'Long overdue': Marion County Democratic Party ends controversial slating process

The Marion County Democratic Party has ended the controversial election practice known as slating almost a year after the process came under fire from Black leaders within the party.

With the Marion County Republican Party also expected to end the practice ahead of this year's municipal elections, Marion County's idiosyncratic tradition of slating, out of step with the vast majority of counties in the state, could finally see its end.

Marion County Democratic Party Chair Myla Eldridge announced Sunday that effective immediately, the party will end its pre-primary convention and endorsement process and move to what she called an open primary starting with this May’s municipal primary election.

“For years making this change has been debated within our party, and in 2023 it’s time to move forward,” said Eldridge.

Slating is a process by which precinct committee persons — who are party officials that are technically elected, but are instead often appointed to fill open positions by the party chair — decide which candidate gets the party’s endorsement ahead of the primary election. Party endorsement was for a long time seen as valuable to candidates and also helped parties clear the primary field.

"(Slating) is really a relic of the past," Julia Vaughn, executive director for political accountability group Common Cause Indiana, told IndyStar in December. She said ending the process was long overdue.

"Slating has allowed the party bosses to control who has access to the ballot and who has the ability to run for local office here," she said at the time, "and I don’t think that’s always provided voters with the best candidate."

She added that the end of slating would help the Marion County Democratic Party survive what she called a civil war.

Last February, many Black Democratic politicians bucked the tradition of slating and called for an end to the process by refusing to seek the party's endorsement.

At the time, they said it entrenched establishment power and placed Black and Latino candidates at a disadvantage. The legislators who refused to seek party endorsement ahead of the primary election last year included Indianapolis state Rep. Robin Shackleford, who is running for mayor this year.

Shackleford told IndyStar the end of slating was a victory, adding that slating imposed financial barriers for candidates through costly slating fees that ran well over a thousand dollars and put power in the hands of a small group of party officials, rather than voters.

Under the open primary system, Democratic candidates will file to run as a Democrat in the primary but will no longer be endorsed by the Marion County Democratic Party prior to the primary election.

Impact of slating on 2023 mayoral race

All three Democratic mayoral candidates welcomed the end of slating ahead of what could be a hotly contested Democratic mayoral primary election with at least two highly qualified, longtime politicians vying for the spot — incumbent Mayor Joe Hogsett and Shackleford.

"While there were historic reasons for its existence, it has become clear in recent years that the decades-old convention endorsement process no longer serves a purpose," Hogsett wrote in a statement released Sunday.

He had called for the end of slating in May last year.

Shackleford said ending slating levels the playing field in the mayoral race and every other election.

"Now the mayor won't have the backing of the precinct committee members that he, along with the previous party chair, (Kate Sweeney-Bell), helped put in place," she said.

Democratic mayoral candidate and political consultant Gregory Meriweather said slating was undemocratic and made it such that candidates had to be part of an "old boys' club" in order to successfully for office.

Marion County Republicans likely to end slating too

Marion County Republican Party chair Joe Elsener told IndyStar at the end of November that his party, too, was in the process of ending slating and moving toward normal primary elections.

"It's probably time to move in a different direction and away from slating," he said.

The primary is May 2. The general election is Nov. 7.

Contact IndyStar reporter Ko Lyn Cheang at kcheang@indystar.com or 317-903-7071. Follow her on Twitter: @kolyn_cheang.