Court has ‘no timeline’ on Foyst decision

The Indiana Supreme Court has “no timeline” for when it will make a decision on a petition filed by Columbus City Council member Joseph “Jay” Foyst asking the justices to take up the long-running legal battle over the validity of his candidacy in the 2023 municipal election.

In August, Foyst filed an appeal to the Indiana Supreme Court — known as a petition to transfer — asking the justices to vacate a unanimous appellate court decision that found he was not a valid candidate for Columbus City Council District 6 in the 2023 municipal election and affirm a previous trial court’s decision that upheld his candidacy.

The appellate judges sent the case back to a lower court with instructions to declare Bryan Muñoz, the Democratic nominee for the seat, the winner of the 2023 election.

“It is now being transmitted to the Supreme Court for consideration,” Indiana Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathryn Dolan told The Republic, referring to Foyst’s petition to transfer. “There is no timeline for the Supreme Court to make that decision.”

The justices can either grant or deny the petition or set the case for oral arguments to hear more information, Dolan said. At this point, the high court has received the petition, briefs from the parties and records from the lower courts.

If the Indiana Supreme Court grants Foyst’s petition to transfer, that means that the justices have agreed to hear his appeal and examine the legal issues in that case. It does not mean that they have decided the case in his favor.

If the high court denies Foyst’s petition, that means the unanimous appellate court ruling finding that he was never a valid candidate in the 2023 municipal election and directing a trial court to declare his opponent the winner of the election would be final.

Whatever decision the high court ultimately makes will determine which party holds a majority on the city council through the end of 2027.

With Foyst on the city council, the Republicans have a 5-4 majority. Should Bartholomew County Democratic Party Chair Ross Thomas, the other party in the case, ultimately prevail in court, the Democrats would have a 5-4 majority.

Foyst has said he intends to represent the constituents of District 6 until he is no longer able to do so but will abstain from casting tie-breaking votes so that the city council does not have to hold new votes should he be removed from office.

Currently, there is no way to know when the justices will reach a decision on Foyst’s petition, though it could come as early as next week.

The Indiana Supreme Court generally publishes a list of decisions on petitions to transfer from the previous week on Mondays. The justices considered four petitions last week but Foyst’s petition was not among them, according to public records.

“I don’t have any way of knowing when that case is one that they’ll discuss and make a decision on,” Dolan said.

The amount of time between appellate court decisions and the high court’s decisions on petitions to transfer has varied considerably this year, ranging from 17 days to 427 days, according to an analysis of Indiana Supreme Court records.

The median wait time has been 106 days so far this year. The appellate court decision in the Foyst case was made July 16, which means that 106 days would be Oct. 30.

In the petition, Foyst’s attorneys challenge on several grounds the unanimous decision on July 16 by a panel of Indiana appellate court judges, who ruled that Foyst was not a valid candidate in the 2023 municipal election because the Bartholomew County Republican Party failed to “meet a statutory deadline for filling a vacancy on a general election ballot.”

Thomas, for his part, has urged the Indiana Supreme Court to turn away Foyst’s petition, arguing that the state’s high court should not intervene because the panel of appellate judges “properly applied existing case law to unambiguous election law statutes” and that the facts in the case are not in dispute.”

Thomas also has argued that any decision that leads to upholding Foyst’s candidacy would “render filing deadlines for candidates for public office meaningless” and “throw our entire system of ballot access into chaos.”

The legal fight over Foyst’s candidacy started in summer 2023, when Foyst was initially selected as the Republican nominee for Columbus City Council District 6 in the 2023 municipal election during a party caucus held in July 2023 after nobody filed to run for the seat in the GOP primary, leaving a vacancy in the Nov. 7 general election.

Thomas challenged Foyst’s candidacy, arguing that local GOP officials failed to file a required notice of the party caucus with the Bartholomew County Clerk’s Office before the state-imposed deadline. In August, the bipartisan Bartholomew County Election Board upheld Thomas’ challenge and removed Foyst from the ballot.

However, the Bartholomew County Republican Party decided to hold another caucus and selected Foyst once again to fill the vacancy, pointing to a section in the Indiana Code that allowed the GOP to fill the vacancy following “the successful challenge of a candidate.”

Thomas then attempted to challenge Foyst’s candidacy again, but his request was denied by Bartholomew County Clerk Shari Lentz because the deadline had passed to file a challenge, prompting Thomas to file a lawsuit against Foyst and all three members of the Bartholomew County Election Board, including Lentz.

The case was initially assigned to Bartholomew Circuit Judge Kelly Benjamin, who recused herself. The case was later turned over to Special Judge K. Mark Loyd. In November, Loyd dismissed the claims against the Bartholomew County Election Board, leaving Foyst as the lone defendant.

While the lawsuit was pending before the special judge, Foyst won the Columbus City Council District 6 seat in the 2023 municipal election, defeating Muñoz with 59.5% of the vote.

A couple of weeks after Foyst was sworn into office, Loyd upheld his candidacy, ruling that the additional Republican caucus in which Foyst was elected to fill a vacancy for the party’s nomination for Columbus City Council District 6 met requirements under state law.

Thomas appealed the lower court’s decision.

The panel of appellate judges, for their part, sided with Thomas, finding that “Foyst’s candidacy never existed in the eyes of the law” and therefore could not be placed on the ballot during the second caucus.