Former State Representative Dr. David Orentlicher has announced that he has filed documents with the Federal Election Commission to become a candidate in Indiana’s 8th Congressional District.
The former award-winning Democratic state legislator is running against Republican incumbent Larry Bucshon. He will make a formal announcement in early 2016.
This makes him the first Democrat to enter the 2016 campaign for the 8th District seat. He represented an Indianapolis district in the Indiana House for six years before unsuccessfully seeking the city’s 7th District congressional seat in 2008.
Orentlicher has practiced both medicine and law, and he teaches at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Terre Haute, IU School of Medicine in Indianapolis, and IU Robert McKinney School of Law.
While directing the medical ethics program at the American Medical Association, Orentlicher drafted the AMA’s first ever Patients’ Bill of Rights. He also wrote conflicts of interest guidelines that protect the integrity of the patient-physician relationship.
Orentlicher has written many books and articles on a wide range of topics in ethics, law, and medicine.
Orentlicher’s wife, Judy, is a professor of political science at Indiana University. They have two children.
Indiana’s 8th Congressional District consists of 18 Southwestern Indiana counties including Dubois, Daviess, Martin, Perry, Pike, Crawford, Spencer and Warrick.
Bucshon won election to a third term in 2014 with about 60 percent of the vote.
