In west side race, a political newcomer takes on longtime senator
INDIANAPOLIS (MIRROR INDY) — Demolition laborer Gary Philips spent years working on crews whose projects included renovating the Indiana Statehouse in the 1980s and building Lucas Oil Stadium 20 years later.
His construction days now behind him, Philips, 67, now spends his time thinking about his neighborhood. Side streets have deteriorated, he said, pushing more drivers to use Belmont Avenue, which has led to more crashes near his westside home.
City leaders may ultimately decide which roads get fixed, Philips said, but he wants the state to do more to help Indianapolis.
Philips, who said he’s voted Republican in the past though he isn’t very interested in politics, said he will cast his vote in the May 7 primary election for candidates who will fix local problems.
“I would like for them to come out to us and see what people really want,” Philips said.
In the race for Senate District 35, he will have two choices in the Republican primary: longtime incumbent Sen. Mike Young, 72, and his challenger, Plainfield zoning board member J. Philip Clay, 29.
No Democrats have filed to run, but the party has until July 3 to name a candidate to run against whoever wins the Republican primary.
The district is made up of about 137,000 people living in the eastern edge of Hendricks County and western Marion County. It’s also home to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the Indianapolis International Airport and Stout Field, the headquarters of the Indiana National Guard.
The winner of the Republican primary is the favorite to also win the general election. Just two people — both Republicans — have occupied the seat since its inception in the 1970s.
Sen. Morris “Morrie” Mills represented the district for nearly three decades until he retired in 2000. Mike Young, who was a state representative at the time, became his successor.
Humble beginnings
Both Young and Clay say they were inspired to seek political office at a young age.
For Young, it was walking by a large American flag atop a pharmacy on his way to school as a kid. By the 1970s, after Young volunteered in local campaigns, he worked his way up to campaign volunteer coordinator for several candidates.
“I admired the people I was working for,” Young said. “At some point, I thought to myself, ‘Well, you’re just as good as they are. You can serve too.’”
His first attempts, though, were not successful.
In 1979, Young came up short when he ran for a City-County Council seat. He also lost state representative races in 1982 and 1984.
Young, an attorney who lives in Indianapolis, succeeded in 1986 and kept his Indiana House seat until becoming a state senator in 2000.
For Clay, his pursuit of higher office began on the football field, where he won his first election.
He was a team captain on the Plainfield High School Quakers football team and was selected to be a part of the USA Football Under-19 National Team in 2012. His teammates elected him as a representative to the International Federation of American Football, a league created to help the sport gain popularity outside the U.S.
As an adult, he enrolled in the Plainfield Citizens Academy to learn how the town government worked and was later appointed to the Plainfield Board of Zoning Appeals.
Clay also made inroads within the state Republican Party, joining the Indiana Republican Diversity Leadership Series and was one of six Black Republicans selected by the Republican National Committee in 2022 for its annual RNC Rising Star leadership program.
Clay said he considered not running until his wife, Maddie, convinced him. He attended Indiana Wesleyan University for a while and later signed up for online classes at Wilmington University, but he did not graduate. He currently works as a business banking center manager for PNC Bank in Plainfield.
“My wife said, ‘If you run and you lose, what are you gonna do?’ and I said, ‘I’d help my friends in the General Assembly work to make sure that we have great legislation passed,’” Clay said. “Then she goes, ‘Well, it kind of sounds like the same thing you do if you were a state senator, so you might as well run.’”
Listening to residents
Both Young and Clay say the root of their campaigns is listening to what voters want. Both said they share the same conservative stances that a majority of District 35 voters have on issues like abortion, immigration and gun control, but each approaches it in their own way.
Young says his approach of putting the will of his constituents first has led to him butting heads with party leadership.
In 2022, Young, who supports a full ban on abortions, left the Senate Republican caucus after its members included rape and incest exceptions in a bill that eventually banned most abortions in the state. In a letter to Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray, Young also mentioned several professional grievances that led to his departure. Eventually, party leadership removed Young from his chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Corrections and Criminal Law and he was removed from several other committees.
“None of those people who serve in the Senate with me can vote for me or against me,” Young told Mirror Indy. “The only people who can do that are the people who live in my district. I don’t work for the Senate leadership. I work for the citizens of District 35.”
