More than 50,000 Afghan evacuees are temporarily housed at U.S. military bases, where they’re undergoing health and safety checks before being settled across the country.
Anywhere from 600 to 700 of them are expected to make Indiana their home. And it’s Cole Varga’s job to make sure they have a smooth transition.
“It’s been quite busy,” Varga said. “And it’s about to get busier before it gets busiest in the in the coming months.”
Varga is the executive director of Exodus Refugee Resettlement in Indianapolis.
With a 42-person staff, Exodus is the largest resettlement agency in the state. And as such, they’re taking on the biggest load – they’re responsible for about half of evacuees who will end up settling here.
“That’s a big ask for a network that’s been strapped and trying to rebuild as quickly as possible,” Varga said.
Trump-era cuts to the U.S. refugee system have put Exodus behind the eight ball.
Resettling one person is a tall enough task. But 300 or more – that’s nearly double the amount they’d settle in a full year during the Trump administration. Varga’s been hiring and training staff to meet demand.
“It’s not even zero to 60. It’s more like zero to 600,” he said.
Attorney General Todd Rokita is suing the federal government to halt President Joe Biden’s workplace COVID-19 vaccination requirements.
Rokita, in cooperation with Gov. Eric Holcomb, is filing three lawsuits – targeting policies for federal contractors, health care workers and a broad rule for any company with at least 100 employees.
The Republican AG called the president’s COVID-19 vaccination policies an “egregious … insidious” overreach of federal workplace safety authority.
“This is not a workplace issue. It’s been with us,” Rokita said. “It’s been with us at our homes, it’s been with us on our sports teams, it’s been with us in our kids’ schools. It’s been with us everywhere.”
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s rule for employers with at least 100 workers gives them a choice: employees get vaccinated or get regularly tested and mask up.
Women and children were among the first group of Afghan refugees to arrive Indiana, as seen in photos released by the Indiana National Guard on Friday.
Eighty refugees arrived at Camp Atterbury on Thursday afternoon, according to an Indiana National Guard spokesperson, just a day after state officials publicly released details about their supporting role in Operation Allies Refuge. They were welcomed “with open arms,” Brig. Gen. Knell, Task Force Atterbury Commander, stated.
At this time, about 2,500 refugees can be housed at Camp Atterbury, according to the Indiana National Guard. They will be hosted in Indiana for a few weeks, Brig. Gen. R. Dale Lyles, adjutant general of the Indiana National Guard, shared this week.
Republicans called the 2021 legislative session “transformational.” Democrats were not quite so effusive with their praise. But everyone agrees it was a session no one will likely forget, impacted in every way by the COVID-19 pandemic.
House Speaker Todd Huston (R-Fishers) lamented the lack of connection among lawmakers this year, driven by the pandemic. But he said COVID-19 also brought positive change.
“Really forced communication among members on their bills to be far better,” Huston said. “And I think the challenge for Sen. [Rodric] Bray and I moving forward is, how do you sustain that?”
The session ended on a note of bipartisanship, with almost every Democrat joining Republicans to vote for the new state budget.
Republicans called the 2021 legislative session “transformational.” Democrats were not quite so effusive with their praise. But everyone agrees it was a session no one will likely forget, impacted in every way by the COVID-19 pandemic.
House Speaker Todd Huston (R-Fishers) lamented the lack of connection among lawmakers this year, driven by the pandemic. But he said COVID-19 also brought positive change.
“Really forced communication among members on their bills to be far better,” Huston said. “And I think the challenge for Sen. [Rodric] Bray and I moving forward is, how do you sustain that?”
The session ended on a note of bipartisanship, with almost every Democrat joining Republicans to vote for the new state budget.
The House and Senate both voted Thursday in favor of a bill extending the current legal deadline for adjourning this year’s legislative session from April 29 until Nov. 15.
Legislative leaders say they plan to end this year’s regular session in the coming week and then bring all lawmakers back later in order to determine new congressional and General Assembly districts.
The redistricting data isn’t expected to be released by the Census Bureau until August, at the earliest. The legal deadline for turning in the redistricting data was March 31, but the Census Bureau said it needed more time because of operational delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The bill now goes to Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb for consideration.
More than 50,000 Afghan evacuees are temporarily housed at U.S. military bases, where they’re undergoing health and safety checks before being settled across the country.
