Indiana treasurer stands by Chrysler fight-WEB ONLY

Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock’s failed quest to stop Chrysler’s bankruptcy proceedings will cost state taxpayers $2 million in legal fees, but he has no regrets about what some saw as a Quixotic effort.

That sum is on top of the $5.6 million a road construction fund and pension funds for retired teachers and state troopers stand to lose as Chrysler arises as a new company with most of its debt erased. Auto workers, meanwhile, say if Mourdock had succeeded, he would have cost Indiana even more and jeopardized thousands of jobs in a state already wracked by the auto industry’s collapse.

The Republican treasurer says he was doing his job in trying to protect the funds.

“If I had to do it all over again, I’d do the same,” Mourdock – who owns a Chrysler-made Dodge Ram pickup truck – said yesterday.

Italian automaker Fiat completed its purchase of the bulk of Chrysler’s assets yesterday after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to rule on Mourdock’s objections to the sale on behalf of the funds. The three funds, which held less than 1 percent of Chrysler’s $6.9 billion in secured debt, will lose less than 1 percent of their value.

Mourdock said the bankruptcy deal unfairly favored Chrysler’s unsecured stakeholders over secured debtholders like the state, going against years of bankruptcy law.

Other debtholders balked at the deal too, but eventually dropped efforts to stop the proceedings. President Barack Obama singled out a handful of debtholders as seeking an “unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout” and some received death threats.

Mourdock, a marathon runner who describes himself as a competitive person, stuck with it.

“I could very easily just kind of duck under the covers and do what everybody else was doing and go tell our pensioners, ‘Hey guys, sorry you just lost some money.’ But I took an oath of office and meant to honor it,” Mourdock said.

Neither the state teachers union nor police officers’ groups have commented publicly about the issue, though Mourdock says he heard from retired teachers and state police who were glad he was fighting for their money.

Indiana Democratic Party Chairman Dan Parker, though, said it’s not the state treasurer’s job to hire an out-of-state law firm and contest bankruptcy law before the Supreme Court.

“His job is to get the best deal for Indiana,” Parker said. “The best deal for Indiana was to save jobs and get as much money as possible on a risky investment.”

“He’s just playing to his party’s base in trying to blow this deal up, which would have cost us thousands of jobs.”

Kokomo Mayor Greg Goodnight also said Mourdock’s actions seemed like a political move. He said people in his city, which has more than 3,000 Chrysler workers, were happy to see the Supreme Court end Mourdock’s campaign.

“You had more to lose than you had to gain, not just for our city but our entire state,” he said.

So Mourdock – who has criticized the Obama administration for how it handled the bankruptcy but says his opposition was just his responsibility as the manager of two of the three funds – might not carry Kokomo voters in the next election. But most Indiana residents may see him as someone who stuck up for people who stood to lose retirement money, said Robert Dion, a professor of American politics at the University of Evansville.

“Even though he failed, he can make the case that he fought the good fight because he spoke up,” Dion said. “He gave it his best shot and came up short.”

The Chrysler fight thrust Mourdock into an odd place for an Indiana treasurer – the national spotlight. He’s given dozens of media interviews, while not missing any usual engagements like meetings of Rotary Clubs and local chambers of commerce. That could help Mourdock if he decides to run for a second term as treasurer in 2010 or tests the waters for governor.

“He’s getting around, to be sure,” Dion said. “But there’s no shortage of mayors and state lawmakers who also see a governor each morning in the mirror.”

Mourdock says he’s settling back into his normal routine after weeks of high pressure and emotional decisions that he says were compounded by nasty e-mails from people who said his fight would cost them their livelihoods.

He is still concerned about the precedent set by the Chrysler bankruptcy, but he says he’s no Don Quixote.

“This isn’t about windmills, because these are real obstacles,” he said. “It’s not windmills being seen as dragons. These are real dragons out there and people are attacking the law.”