If reelected, Young says he would focus on eliminating the property tax for people’s homestead, the property that includes a person’s home, garage and up to an acre of land surrounding the building. He said the cut would be paid for by using budget reserves, but it’s unclear how much it would ultimately cost. Across the state, Hoosiers pay a yearly average of $1,371 in property taxes.
“That would be one of my greatest achievements,” Young said.
Clay says he would hear from community leaders and residents to gain a better understanding of what they need their senator to do in office and make it his priority during next year’s legislative session.
“I feel like the legislative body should be of the people, by the people and for the people,” Clay said. “But at a certain point, when you’re in office too long, I wonder how much you’re actually talking to the community.”
Clay said, if elected, he plans to push to review qualified immunity for law enforcement in the state and focus on improving how the state handles adoptions in light of the state’s abortion ban.
“Now that all these children are being born, I think we have to look at what kind of homes they’re going into,” Clay said. “Which means that we have to take a deep look at DCS, we have to take a look into foster care and we have to take a look at what adoptions look like in Indiana.”
Local issues at the state level
Both candidates said the will of their constituents would also determine how much they support or oppose state legislation affecting local governments.
Clay said he generally opposes state lawmakers making decisions about how a local government operates, but sometimes legislation is necessary to further conversation about sensitive issues, such as a Marion County fire department merger.
He pointed to a bill introduced by Sen. Scott Baldwin, R-Noblesville, that sought to empower the City-County Council to be able to vote to merge the Decatur, Pike and Wayne township fire departments with the Indianapolis Fire Department without approval from the townships themselves. The bill was widely opposed, even by Wayne Township, which later approved a merger locally, and it died in committee without a vote.
“Understanding the ‘If it’s not broke, we don’t have to fix it’ mentality is important, but I think there is a look that needs to be taken,” Clay said. “Is it worth having different fire departments in one county? What’s the spending on that? What’s the most efficient way to get that done?”
The bill attempted to amend the merger process that has been state law since 2005. Young was one of the authors of the bill that made that law.
Young said it followed his belief in smaller government.
“I want the government to stay out of our lives, so I try to find ways to help people in my district, or industries in my district, without interference from the government,” Young said.
In the 2024 session, Young served on the committee where Baldwin’s merger bill was introduced. He said he was not opposed to townships deciding to merge but was opposed to the state taking away their ability to make that decision. Young credited himself for killing the bill.
“We never even took a vote,” Young said. “They withdrew the bill because I was so effective and had the support of the people of my districts in Wayne and Decatur townships.”
But while Young opposed the merger bill, he authored a separate bill along with Sen. Aaron Freeman, R-Indianapolis, that would have allowed the state to intervene in local decisions in Indianapolis by temporarily preventing IndyGo from installing dedicated bus lanes as part of the Blue Line construction. The planned 24-mile bus route between Cumberland and the Indianapolis International Airport requires some dedicated lanes to remain eligible for up to $150 million in federal funding.
“The citizens in my district did not want it,” Young said. “The citizens came to me, business owners came to me and said, ‘We will lose jobs and businesses if they put these in.’”
In 2016, 52% of Senate District 35 voters cast ballots against the transit referendum to fund the Blue Line and other transportation projects.
Young’s bill passed the Senate but died in the House after city and state officials compromised.
Asking for your vote
Clay said he believes he should be Republicans’ Senate District 35 candidate because he, as a district resident, has lost confidence in Young.
Clay said, overall, Young has led well, but Clay’s legislative approach would allow him to bring more success to the district. He said Young’s removal from important committees is preventing the senator from helping shape legislation early, which could ultimately hurt district residents.
“I’m not the confrontational type. I’m not going to yell at somebody and tell them, ‘Hey, you’re wrong about this,’” Clay said. “I’m going to sit down with you and work to find a common solution that benefits everybody, because I think that’s really what democracy is about.”
Young said his years of experience in the Senate give the district an advantage that would be lost with a new person in the seat.
“When somebody has the knowledge, the experience, the fortitude to be able to get things done for the people they represent,” Young said, “is it fair to get rid of that person to get somebody new when everybody else is there and didn’t have to leave?”
Voting information
Early voting begins today, April 9, at the City-County Building at 200 E. Washington St. and lasts until Monday, May 6. Primary election day is Tuesday, May 7.
Mirror Indy reporter Enrique Saenz covers west Indianapolis. Contact him at 317-983-4203 or enrique.saenz@mirrorindy.org. Follow him on X @heyEnriqueSaenz.