Anywhere from 600 to 700 of them are expected to make Indiana their home. And it’s Cole Varga’s job to make sure they have a smooth transition.
“It’s been quite busy,” Varga said. “And it’s about to get busier before it gets busiest in the in the coming months.”
Varga is the executive director of Exodus Refugee Resettlement in Indianapolis.
With a 42-person staff, Exodus is the largest resettlement agency in the state. And as such, they’re taking on the biggest load – they’re responsible for about half of evacuees who will end up settling here.
“That’s a big ask for a network that’s been strapped and trying to rebuild as quickly as possible,” Varga said.
Trump-era cuts to the U.S. refugee system have put Exodus behind the eight ball.
Resettling one person is a tall enough task. But 300 or more – that’s nearly double the amount they’d settle in a full year during the Trump administration. Varga’s been hiring and training staff to meet demand.
“It’s not even zero to 60. It’s more like zero to 600,” he said.
Attorney General Todd Rokita is suing the federal government to halt President Joe Biden’s workplace COVID-19 vaccination requirements.
Rokita, in cooperation with Gov. Eric Holcomb, is filing three lawsuits – targeting policies for federal contractors, health care workers and a broad rule for any company with at least 100 employees.
The Republican AG called the president’s COVID-19 vaccination policies an “egregious … insidious” overreach of federal workplace safety authority.
“This is not a workplace issue. It’s been with us,” Rokita said. “It’s been with us at our homes, it’s been with us on our sports teams, it’s been with us in our kids’ schools. It’s been with us everywhere.”
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s rule for employers with at least 100 workers gives them a choice: employees get vaccinated or get regularly tested and mask up.
Women and children were among the first group of Afghan refugees to arrive Indiana, as seen in photos released by the Indiana National Guard on Friday.
Eighty refugees arrived at Camp Atterbury on Thursday afternoon, according to an Indiana National Guard spokesperson, just a day after state officials publicly released details about their supporting role in Operation Allies Refuge. They were welcomed “with open arms,” Brig. Gen. Knell, Task Force Atterbury Commander, stated.
At this time, about 2,500 refugees can be housed at Camp Atterbury, according to the Indiana National Guard. They will be hosted in Indiana for a few weeks, Brig. Gen. R. Dale Lyles, adjutant general of the Indiana National Guard, shared this week.
Republicans called the 2021 legislative session “transformational.” Democrats were not quite so effusive with their praise. But everyone agrees it was a session no one will likely forget, impacted in every way by the COVID-19 pandemic.
House Speaker Todd Huston (R-Fishers) lamented the lack of connection among lawmakers this year, driven by the pandemic. But he said COVID-19 also brought positive change.
“Really forced communication among members on their bills to be far better,” Huston said. “And I think the challenge for Sen. [Rodric] Bray and I moving forward is, how do you sustain that?”
The session ended on a note of bipartisanship, with almost every Democrat joining Republicans to vote for the new state budget.
Republicans called the 2021 legislative session “transformational.” Democrats were not quite so effusive with their praise. But everyone agrees it was a session no one will likely forget, impacted in every way by the COVID-19 pandemic.
House Speaker Todd Huston (R-Fishers) lamented the lack of connection among lawmakers this year, driven by the pandemic. But he said COVID-19 also brought positive change.
“Really forced communication among members on their bills to be far better,” Huston said. “And I think the challenge for Sen. [Rodric] Bray and I moving forward is, how do you sustain that?”
The session ended on a note of bipartisanship, with almost every Democrat joining Republicans to vote for the new state budget.
The House and Senate both voted Thursday in favor of a bill extending the current legal deadline for adjourning this year’s legislative session from April 29 until Nov. 15.
Legislative leaders say they plan to end this year’s regular session in the coming week and then bring all lawmakers back later in order to determine new congressional and General Assembly districts.
The redistricting data isn’t expected to be released by the Census Bureau until August, at the earliest. The legal deadline for turning in the redistricting data was March 31, but the Census Bureau said it needed more time because of operational delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The bill now goes to Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb for consideration.
This Indiana onAir hub supports its citizens to become more informed about and engaged in federal and state politics while facilitating more civil and positive discussions with their representatives, candidates, and fellow Hoosiers.
