The statehouse line: South Bend in Indianapolis

1840 – today

The first of the line: The city's state service begins with John D. DeFrees — the printer-legislator whose profile stands in the People section — who sat in the Indiana House in 1840 and the Indiana Senate in 1842, the young town's voice in a young state's capital. He is cross-referenced here and not re-profiled; the line he opened is this entry's subject.

J. Chester Allen, and a conflict carried openly: Joseph Chester Allen Sr. — born on Christmas Day 1900 in Pawtucket, Rhode Island; Brown 1923; a Boston University law degree in 1929; come to South Bend in 1929 and admitted to the Indiana bar in 1930 — was appointed St. Joseph County Poor Attorney in the early 1930s, and in 1938 the voters elected him to the Indiana House of Representatives: the first African American to represent St. Joseph County in the General Assembly, on the Indiana Historical Bureau's thoroughly documented marker research. Re-elected in 1940, he introduced bills barring discrimination in employment — his Fair Employment Protection Act, House Bill 445 — and in the judicial system, and in 1941 Governor Schricker appointed him Negro Activities Coordinator of the State Defense Council, from which post he opened the state's wartime defense jobs to Black Hoosiers.

After his House terms he won election to the South Bend Common Council, and was appointed to the school board — the first Black member of that board, the Indiana Legal Archive's account adds, and in time the first Black president of the St. Joseph County Bar Association. His wife Elizabeth Fletcher Allen's civil-rights record — Indiana's first Black woman attorney — stands in the People section; but one claim in her biographical tradition is printed here as a conflict, because this section cannot carry it as fact: her biographies, following the Civil Rights Heritage Center's account, credit Elizabeth Allen herself with representing St. Joseph County in the Indiana House from 1939 to 1943. The Historical Bureau's marker research, resting on the House journals and the contemporary press, places her husband in the county's House seats for exactly those sessions, elected 1938 and 1940, and no primary record of her service has been produced. Both accounts are printed; the seat, on the primary record, was his.

Dickinson: Jesse L. Dickinson, the South Bend reporter-politician whose profile stands in the People section — his signature rests on the October 1936 petition against the segregated Natatorium — was elected to the Indiana House in 1942 and again in 1944, the county's Black representation continuing through the war years in the record of the state's African-American officeholders.

Three generations of Bauers: The longest state service in this record is a family's. Burnett "Burnie" Bauer, a St. Joseph County state representative of the 1960s, won his elections of 1964 and 1966 in the at-large era, as his son recalled in the son's 2021 legislative oral history. The son, B. Patrick Bauer — born 25 May 1944 in La Porte — was elected to the Indiana House for District 6, South Bend's own, on 4 November 1970, and was re-elected twenty-four more times: he left the chamber on 4 November 2020 with fifty years of service, twenty-five terms, the longest service in the history of the Indiana General Assembly and the first fifty-year service it had ever held. He was Speaker of the House from 2003 to 2005 and again from 2007 to 2011; chairman of Ways and Means through most of the 1990s, including the two Houses that sat split fifty-fifty; and minority leader for the five-week Democratic walkout of 2011. His successor in the seat was his daughter, Maureen Bauer, elected in 2020 — three generations of one family in one South Bend seat, across fifty-six years.

Father and son, Dvorak: District 8 shows the same pattern one generation deep. Michael A. Dvorak held the seat from 1986 until 2002, when he left the Legislature to be elected prosecuting attorney of St. Joseph County — the prosecutor of the entry above. His son Ryan Dvorak, who had been a senior aide to Congressman Tim Roemer from 1996 to 2001 and had run Roemer's 1998 and 2000 campaigns, was elected to the seat on 6 November 2002 and holds it still, a South Bend representative of more than two decades' standing; he sought the Democratic nomination for mayor in 2011, the city office being the one prize of this record that eluded both families' patterns.

The Senate seat: David L. Niezgodski, born in South Bend on 18 August 1960 and the owner of a plumbing company, represented District 7 in the Indiana House from 8 November 2006 to 9 November 2016, and on that day succeeded John Broden in the Indiana Senate's District 10, which he holds as this record closes. Broden, his predecessor, had sat in the Senate from 2001 and left it in 2016 for the St. Joseph Circuit Court bench; his wife Jo M. Broden sat in those same years on the South Bend Common Council, where the minutes of 2018 show her — a household seated in the state Senate and the city council at once, as the Niezgodski household repeated the pattern from 2019, when the senator's wife Sheila was elected to the council's Sixth District seat. Jake Teshka holds District 7 in the House in the current legislative roster, South Bend's third sitting representative beside Maureen Bauer and Ryan Dvorak.

Sources:

1. Indiana Historical Bureau, historical marker 71.2020.2, "J. Chester and Elizabeth Allen" (installed 2020), with its endnoted research — J. Chester Allen elected state representative in 1938 and 1940, first African American to represent St. Joseph County; the anti-discrimination bills; the Defense Council appointment of 1941; and the Bureau's note that secondary sources attribute to Elizabeth Allen matters its primary research could not confirm. Indiana History Blog, the Allens series (December 2020) — the 1938 election, the House bills, the Indianapolis Recorder of 11 March 1939.
2. Elizabeth Fletcher Allen, biographical record (following the J. Chester and Elizabeth Fletcher Allen Papers, Civil Rights Heritage Center, Indiana University South Bend) — the claim of her House service 1939–1943, printed in the entry as a conflict against the marker research.
3. Indiana Legal Archive, "Thirst for Justice: Indiana's Pioneering Black Lawyers" — J. Chester Allen's birth, education, bar admission, county poor attorneyship and House service of 1939–1941; first Black school-board member and first Black president of the county bar association.
4. The state's African-American officeholders record — Jesse L. Dickinson elected to the Indiana House in 1942 and 1944.
5. Indiana Legislative Oral History interview of B. Patrick Bauer (2021, Indiana State Library) — Burnie Bauer's elections of 1964 and 1966; Pat Bauer, District 6, 4 November 1970 – 4 November 2020, fifty years and twenty-five terms, the General Assembly's longest service; Speaker 2003–2005 and 2007–2011; the 2011 walkout; Maureen Bauer's succession.
6. Indiana House Democratic Caucus and the legislative record — Ryan Dvorak, District 8, first elected 2002, senior aide to Congressman Roemer 1996–2001; his father Michael's tenure of the seat from 1986 and departure for the prosecutor's office. Indiana legislative rosters (2022) — Jake Teshka, District 7, South Bend.
7. The record of David L. Niezgodski — House District 7, 8 November 2006 – 9 November 2016; Senate District 10 from 9 November 2016, succeeding John Broden; born South Bend, 18 August 1960; Sheila Niezgodski's election to the council's Sixth District, 2019. The Statehouse File Q&A (2016) — Broden's departure for the circuit court bench.