Education, public safety and preserving constitutional rights: those are some of the campaign staples of Life Church pastor Micah Beckwith, who announced a run for Indiana’s Lieutenant Governor seat.

“This is the delegates pick,” says Beckwith in a Monday interview with WIBC’s Kendall & Casey show, “we have seen in our country, for far too long, that people are kind of getting appointed like they’re the heir apparent, and that has to stop. We have to take the voice back and give it to the delegates.”

Beckwith says, in his mind, the governor has been given the courtesy of choosing their own running mate, but he says Indiana law allows delegates to make that pick.

Beckwith, who serves as the pastor for Life Church’s Noblesville campus and co-founder of the Indiana Coalition Conservatives, plans to run as a Republican. Current Lieutenant Governor Suzanne Crouch, also a Republican, is currently running for the governor seat in 2024. She has a long line of competition in Dr. Jennifer McCormick, former Superintendent of Public Instruction, Senator Mike Braun, Eric Doden, and Donald Rainwater, running again as a Libertarian.

Beckwith’s campaign website details his plans for education, which includes getting rid of what he calls the “transgender and woke agendas,” and taking Critical Race Theory out of classroom instruction.

He says he will also stand by the First and Second Amendment, as well as oppose the “defund the police movement.”

The office of lieutenant governor’s duties typically includes serving as Secretary of Agriculture and Rural Development, overseeing the offices of tourism, small business, and would lead councils on security.

The lieutenant seat would also preside over the Senate.