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This Indiana onAir hub supports its citizens to become more informed about and engaged in federal and state politics while facilitating more civil and positive discussions with their representatives, candidates, and fellow Hoosiers.
Indiana onAir is one of 50 state governance and elections hubs that the US onAir Network is providing to reinvigorate our imperiled democracy.
Virginia onAir is US onAir’s model of how a state’s onAir Council and curators can enhance a state Hub with fresh Top News and state legislature content, moderated discussions, and production of zoom aircasts with committees, interviews and debates with candidates, and presentations.
For more information about the many opportunities to learn about and engage with this Indiana onAir hub, go to this US onAir post on the US onAir central hub.
Our two minute vision video about the US onAir network is below.
Current Position: US Senator since 2017 Affiliation: Republican Former Position(s): US Representative from 2011 – 2017
Other Positions: Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy
Featured Quote: We Americans have always been drawn to the frontier. As we face the threat of China, we must decide once again to invest in ourselves and science – the endless frontier. #EndlessFrontierAct Featured Video: Todd Young and Chuck Schumer JOIN FORCES to combat the rise of China
U.S. Sen. Todd Young expressed concerns Friday about worsening employee shortages in the Hoosier state, and worried vaccine mandates will drive away workers in socially conservative areas.
The Indiana Republican addressed a series of issues affecting the state and the nation during a discussion with community members that was hosted by the Ellettsville Chamber of Commerce. Topics ranged from government spending to the increasing number of unfilled jobs to vaccine mandates and child care costs.
Young said a “massive labor shortage” is leaving a large number of jobs unfilled in Indiana. “We had 120,000 available jobs in August; we’re up to 150,000 right now,” Young said. “I don’t know where everyone is. What do they do with their time?”
With so many positions standing open, the senator questioned the practicality of COVID-19 vaccination mandates in socially conservative areas of Indiana where people are less likely to get the vaccine. Health care systems are under further strain as some employees opted to leave their roles rather than get vaccinated against the virus that has killed more than 730,000 Americans.
“So the health care workforce is burnt out,” Young said. “It’s a pandemic. Go to rural communities, they barely keep these long-term care facilities open and hospitals open because of shortages.”
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Todd Young (R-Ind.) today issued the following statement regarding the deadly attacks in Kabul, Afghanistan, that claimed the lives of at least 12 U.S. service members:
“My heart goes out to those Marines and service members who made the ultimate sacrifice today and to their families who joined the ranks of other Gold Star family members. Every American patriot grieves as we witness this tragically avoidable crisis unfolding in real time.
“These brave service members were doing their absolute best to safeguard the evacuation of Americans and innocent Afghan allies. Tragically, their heroic response was hamstrung by President Joe Biden and his administration, who have failed them at every turn. The American people cannot and should not accept these errors of judgment from their Commander in Chief.
Summary
Current Position: US Senator since 2017 Affiliation: Republican Former Position(s): US Representative from 2011 – 2017
Other Positions: Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Social Security, Pensions, and Family Policy
Featured Quote: We Americans have always been drawn to the frontier. As we face the threat of China, we must decide once again to invest in ourselves and science – the endless frontier. #EndlessFrontierAct Featured Video: Todd Young and Chuck Schumer JOIN FORCES to combat the rise of China
U.S. Sen. Todd Young expressed concerns Friday about worsening employee shortages in the Hoosier state, and worried vaccine mandates will drive away workers in socially conservative areas.
The Indiana Republican addressed a series of issues affecting the state and the nation during a discussion with community members that was hosted by the Ellettsville Chamber of Commerce. Topics ranged from government spending to the increasing number of unfilled jobs to vaccine mandates and child care costs.
Young said a “massive labor shortage” is leaving a large number of jobs unfilled in Indiana. “We had 120,000 available jobs in August; we’re up to 150,000 right now,” Young said. “I don’t know where everyone is. What do they do with their time?”
With so many positions standing open, the senator questioned the practicality of COVID-19 vaccination mandates in socially conservative areas of Indiana where people are less likely to get the vaccine. Health care systems are under further strain as some employees opted to leave their roles rather than get vaccinated against the virus that has killed more than 730,000 Americans.
“So the health care workforce is burnt out,” Young said. “It’s a pandemic. Go to rural communities, they barely keep these long-term care facilities open and hospitals open because of shortages.”
