Inside Pete Buttigieg's 'complicated' relationship with Mike Pence
1 / 8FILE - IN this July 3, 2013, file photo, then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, center, talks with South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg, right, as they cross the Jefferson Boulevard bridge during a fitness walk along the St. Joseph River in downtown South Bend, Ind. Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg blasts Vice President Mike Pence’s religious conservatism. But as the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, his tone toward the state’s former governor was more muted.
At a recent LGBT event, Buttigieg spoke of the importance of his marriage to his husband, Chasten, and framed his sexuality in religious terms. In early 2015, Pence was grappling with an HIV outbreak in southern Indiana and facing calls from political leaders, including some fellow Republicans, to respond by approving a needle exchange program. Buttigieg, who was months away from publicly coming out as gay, was largely absent from that debate.
"With respect to Pence's worst blunder, his most difficult controversy, Mayor Pete was not leading the charge against him," said Robert Dion, a political science professor at the University of Evansville in southern Indiana."If you're a Democratic mayor in a Republican state and you rely on friendly relations with the General Assembly, you don't necessarily want to be lobbing bombs all the time.
As mayor, Buttigieg's allies argue he had to maintain a cordial relationship with a governor who held sway over money sorely needed in South Bend. "Where they agreed on issues, like economic development, the mayor worked with then-Gov. Pence for the good of his constituents and his city," Buttigieg spokeswoman Lis Smith said."Where they disagreed, the mayor stood up to him, like when Pence embarrassed the state of Indiana with anti-LGBTQ laws, or when he wanted to turn away refugees from the state, or when Pence's policies hurt South Bend's workers.
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