Republican Secretary of State nominee Max Engling said Tuesday that, if elected, he would work with the General Assembly to close what he called a business-filing loophole that lets problem trucking companies dissolve and re-form to avoid accountability.

Engling, speaking at a Statehouse news conference alongside State Rep. [Jim] Pressel, [R-Rolling Prairie, chair of the House Roads and Transportation Committee], said fraudulent operators form an LLC, hire drivers who lack English proficiency, legal status or a commercial driver’s license, and then dissolve the company after a crash.

“They dissolve that LLC, they refile an identical one, transfer drivers over, and move forward like nothing has happened,” Engling said.

Pressel said House Enrolled Act 1200, which addressed non-domiciled CDL drivers and which he said he authored, was “step one.” He said the Secretary of State’s office has no system that lets the Department of Revenue’s Motor Carrier Services, the BMV or the Indiana State Police see who is registering new corporations.

Under the proposal, new registrants would have to say what kind of business they are. That information would go to Motor Carrier Services to flag so-called chameleon carriers. Pressel also said businesses should need a physical presence in Indiana, not just a mailing address, to register.

“If this step, this partnership, can take 10 bad actors off the road, I’m all for it,” Pressel said.

Pressel said the office could act without legislation, but he preferred putting the change in statute so it would not depend on who holds the office.

Engling said the scale of the problem is unclear. He pointed to 14 identical LLCs registered to one home address near Indianapolis as an anomaly worth investigating, and cited a recent Porter County crash in which, he said, the truck driver had no CDL. He called the issue a long-term effect of “Joe Biden open border policies.”

Democratic nominee Beau Bayh said he agrees there is no room for fraud in business filings.

“But it’s important to remember these filings are public. If fraud is occurring, why isn’t it already being investigated?” Bayh said. “This complacency is what happens when the same group of insiders controls our state government for 20 years.”

Engling also used the event to attack Bayh over a Bayh advertisement that, Engling said, claims he has been convicted of reckless driving eight times.

“That is unequivocally false,” Engling said. He acknowledged speeding tickets from 16 and 20 years ago.

Engling said his campaign asked Bayh to pull the ad and the Bayh campaign declined. He said a lawsuit would be filed “concurrently” with the campaign but gave no filing date.

Engling said Bayh had been charged with reckless driving and pleaded the charge down. He also said Bayh registered to vote in Indiana without 30 days of residency while attending a private high school in Washington, D.C., and then voted from out of state 14 times.

Bayh campaign manager Jack Tormoehlen said Engling “has been lying about Beau’s positions, voting record, and his family for weeks.”

“What’s true is it is reckless for Max to drive 87 in a 60mph zone. It is reckless of Max to throw things from an overpass at moving cars. It is reckless of Max to be found guilty of speeding in a construction zone and then double down on the behavior. It is reckless of Max to fail to show up to court and have his license suspended,” Tormoehlen said.

“His driving is reckless. His behavior is reckless. His threats of frivolous lawsuits are reckless. This ad is accurate.”

The Bayh campaign’s statement did not address Engling’s claims about Bayh’s driving record or voter registration.

Engling said he will take part in Thursday’s debate. Election Day is Nov. 3.