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Todd Young (R-Ind.) today issued the following statement regarding the deadly attacks in Kabul, Afghanistan, that claimed the lives of at least 12 U.S. service members:
“My heart goes out to those Marines and service members who made the ultimate sacrifice today and to their families who joined the ranks of other Gold Star family members. Every American patriot grieves as we witness this tragically avoidable crisis unfolding in real time.
“These brave service members were doing their absolute best to safeguard the evacuation of Americans and innocent Afghan allies. Tragically, their heroic response was hamstrung by President Joe Biden and his administration, who have failed them at every turn. The American people cannot and should not accept these errors of judgment from their Commander in Chief.
Early Life A fifth generation Hoosier and the second of three children of Bruce and Nancy Young, Todd grew up watching his parents work hard in order to support the family. From a young age, Bruce and Nancy instilled Midwestern family values, personal responsibility and a strong work ethic in their children. Todd’s first jobs were delivering newspapers, mowing lawns, and providing janitorial services at the family business.
Military After graduating from high school, Todd enlisted in the U.S. Navy with the goal of attending the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. A year later, he received an appointment from the Secretary of the Navy and was admitted to Annapolis, where he participated in varsity athletics and was elected a class officer. Todd graduated with honors in 1995 and accepted a commission in the U.S. Marine Corps. After training as a rifle platoon commander and service as an intelligence officer, Todd was then assigned to lead a recruiting effort in Chicago and northwest Indiana. During this time, he put himself through night school at the University of Chicago, where he earned his MBA with a concentration in economics.
Professional and Government Experience After serving a decade in the military, in 2000 Todd was honorably discharged as a Captain. He then spent a year in England, where he wrote a thesis on the economic history of Midwestern agriculture and earned an MA from the School of Advanced Study in London. Upon returning to the United States, he accepted a position at The Heritage Foundation and later worked as a legislative assistant in the U.S. Senate.
In 2003, Todd returned home to Indiana. He worked several years as a management consultant, advising public and private organizations how they could implement business practices to provide their constituents and customers with more value, often by investing fewer resources.
Young was honorably discharged from active duty in 2000 as a U.S. Marine Captain. After leaving active duty, Young spent a year in London, attending the University of London‘s Institute of United States Studies. After writing a thesis on the economic history of Midwestern agriculture, in 2001 Young received his MA in American politics.[6]
In the summer of 2001, Young traveled to former Communist countries in Eastern Europe where he studied the transition from centrally planned economies to free markets through an executive education program with the Leipzig Graduate School of Management, the first private business school in eastern Germany. He worked as an adjunct professor of public affairs at Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs and attended law school at night.[7] In 2004, he joined Indiana-based Crowe Chizek and Company as a management consultant, helping state and local government clients improve service delivery to Indiana citizens.[citation needed]
In 2001, he moved to Washington, D.C., where he briefly worked at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Then he became a staffer for U.S. senator Richard Lugar.[9] In 2003, Young volunteered for Mitch Daniels‘s campaign for governor of Indiana. He was a delegate to the Indiana Republican state convention. From 2007 to 2010, Young served as Assistant Deputy Prosecutor for Orange County, Indiana.[10] In 2007, Young founded a fiscal responsibility advocacy group, the National Organization for People vs. Irresponsible Government Spending.[7]
Young won the primary and general elections, defeating incumbent Baron Hill on November 2, 2010, and was seated in the 112th Congress in January 2011.[15]
Young defeated Bill Bailey, winning 62% of the vote.[17]
Tenure
Young is a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership along with three other Republican senators.[18] The Main Street Partnership is considered to be an association of moderate Republicans.[19] In 2013 the National Journal gave Young an overall composite rating of 69% conservative and 31% liberal, an economic rating of 69% conservative and 30% liberal, a social rating of 57% conservative and 42% liberal, and a foreign policy rating of 77% conservative and 15% liberal.[20]
2010s
In the 112th Congress, Young voted with the Republican Party 95% of the time.[21] During the 113th Congress, the Human Rights Campaign, which rates politicians’ support for LGBT issues, rated Young 30%, indicating a mixed record.[22] In July 2012, Young took over as the lead sponsor of the REINS Act, a bill that passed the House in 2011 and would require congressional approval for rules with greater than $100 million in economic impact.[23]
