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Jefferson Shreve, the former Indianapolis City-County Council member and self-storage business owner who lost to incumbent Mayor Joe Hogsett by 20 points in November’s mayoral election, has thrown his hat into the ring to become a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Shreve filed to run in the Republican primary for the 6th Congressional District on Friday, a spokeswoman for Shreve confirmed to IBJ.
He joins a crowded Republican primary field to replace U.S. Rep. Greg Pence, who announced in January that he would not seek reelection. The field includes State Rep. Mike Speedy, R-Indianapolis; State Sen. Jeff Raatz, R-Richmond; Darin Childress, Sid Mahant and Jamison Carrier.
Shreve, a Republican who sold his self-storage company for $590 million in 2022, spent heavily in the 2023 Indianapolis mayoral election. He gave $13.5 million in direct funding and loans to his own campaign.
Shreve previously lost a bid for state Senate in 2016 to late Sen. Jack Sandlin. His hefty mayoral campaign spending indicates he’ll likely be the best-funded candidate among his Republican peers.
At a December press conference where Shreve and his wife, Mary, announced a $100,000 donation to Indianapolis animal welfare organizations, both parties indicated that it was unlikely another run for office would be on the horizon. When asked, his wife, Mary, laughed. Shreve said the couple planned to “continue to be involved as private citizens with some financial horsepower, through which to carry our message toward amplifying causes that matter to us.”
Shreve has made significant donations to IUPUI, where he sits on the board of advisers. In 2018, he and his wife Mary funded the construction of “The Shreve Gateway,” the 52-foot tall steel structure at the corner of Michigan and West streets for IUPUI. The unspecified donation also funded two endowed scholarships.
He was twice chosen by Republican caucuses to serve as an Indianapolis city-county councilor, but has never won a true election. He was first chosen to represent south-side District 23 in 2012 and held the seat until 2015, in the place of Jeff Cardwell. Cardwell resigned for a cabinet position under former Gov. Mike Pence.
He was chosen by a GOP caucus in 2018 to fill a seat left vacant by former Republican City-County Councilor Jeff Miller’s resignation after Miller pleaded guilty to four battery charges stemming from a child molestation investigation. The district covered parts of downtown and the south side, including influential properties such as the Indianapolis Convention Center, Lucas Oil Stadium and Eli Lilly and Co.’s massive corporate campus.
Shreve did not run for reelection after his term, and the seat is currently held by Councilor Kristin Jones.
Shreve was also a Republican National Convention delegate during the 2016 Republican presidential primary won by Donald Trump.
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Does Shreve even live in this district? Where does the 6th district include Marion County (or was he running for Indy mayor without living in Indy)? I thought the western edge of the 6th was the Marion/Hancock county line.
South of Troy Ave is mostly in the 6th, and there’s a very small chunk of the northeast Marion County in the 6th too.
Legally you don’t have to live in the district, just the state. Of course, carpet baggers generally don’t fare will in politics.
Hi Mike!
Congressional redistricting after the 2020 census changed that boundary. Indiana’s 6th District includes the northern portion of what used to be the 9th District. The southern portion of Marion County is now in the 6th District, because it also took a small chunk out of the 7th District (while the northern boundary of the 7th District moved slightly further north).
Here’s a good resource for the boundaries: https://ballotpedia.org/Redistricting_in_Indiana
Best maps maintained by the fabulous folks at Indiana Business Research Center
https://www.stats.indiana.edu/index.asp
Find Congressional maps here:
https://www.stats.indiana.edu/maptools/boundary.asp
Go away, Jefferson. How much rejection do you need?
LOL!
Shreve alienated most of the Marion County voters on Gun control.
If you take an oath to the US Constitution, we hope you realize it contains the 2 amendment!
By saying we should have some semblance of background checks and maybe figure out why our citizens are murdering each other night and day?
Weird interpretation of the 2a
The Second Amendment is not absolute.
Since when did anyone on the right worry about protecting the Constitution?
“…shall not be infringed.”
Oh Lauren, there you go again. Just try taking a weapon into a government building. Or into a private business which prohibits you from do that. If you are a convicted felon you cannot own a fire arm. If you are mentally ill you cannot own a firearm. Owning machine guns is outlawed. There are just a few of the ways your righ to bear arms are infringed. Get over it.
I’d like to see one state take the Supreme Court up on their longstanding view that requiring gun training is perfectly A-OK and not infringing and require hand gun owners to take and maintain certification on an annual basis for the weapons they own or desire to own.
But it is a weird look to continually kill the bill that makes it a penalty for not securing your weapon when a kid gets it and causes injury or death… claiming it’s an unreasonable infringement on your Second Amendment rights. Especially when you claim to be pro-life.
https://iga.in.gov/legislative/2024/bills/house/1325/details
Lauren: the legal definition of “infringe” has never included routine background checks. Ever. That’s a minimal hurdle.
Lauren: “A well-regulated militia…”
The NRA crowd just loves to gloss over this part.
Steve- “most of Marian County voters” are Democrat mopes who LOVE gun control, which is why Shreve tried to edge ever so slightly to the middle to win a few non Trump votes, but thanks to you and your buddies, we got 4 more years of the cop hating incumbent, but please, tell us more about the Constitution