Secretary of State Diego Morales gets flak for overseas travel. Is he breaking any rules?

Indianapolis Star

a day ago

Indiana lawmakers seemed to be sending a signal to Secretary of State Diego Morales with a new addition to the two-year budget they crafted this session: Tell us more about your world travel.
Morales' 10-day trip to India had recently made headlines. Some legislators and naysayers questioned why the secretary of state needed an "economic development" sojourn and wanted to know who paid for it.
But this new law requiring annual travel reports from statewide elected officials wouldn't even have applied to that trip, since taxpayer dollars allegedly weren't involved. Nor to Morales's recent "personal" trip to Hungary, during which he spoke at a Conservative Political Action Conference. Nor for his other trip to Hungary, in 2023.
Nor does there seem to be any other state rule or law that requires Morales to share where he went, who paid for it, and how much it cost, given the specific circumstances of these trips.
Morales can travel the world on a mystery dime, and there's little in Indiana law to compel him to share the details.
"To me, he's getting while the getting's good," said Julia Vaughn, executive director of Common Cause Indiana.
His wanderlust, however legal it may be, may have in part earned him some early competition in next year's Republican state convention, where delegates choose the next secretary of state. Both Knox County Clerk Dave Shelton, who ran against Morales in 2022, and 2024 gubernatorial candidate Jamie Reitenour have said in recent weeks that they intend to run. Morales himself announced his reelection campaign in a five-minute video in early May.
Morales has defended this travel on the airways and social media and said his international speaking engagements fall well within his job description.
"There are people that will say that I shouldn't be doing stuff like this or that it's not part of the job. I disagree respectfully," he told Fort Wayne radio station WOWO. "We charter new businesses every day in the office, and we want to let everyone know that Indiana is the top state to start a business."
"I'm not choosing to take these trips over other things," he continued. "I do it all. I'm going 100 miles per hour."
His potential challengers next year have other ammunition unrelated to travel. He's currently under investigation by the Marion County Election Board for potentially violating election law by allegedly using footage from an official visit in that campaign announcement video. He's caught flak for giving a lucrative job to a brother-in-law, and was in India during his agency's budget request presentation to senators this year, during which his stand-in fielded rigorous questioning about the office's no-bid contracts. That followed a 2022 campaign season during which questions about his voting history, professional background and allegations of sexual assault came to light.
If Morales were a member of Congress ― as he tried to become in 2018 ― Hoosiers would be able to find out a lot of information every time he hit the road.
U.S. representatives and senators have to file travel reports for all "travel-related expenses reimbursed by non-government sources," known as "gift travel," as well as expenses related to all "official foreign travel." Their annual financial disclosure forms require great detail, including all sources and amounts of income and liabilities.
Further, U.S. senators have to get approval 30 days in advance from the Select Committee on Ethics for privately sponsored trips.
These requirements would likely have covered Morales's trip to India, which he said was initially sponsored by a private entity, as well as his second Hungary trip, for which he said CPAC Hungary covered his costs. But in Indiana, reporting requirements are far more lax.
Statewide elected officials file annual financial disclosure forms on their own, without the assistance of their offices. In Indiana law, the definition of reportable "gifts" is anything worth more than $100 that they receive from a person who does business with the office-holder or their agency.
The state budget's new language only applies to trips funded by state taxdollars and done in an "official" capacity.
These rules let Morales off the hook for his two most recent trips.
CPAC doesn't do business with his office, a spokesperson said. Same goes for the private sponsor of the India trip, Morales said on the radio, so disclosing that identity "never came up." Still, in light of public scrutiny, Morales said in the radio interview he decided to personally reimburse that private sponsor ― "because that's the right thing to do."
The private funding sources for each of these trips exempts them from disclosure under the new state budget language. And even if that wasn't the case, Morales also billed the Hungary trip as "personal time," though he happened to also accept an invitation to speak in his official capacity at CPAC Hungary.
"He's tourist Diego over in Hungary… but then he's public official Diego at the same time because they needed him," Vaughn said. "It's infuriating that there's this space in Indiana law that allows him to get away with this."
His public speaking gigs likely fall through the cracks of campaign finance law, too, because Morales appears at such events as secretary of state and not as a secretary of state candidate ― even though he is now both of these things at once.
The law doesn't necessarily account for activity that looks and feels like campaigning, even if it's not labeled as such ― like networking at CPAC Hungary with other high-profile conservative political figures, said Gregory Shufeldt, political science professor at the University of Indianapolis.
This is where the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law can come into play, he said.
"Even if there isn't a quid pro quo ― or it doesn't break the law ― the appearance of corruption can have the same disastrous effects on public confidence, support for institutions, and political efficacy," he said.
Morales sees these trips differently. He told the Fort Wayne radio station that even while visiting family in Hungary, he would never turn down an opportunity to represent the state of Indiana, especially at a conservative conference.
"I always enjoy these opportunities that allow me to showcase Indiana and let companies across the world know, we are open for business," he said.
He also committed to never using taxpayer dollars for overseas travel.
In India, accompanied again by his wife, Morales spoke at two tech conferences. He said a private business that doesn't work with his agency, but "saw the benefit of Indiana being represented in these conferences," paid for the travel arrangements. In response to many calls to disclose the funder's identity, Morales said he asked if he could, but the benefactor was "afraid of being targeted by the liberal media or the crazy left."
More: Secretary of State Diego Morales faces criticism for 10-day India trip. Here's why he was there
So Morales said he personally reimbursed the funder.
In a statement to IndyStar, an office spokesperson said he did this "in an effort to be transparent and in respect of the business wanting to be anonymous."
"Secretary Morales maintains the utmost commitment to transparency," the office said.
But for observers, this action only made appearances worse.
"The fact that he's working overtime to keep the original funder secret just makes it more suspicious," Vaughn said. "It's just not believable that somebody out of the goodness of their heart finances a trip like this."
Even if everything is above board, speaking in an official capacity in Hungary, a country the European Union no longer considers a democracy, might not be a good look for Indiana's top election official, Shufeldt said.
Morales' office did not respond to IndyStar's question about the appropriateness of networking in Hungary or whether he sought formal or informal ethics opinions on any of the international trips.
"If nothing else, this is tone deaf and flouting the rules," Shufeldt said. "Whether he has broken any rules or not ― which speaks to how poor Indiana's campaign finance laws are, how perhaps toothless these new reforms passed by the IGA are or will be ― Morales has been subject to consistent controversies and bad press based on his own poor judgment. This is just another example."