In 2010, Young stated that he was uncertain what was causing the observed heating of the planet, that it could be sunspots or normal cycles of nature, and that “the science is not settled.”[25] That same year he signed a pledge sponsored by Americans for Prosperity promising to vote against any global warming legislation that would raise taxes.[26]
When he introduced the Fairness for American Families Act, Young argued that “rather than driving healthcare costs down, the individual mandate is imposing a new tax and burdensome costs on middle class families” and therefore “hardworking Americans deserve the same exemptions that President Obama is unilaterally granting to businesses and labor unions.”[30]
Rather than run for reelection to the House, Young announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination in the 2016 election to fill the Senate seat of the retiring Dan Coats.[34] Also filing for the Republican primary was U.S. Representative Marlin Stutzman. Although Young was certified as having submitted enough signatures to qualify for the primary ballot, that official certification was challenged, and a tally by the Associated Press concluded that Young had fallen short.[35] The state Election Commission scheduled a hearing on the challenge for February 19, 2016.[35] The commission voted down the challenge with a 2–2 vote and Young remained on the ballot.[36]
Young easily defeated Stutzman in the May 3 primary, taking 67% of approximately one million votes cast.[37] He was initially slated to face former U.S. Representative Baron Hill, whom Young had defeated in 2010 to win his congressional seat, but on July 11, Hill announced he was dropping out of the Senate race.[38] Hill was replaced by Evan Bayh, who had held the seat from 1999 to 2011.[39] Young defeated Bayh in the November 8 general election, winning 52% of the vote to Bayh’s 42%.[40][41][42]
Young planned to vote in support of certifying the Electoral College count on January 6, 2021. Young also said he supported efforts to create a bipartisan “Election Integrity Committee” to review the 2020 presidential election.[47] While entering the US Capitol to participate in the certification on January 6, 2021, Young was accosted by pro-Trump protestors.[48] He was questioned as to why he would vote to support the count, claiming voter fraud.[48] Young explained that “When it comes to the law, our opinions don’t matter — the law matters.”[48] The South Bend Tribune‘s editorial board wrote “Young was right to reject the move that Braun had embraced — but his words should have come two months earlier, not at the last minute. That would have been upholding his duty and fulfilling his oath of office.”[49] Young, however, publicly acknowledged Biden as President-elect immediately following the official Electoral College tally on December 15, 2020. [50][51] He was participating in the count when the storming of the Capitol happened. Upon the storming, Todd tweeted “This is not a peaceful protest – it is violence and reprehensible. It must stop.”[52] Todd voted in support of certifying the count when Congress was able to return to session.[48] In the wake of the attack, Young would not comment on if he supported using the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution to remove Trump, stating that he trusted the Vice President and Trump cabinet members to “conscientiously and legally carry out their duties until Jan. 20.”[53]
In 2021, with Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Todd Young is pushing forward U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, a legislation that plans to authorize investment of $110 billion in basic and advanced technology research within the next five years, aiming to outcompete China in technological fields in the coming years.[54][55]
Young is a member of Republican Main Street Partnership, a group that presents what it describes as centrist Republican solutions in politics; it is considered a center to center-right Republican organization.[58] He has a lifetime conservative grade of 83% from the American Conservative Union.[59] He was given a 0% grade in 2016 by the progressive Americans for Democratic Action. The American Conservative Union, a fiscally conservative political action committee, has given Young a 80% lifetime rating.[60] As of April 2020, according to Five ThirtyEight, Young voted with President Trump’s position on legislation about 84% of the time.[61] The nonpartisan National Journal determined, based on its 2013 voting analysis, that Young has a composite 69% conservative score and a 31% liberal score.[62]
Abortion and reproductive issues
Young opposes abortion. He was endorsed by the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), which gave him a 100% rating in 2018; he has a 0% rating from the abortion rights groups NARAL Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood.[62] Young also believes that employers with religious objections should not be required to provide birth control to their female employees.[63] He was a co-sponsor of legislation to defund Planned Parenthood and voted to prohibit federal funding for Planned Parenthood.[64] Young believes Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided. On the day the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade was announced, he called it “a monumental day for the protection of life in America” and that the Supreme Court had “corrected a historic injustice.”[65]
