By KEVIN NEVERS

Incumbent State Rep. Ed Soliday, R-4th, will face Democrat and Chesterton businessman Larry Chubb in the fall, after easily fending off the challenge of Shawn Olson in Tuesday’s primary election.

Chubb ran unopposed in the Democratic primary.

The 4th House District includes much of Porter County as well as portions of Lake and Jasper counties. In Porter County Soliday, who resides in Valparaiso, took 1,994 votes or 58.63 percent, to Olson’s 1,407 votes or 41.37 percent. In Lake County Soliday took 347 votes or 59.32 percent, to Olson’s 238 votes or 40.68 percent. Results from Jasper County were not immediately available.

Soliday did lose at least four of the five Duneland precincts in his district: Liberty 3, 4, and 5 and Westchester 15. The results from Westchester 3 were not immediately available.

In his answers to a Chesterton Tribune questionnaire, published in the May 1 edition, Soliday suggested giving H.E.A. 1001 “a chance to work before we start dissecting it.” He did say that the “assessment process still needs considerable work” and that a “good place to start may be to use a simple cost-of-living adjustment to assessed valuation instead of the current, arcane ‘trending’ system.”

Soliday also praised Gov. Daniels’ administration for providing “the only balanced budget in the Midwest,” reducing “the size of government,” leading “the way in property tax reform,” and bringing “more business to Indiana than any administration in a long time.”

Soliday declined to make projections about the issues which might emerge in his race against Chubb. “I think the voters will have a clear choice,” he said. “I don’t know Larry that well. What I hear is that he’s pretty strongly status quo and I believe you’ve got to prepare for the future.”

Chubb, who operates the family-owned Waterbird Inn and Spa, last year ran for the 2nd District seat on the Chesterton Town Council, losing narrowly—by only nine votes—to Republican Jeff Trout. Chubb, calling himself an “outsider,” ran as a fiscal conservative, suggested that Chesterton’s municipal government may be too large, and advocated the hiring of a town manager to keep costs in line and to seek efficiencies. Chubb also blasted the South Calumet Business District project as a prime example of wasteful governmental spending.

An Election Complaint

Soliday did tell the Tribune on Tuesday night that he is scheduled to meet the Porter County Prosecuting Attorney on Thursday to discuss a series of fliers mailed in the last 10 days of the campaign to his constituents by Right to Work Indiana. Those fliers supported Olson and were, Soliday said, deceitful.

“I’m pro-life,” Soliday said. I was on the Center for Bioethics Board. (The fliers) claimed I’m pro-choice. They claimed I was taking away Second Amendment rights. I have an NRA card. The real killer was they claimed I vote for the ‘new gas sales tax and the new wheel tax.’ There is no gas sales tax. There is no wheel tax. There was no bill as such. They claimed I voted for extending health care benefits for legislators for life. Actually that was the rule before. I voted for a bill that repealed it. They either didn’t do their homework or they deliberately lied. And that is illegal.”

“It is illegal to lie,” Soliday added, “deliberately and willfully to lie. Courts, and rightfully so, try to give a lot of latitude to freedom of speech in the campaign process. The do not give latitude to bold-faced, knowing, willful lies.”

“How do I say to a young person who wants to enter politics, ‘You know if you’re going to enter somebody from Washington can come in and just slander you in front of your own family and you just have to take it?’”

Posted 5/7/2008