November 2016 was a rough month for Democrats, particularly those in Lake County, with the election of Republican President Donald Trump and the federal indictment of former Lake County Democratic Party Chairman and former Lake County Sheriff John Buncich, said Lake County Democratic Party Chairman Jim Wieser.
Sitting with fellow local Democrats nearly 10 years ago, Wieser said he told the group that he believed the next county party chairman should not be an elected official. That way, the chairman could focus more on the party and not worry about conflicts with other officeholders, he said.
What he wasn’t expecting, Wieser said, was Lake County Board of Elections and Registration Director Michelle Fajman suggesting he should be chairman.
Wieser was first elected in 1975 to serve on the Highland Town Council, where he served for two terms, before being elected in 1983 to the Lake County Council, where he served for one term. After that, Wieser said he served on appointed boards and worked as a municipal lawyer in Lake County.
“Believe me, I was not looking for this. I just raised the issue,” Wieser said. “I said, ‘No, it’s not going to be me.’ That’s not why I brought it up. I brought it up just because I thought from an idealistic position it made sense.”
Ultimately, Wieser decided to run. In 2017, Wieser ran against Lake County Commissioner Michael Repay, D-3rd, and the voting ended in a tie. Buncich had to cast the tie-breaking vote and choose Wieser, he said.
Wieser said he was the first chairman who wasn’t also serving in an elected office since at least the 1950s. But, after eight years at the helm, Wieser won’t be seeking reelection as party chairman when party leaders meet Saturday for a reorganization meeting.
Repay is running unopposed to be the next chairman. Repay said Wieser did a great job leading the party and focusing on the different voices and opinions of its hundreds of members.
“Jim took the party from a state of disarray and brought a lot of order to the party,” Repay said. “He leaves it better than he found it.”
The first 30 days on the job were tough, Wieser said, because he quickly learned that the party was bankrupt and it was announced that the building where the party’s offices were located would be demolished.
At the same time, Wieser had to work toward strengthening the party as its previous chairman was facing criminal charges for bribery.
“We needed to rebrand and let people know that it wasn’t going to be business as usual,” Wieser said. “We needed to be more transparent, more honest and more out in the community.”
To start, Wieser said he and the party’s executive team worked toward attracting younger, diverse candidates into political office.
That goal started strong in 2018 with former State Rep. Chris Chyung, then 25, beating incumbent Republican Hal Slager and former State Rep. Lisa Beck beating incumbent Republican Julie Olthoff, Wieser said. In 2020, Slager and Olthoff reclaimed their seats against Chyung and Beck, respectively, and they currently serve as state representatives.
Building off the wins of Chyung and Beck, Wieser said he focused on expanding Democratic control on the Crown Point City Council. In 2019, Zack Bryan and Dawn Stokes won elections for Crown Point City Council, Wieser said. That meant Crown Point, which was a Republican stronghold for generations, had a Democratic mayor and four Democratic members on the council, he said.
Democrats saw younger, diverse candidates in 2019 in Hammond and Gary, Wieser said. In Hammond, council members Barry Tyler and Katrina Alexander — two young, Black candidates — won their seats. In Gary, former council president Tai Adkins and former Gary councilman William Godwin, also two young, Black candidates, won their seats, he said.
In 2019, Democrats won two seats on the Munster Town Council, Wieser said, which he was proud of because Munster has a strong Republican base. In 2023, the Democratic candidates lost in a Republican sweep.
“You can’t sit back. You can’t rest on your laurels. You have to go out and you have to have a plan and you have to execute the plan,” Wieser said. “All of the sudden we were getting younger people involved at the levels they needed to be involved in.”
When former State Rep. Mara Candelaria Reardon, D-Munster, said she wouldn’t seek reelection in 2020 in order to run for the U.S. Congress, Wieser said he talked with different people to encourage them to run to succeed her.
A few weeks before the filing deadline, Wieser said he got a call on a Saturday night from Mike Andrade, who he had never met before. Andrade told him he would like to run for Reardon’s seat, and he invited Wieser to his home the next day to meet him and his supporters.
That Sunday, Wieser said he met Andrade and about 30 of his supporters, which included many people Wieser knew. Andrade already had a campaign committee together, Wieser said.
“The passion in his voice, the conviction in his voice is a rarity to hear from people that want to run for office,” Wieser said. “I am looking around going ‘this is otherworldly.’ This just doesn’t happen when someone runs for office and in the 24 hours that you knew who he was he’s got a well-oiled machine going.”
Rep. Andrade, D-Munster, said Wieser is a personable chairman and always available to meet with or talk with the members in the party while balancing his personal and family life.
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“(The party) will miss his experience,” Andrade said. “His tenure of decades of political experience here in Lake County and knowing how to maneuver through those challenges.”
The chairmanship also came with challenges, Wieser said, like when former Hobart Mayor Brian Snedecor, a former city police chief, decided to switch from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party in August 2020 following the George Floyd protests.
Within the first year of his chairmanship, Wieser said the state legislature consolidated precincts in Lake County, which reduced the number of precincts by one-third. Wieser said the gerrymandering led to the Republican’s supermajority in Indiana.
Beyond that, Wieser said it was challenging to be the leader of 17 political organizations, hundreds of elected officials and hundreds of precinct committeemen and vice committeemen and keep them focused on moving forward.
To do that, Wieser said he worked with the party’s vice chair Fajman, treasurer Peggy Holinga Katona, and secretary Christine Cid to keep everyone on track.
Wieser worked with Fajman when he was the Democratic attorney for the Lake County Board of Elections and Registration for over a decade and when he was chairman for eight years, and he enjoyed working with a “brilliant election administrator.”
Fajman said Wieser has a vast knowledge of Lake County politics, which was helpful in moving the party forward. On the election side, Wieser was an advocate for early voting and worked toward making voting more accessible to registered voters, she said.
“I’m proud of the work we’ve done as an organization under his leadership,” Fajman said.
While Wieser is stepping down as chairman, he’ll still be around to offer advice and help the party, Fajman said.
“He’ll still give input,” Fajman said. “He’s not going anywhere.”
When working on elections, Wieser said he worked well with Republican Party Chairman Randy Niemeyer and former chairman Dan Dernulc. Whenever a small dispute came up, Wieser said he and both Republican chairmen resolved things quickly and effectively.
Dernulc, who is now a State Senator, said he and Wieser always worked together in a cordial way.
“Jim and I are on different teams, but we were always professional and we always got along,” Dernulc said.
Niemeyer, who serves on the Lake County Council, said Wieser was easy to work with, and he’s sure Wieser will still serve the county as an attorney.
“I appreciate his service to his party, but in a larger sense his service to the county as well,” Niemeyer said.
Wieser said he is leaving the party in a strong financial position and with headquarters in Griffith. Wieser said he’s also proud of the outcomes the Lake County Democrats have achieved in the last eight years.
“It’s an unbelievable feeling to know that you’ve been part of putting something together that you believe is terribly important to the continued success of communities, the success of our country, and the success of our state,” Wieser said.
Wieser said he decided not to seek reelection because he felt it was time to step down. In September, he was going through some family documents and he came across a newspaper article from 1974 about him creating the Highland Young Democrats group.
“I don’t want to be that person who hangs around too long,” Wieser said. “I want to say I did what I could. I believe I did the best that I could.”
When he announced he wouldn’t seek reelection, Wieser said he’d hear from people that they couldn’t be chairperson because it is a thankless job.
“I am thankful for this thankless job,” Wieser said. “I wouldn’t trade the eight years for anything.”