Gun law
The National Rifle Association (NRA) endorsed Young for Senate in 2016 and has given him an “A+” rating.[66] In 2018, Gun Owners of America, a gun rights organization, gave Young a 50% score while the NRA gave him a much higher 100% rating.[67]
Young opposes the DREAM Act and a pathway to citizenship for the nearly 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.[63] NumbersUSA, which wants to restrict and reduce immigration, has given him a lifetime 80% rating while the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which also seeks to restrict immigration, gave him a 100% score; the American Immigration Lawyers Association, which supports immigration reform, gave Young a 33% rating.[62]UnidosUS, formerly La Raza, which supports immigration reform, gave Young a 59% rating in 2014.[62] Young has said he wants an immigration system based on merit and job skills.[69] In 2018, he introduced a bill cosponsored with Senator Ted Cruz to end family separations at the border that resulted from President Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy.[70]
LGBT rights
The organization On the Issues considers Young to be neutral on the issue of same-sex marriage; he was given a 30% rating by Human Rights Campaign (HRC), which supports same-sex marriage and gay rights, indicating a mixed record.[71] In 2016, the HRC gave him a 2% rating.[67] Young believes same-sex marriage should be left to the states to decide.[72] He said that he supports the current policy allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military.[73] In 2016, Young was among the Republicans who voted with Democrats in favor of a spending amendment to uphold President Obama’s executive order prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation for federal contractors.[74] He was one of 30 Republicans who voted for an amendment to prohibit discrimination by federal contractors, but voted against a similar amendment in a military spending bill.[75]
On October 6, 2018, Young voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court.[76]
In March 2019, Young was one of twelve senators to cosponsor a resolution that would impose a constitutional amendment limiting the Supreme Court to nine justices. The resolution was introduced following multiple Democratic presidential candidates expressing openness to the idea of expanding the seats on the Supreme Court.[77]
Young supported an Anti-Boycott Act,[79] which would make it illegal for U.S. companies to engage in boycotts against Israel and Israeli settlements in the West Bank.[80]
In February 2019, Young was one of seven senators to reintroduce legislation requiring sanctions on Saudi officials involved in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi and seeking to address support for the Yemen civil war through prohibiting some weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and U.S. military refueling of Saudi coalition planes.[83] In May 2019, he was also one of seven Republicans who attempted to override President Trump’s veto of the resolution regarding Yemen.[84] In June 2019, Young was one of seven Republicans to vote to block President Trump’s Saudi arms deal providing weapons to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Jordan, and was one of six Republicans to vote against an additional 20 arms sales.[85] In 2020, he was one of eight Republicans who voted with Democrats for a resolution limiting the president’s ability to strike Iran.[86]
In 2021, Young introduced bipartisan legislation with Senator Tim Kaine that would repeal the 1991 and 2002 authorizations of war, which have been used by the executive to wage prolonged conflict in the Middle-East without congressional approval.[87]
^(Journalist), Barnes, James A.; Keating, Holland; Charlie, Cook; Michael, Barone; Louis, Jacobson; Louis, Peck. The almanac of American politics 2016 : members of Congress and governors: their profiles and election results, their states and districts. ISBN 9781938518317. OCLC927103599.
^[wane.com/news/your-local-election-hq/im-running-todd-young-to-seek-re-election-to-us-senate/ “‘I’m running’: Todd Young to seek re-election to US Senate”]. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)
Current Position: US Senator since 2019 Affiliation: Republican Former Position(s): US Representative from 2014 – 2017
Other Positions: Ranking member, Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety
Featured Quote: Democrats’ reckless tax-and-spend spree will create an inflation bomb that will be exploding from now until the 2022 midterms. @TeamCavuto
Featured Video: Senator Braun: No more COVID mandates, masking, things that didn’t work
Hoosier Sen. Mike Braun is leading the Republican effort to challenge President Joe Biden’s upcoming COVID-19 vaccine mandate on private employees.
Braun, the ranking member of a Senate committee on employment and workforce safety, and 40 other Senate Republicans announced Wednesday they are moving to disapprove and nullify Biden’s vaccine mandate under the Congressional Review Act.
Fellow Hoosier Republican Sen. Todd Young , who is up for reelection in 2022, also joined the effort.
