What Has André Carson Done To Bring Federal Money Home?

The Billion Dollar Claim. The Formula Funding Reality. What Indianapolis Is Actually Missing.

Thursday, April 23

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Indianapolis, IN — André Carson likes to talk about the money he has brought home.

 

Over 18 years, his office claims $1 billion in federal funding secured for Indianapolis. It’s the number he leads with. It’s the evidence he offers that he has delivered for this city.

 

Here’s what he does not say.

 

The vast majority of that money is formula funding, federal dollars allocated automatically based on population. It flows to Indiana regardless of who holds this seat. It’d arrive whether André Carson, George Hornedo, or anyone else represented this district. A congressman doesn’t secure formula funding. They receive it. Taking credit for automatic allocations isn’t advocacy. 

 

The funding that actually requires a congressman to fight—competitive grants—tells a different story. Competitive grants aren’t automatic. They require identifying opportunities, connecting city agencies and nonprofits to programs they may not know exist, helping applicants put together the strongest possible application, and then advocating aggressively at the agency level and at the White House to push Indianapolis's projects across the finish line.

 

That work is hard. It’s unglamorous. It doesn’t generate the kind of announcement that a formula funding press release does. But it’s how cities like Louisville, Memphis, and Birmingham—similar cities facing similar challenges—have closed the gap between what they need and what the federal government provides.

 

Indianapolis lags behind peer cities in competitive federal funding. The gap isn’t inevitable. It’s the result of 18 years of a congressional office that has treated grant writing as someone else's problem rather than as a core function of representation.

 

What proactive grant leadership actually looks like is tracking every relevant competitive opportunity across every federal agency, bringing those opportunities to city agencies and nonprofits before the deadline rather than after, providing in-house or consultant grant writing support to help applicants build stronger applications, and then working every lever available—legislative affairs, intergovernmental affairs, public engagement—to build the case for Indianapolis's projects at the agency level.

 

That’s the model that works. It’s what George Hornedo did for the cities he represented in private practice—helping secure hundreds of millions in federal funds for Birmingham, Jackson, Little Rock, and Miami-Dade in a short period of time. It’s not theoretical. It’s a proven approach that Indianapolis hasn’t had applied on its behalf.

 

Carson secured approximately $33+ million in community project funding over the last three fiscal years. That’s real money that helped real projects. It’s also a fraction of what a proactive, aggressive grant operation could produce for a city of Indianapolis's size and need.

 

The difference between what Indianapolis has received and what it could have received is a representation problem.

 

"André Carson touts a billion dollars brought home over 18 years," Hornedo said. "The reality is that the vast majority of that money flows automatically regardless of who holds this seat. The competitive grants—the ones that actually require a congressman to fight—tell a different story. Indianapolis has been left behind because nobody has been fighting to get it. I've done this work for cities across the country. I know exactly what an aggressive federal grant operation looks like. Indianapolis deserves one."

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This is part of the Hornedo campaign's daily accountability series, What Has André Carson Done?, running through May 1st. Learn more at georgehornedo.com.

 

Indianapolis deserves more than a vote in Washington. It deserves a congressman who uses the full platform of the office to fight for federal resources, to force the conversation at every level of government, and to show up for this community before the cameras arrive. That's the standard. That's what's been missing.

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RECORD CHECK: The Center for Effective Lawmaking ranks Congressman Carson 197th out of 220 House Democrats in legislative effectiveness. Of his claimed 22 bills signed into law, 2 are standalone enacted bills—the Ariel Rios Federal Building naming and the Kennedy-King National Commemorative Site Act. 

 

73% of Congressman Carson's campaign funding comes from PACs, much of it from corporate PACs including AES Indiana, BlackRock, and defense contractors. Only 7% comes from small-dollar donors.

 

When Julia Carson held this seat, Indianapolis was a competitive Democratic stronghold that helped power statewide wins. Under André Carson, the 7th Congressional District has become the worst in Indiana for voter turnout and Democrats haven't won statewide since 2012.