. As I've discussed before, the state bribery statute is intentionally written to make prosecution under it difficult. That's why cases involving allegations of bribery are typically referred to the feds for prosecution. The Star's story mentions that Kittle contribute $5,000 to Freedom Indiana, the political action committee formed to fight passage of HJR-3; however, Kittle insists that he spoke to Bosma in his individual capacity and not on behalf of Freedom Indiana.

Kittle Denies Offering A Bribe To Speaker Bosma To Kill HJR-3

Former Indiana State GOP Chairman James Kittle is denying a recent AP report identifying him as the unidentified person that House Speaker Brian Bosma recently told State House reporters offered him unlimited campaign contributions if he would kill HJR-3, the marriage discrimination amendment. Bosma said he turned down the offer and expressed concern about the legality of the offer to the unidentified person who offered it to him. Lobianco reported that numerous sources familiar with the offer said it was Kittle who made the offer.

What I find more interesting than who said what in this saga is the State House media coverage of this issue, or better yet, the lack thereof. I observed at the time Speaker Bosma stepped before reporters and made the astonishing claim that virtually no State House reporter mentioned the serious bribery allegation in their reporting of that day's press briefing. Apparently, only the AP's Tom LoBianco even bothered to track the story down to learn who the person was who Bosma alleged made the offer to him.

One would think that a story of this importance put out by an AP reporter would be picked up by virtually all major news outlets in Indiana. Yet most newspapers ignored the story and many media outlets either didn't run the story, or only ran abbreviated version of the story. The only newspaper I could find that ran LoBianco's follow-up story containing a denial from Kittle is the Columbus Republic, which is hardly one of the State's leading daily newspapers. This would story would appear to be an abbreviated version of LoBianco's story, judging by its length--four short paragraphs.

LoBianco's story also mentions that the National Organization for Marriage sent a letter to Attorney General Greg Zoeller requesting an investigation of the alleged bribe offered by Kittle to Bosma. The out-of-state organization obviously is unaware that our state's Attorney General, one of the weakest in the nation, has no prosecutorial powers.

Perhaps revealing of the media's agenda on the issue of same-sex marriage was the extra attention it gave to an issue that arose with a tax bill making its way through the legislature yesterday. Because Indiana's income tax piggy backs on the federal income tax, lawmakers are asked to periodically update the state's income tax code to reflect changes in the Internal Revenue Code. After the IRS ruled last year that same-sex couples would be allowed to file joint tax returns and otherwise be treated the same as traditional married coupled under the tax code following the Supreme Court's landmark decision striking down part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, the Indiana Department of Revenue quickly announced that same-sex couples who filed joint federal tax returns would still have to file tax returns separately because of the state's Defense of Marriage Act, which no court has yet ruled unconstitutional.

Arguably, the differing tax treatment of same-sex and opposite-sex couples increases the likelihood that state laws like Indiana's Defense of Marriage Act will eventually be ruled unconstitutional. That has already been the outcome in several lower federal court rulings handed down since last year's Supreme Court ruling. If state lawmakers had rejected the Department of Revenue's ruling last year and allowed same-sex couples to file joint state tax returns, it would have implicitly repudiated the state's Defense of Marriage Act. Yesterday's action in the Senate was taken to codify the state's Department of Revenue's administrative determination, which is consistent with state law whether one likes that law or not.

UPDATE: The IBJ has published a longer version of the AP story, which includes quotes from Kittle in response to the allegations:

Jim Kittle, a prolific fundraiser in Indiana Republican circles, said he twice met with and tried to convince House Speaker Brian Bosma that the ban shouldn't be considered this session but that he never offered unlimited funds. Bosma has repeatedly said he was offered unlimited money in the heat of the debate if he would pull the issue from consideration, but he has refused to say who made the offer.

Kittle, who opposed the ban, told The Associated Press that he met with the legislative leader at Bosma's law office, once before the session and again shortly after the session started. He said Bosma expressed concerns that some House Republicans could face strong primary election fights if they opposed the ban.

"To offer support to individual legislators if they do happen to get primaried or they're running certainly is not illegal, immoral or anything else," Kittle said. "I respect the fact that Brian's got himself kind of in a jam here. He misjudged what was happening, period, on this."

At the start of the fight in January, Bosma said he had rejected an offer of "unlimited" funds to make the ban "go away." He said at the time that he was concerned it might violate state and federal law.

But, last week, Bosma said he believed nothing criminal was meant by the offer. Bosma spokeswoman Tory Flynn declined comment Tuesday, referring to Bosma's comments last week.