“Since the announcement of President Biden’s vaccine and testing mandate in September, I have led the charge to strike down this vast overstep of authority by the federal government,” Braun said in a statement. “Today, we are one step closer to protecting the liberties of millions of Americans in the private sector workforce under the Congressional Review Act.”
“As around 5,000 evacuated Afghans will be temporarily housed at Indiana’s Camp Atterbury while they are vetted for resettlement across the country, it is extremely important that all local units of government and first responders know who they are, how many, and what part of the vetting process they’re in so Hoosiers do not suffer the fallout of President Biden’s disastrous withdrawal. I have communicated to the relevant federal departments that vetting details and any plans for resettlement must be transparent and public so we can honor our commitments to our Afghan allies while keeping Hoosier communities safe.” – Senator Mike Braun
Summary
Current Position: US Senator since 2019 Affiliation: Republican Former Position(s): US Representative from 2014 – 2017
Other Positions: Ranking member, Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety
Featured Quote: Democrats’ reckless tax-and-spend spree will create an inflation bomb that will be exploding from now until the 2022 midterms. @TeamCavuto
Featured Video: Senator Braun: No more COVID mandates, masking, things that didn’t work
Hoosier Sen. Mike Braun is leading the Republican effort to challenge President Joe Biden’s upcoming COVID-19 vaccine mandate on private employees.
Braun, the ranking member of a Senate committee on employment and workforce safety, and 40 other Senate Republicans announced Wednesday they are moving to disapprove and nullify Biden’s vaccine mandate under the Congressional Review Act.
Fellow Hoosier Republican Sen. Todd Young , who is up for reelection in 2022, also joined the effort.
“Since the announcement of President Biden’s vaccine and testing mandate in September, I have led the charge to strike down this vast overstep of authority by the federal government,” Braun said in a statement. “Today, we are one step closer to protecting the liberties of millions of Americans in the private sector workforce under the Congressional Review Act.”
“As around 5,000 evacuated Afghans will be temporarily housed at Indiana’s Camp Atterbury while they are vetted for resettlement across the country, it is extremely important that all local units of government and first responders know who they are, how many, and what part of the vetting process they’re in so Hoosiers do not suffer the fallout of President Biden’s disastrous withdrawal. I have communicated to the relevant federal departments that vetting details and any plans for resettlement must be transparent and public so we can honor our commitments to our Afghan allies while keeping Hoosier communities safe.” – Senator Mike Braun
“I ran for the U.S. Senate because I believed I could use my experience building a business to get real results for Hoosiers in Washington, and I’m honored by the opportunity to serve you.”
Before Braun’s historic victory in 2018, he was the founder and CEO of Meyer Distributing, a company he built in his hometown of Jasper that employs hundreds of Americans across the country.
Mike graduated from Jasper High School in 1972, where he served as senior class president and lettered in football, basketball, and track. Mike went on to graduate from Wabash College where he earned an economics degree, graduated summa cum laude, and served as President of the Student Body. In 1976, Mike married his high school sweetheart Maureen and entered Harvard Business School, earning an M.B.A. in 1978.
After graduation, Mike took a different path than many of his classmates and moved back to Jasper to start his career. In 1979, he co-founded Crystal Farms, Inc. which later became one of the largest turkey operations in the Midwest.
After starting at Meyer Body Company in 1981 and eventually acquiring full ownership, Mike transitioned from the manufacturing sector to the distribution markets, forming Meyer Distributing. Since then, Meyer has grown to be among the industry leaders in auto parts distribution. Under Mike’s leadership, Meyer survived the 2008 financial collapse and came out a stronger company, averaging 22 percent growth since 2009.
Today, Meyer is a nationwide contender in the third-party logistics business. Throughout the massive expansion of his business, Mike has always remained grounded to his roots by anchoring the company in Jasper. Mike is proud of his decision to build his businesses in his hometown, and today three of his four children work in the family business.
Throughout the years, Mike has always looked for ways to give back to his community and serve his fellow Hoosiers, such as serving as a member of the local School Board and as a State Representative in 2014. Mike is an avid outdoorsman and enthusiastic mushroom hunter every spring.
As a State Representative, Mike has partnered with conservative leaders like Vice President Mike Pence to deliver results for Hoosiers. The 2016 Indiana General Assembly was ranked as the most conservative legislative body in the country.
Braun opposes the Affordable Care Act, same-sex marriage, abortion, and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. He describes himself as a “conservationist” who has called on the Republican Party to take climate change more seriously, but is ranked very poorly by environmental groups, and supported the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accords. He supported President Donald Trump‘s trade and tariff policies despite having previously been a free trade advocate, and was a staunch ally of Trump throughout his presidency. Braun voted to acquit Trump in the impeachment trial related to the Trump-Ukraine scandal. After Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election and Trump refused to concede, making false claims of fraud, Braun defended Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results.
After graduating from Harvard, Braun moved back to Indiana and joined his father’s business manufacturing truck bodies for farmers. When the economy of the mid-1980s hit farmers hard and his father’s business nearly went under, Braun steered the business in the more lucrative direction of selling truck accessories. The business subsequently grew from 15 employees to more than 300.[6] In 1986 Braun and Daryl Rauscher acquired Meyer Body Inc., a manufacturer of truck bodies and distributor of truck parts and equipment.[8] In 1995 Braun fully acquired the company. Meyer Body was renamed Meyer Distributing in 1999. Braun is its president and CEO.[9] In 2018 Braun’s personal finance disclosure listed assets worth between $35 million and $96 million.[10]
Early political career
Braun was a member of the Jasper School Board from 2004 to 2014.[11]
He served in the Indiana House of Representatives for Indiana District 63 from 2014 to 2017.[5] Braun resigned from the state House on November 1, 2017, to focus on his U.S. Senate campaign.[12] In 2017, the American Conservative Union gave him a lifetime score of 82%.[13]
In July 2018, Braun called for the Indiana attorney general, Republican Curtis Hill, to resign amid allegations that Hill had drunkenly groped a lawmaker and three legislative staffers.[14]
Braun won the Republican primary for the United States Senate in the 2018 election, defeating U.S. Representatives Todd Rokita and Luke Messer[15][16] by over 56,000 votes. He received 208,520 votes, or roughly 41% of the total.[3] Braun ran as an outsider, emphasizing his career in business.[17] He defeated Democratic incumbent Joe Donnelly in the November general election[18] with 51% of the vote to Donnelly’s 45%; the Libertarian candidate, Lucy Brenton, tallied less than 4%.[19] In late 2019, the Indianapolis Star reported that Braun’s 2018 campaign was the beneficiary of $2.8 million in spending by a political action committee with strong connections to indicted money launderer Lev Parnas and one of his shell companies.[20] Parnas supplied photographs of him and Braun embracing at a 2018 campaign event to the House of Representatives as part of his cooperation with the impeachment of President Trump. They were made public in January 2020.[20]
In May 2019, Braun was one of eight senators who voted against a $19.1 billion emergency aid package for states and territories that endured hurricanes, floods and fires. Braun said the disaster assistance process was “just another path for runaway spending on unrelated projects.” Despite his opposition, the package was enacted with bipartisan support and President Trump’s approval.[22]
Braun supported Trump’s decision to withdraw American troops from northern Syria in October 2019.[23] As a result, in that month, Turkey launched a military offensive against the American-allied Kurds in that area. After that, Braun called Trump “smart”; questioned why the U.S. should “be in the crossfire” between Turkey and the Kurds; and called the idea that ISIS would recover strength as a result of the conflict “an assumption”.[24]
In May 2020, Senator Chuck Schumer put forth a resolution to officially release the guidance by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on how to safely lift restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. A leaked version of the guidance showed that it was more detailed and restrictive than the White House recommendations released in April 2020. Braun blocked Schumer’s resolution, saying that the CDC’s recommendations would hinder the economy.[26]
After Joe Biden defeated Trump in the November 2020 election, Braun refused to acknowledge Trump’s defeat[29] and promoted Trump’s false claims of election fraud.[30][31] Along with 10 other sitting and incoming Republican senators, Braun announced on January 2, 2021, that he would vote against counting the electoral votes from a number of states won by Biden four days later, seeking to subvert the election outcome.[30][31] He was participating in the joint session of Congress counting the electoral votes when a mob of Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol. In the wake of the attack, he tweeted, “Though I will continue to push for a thorough investigation into the election irregularities many Hoosiers are concerned with as my objection was intended, I have withdrawn that objection and will vote to get this ugly day behind us.” He voted to count the electoral votes after Congress returned to session.[32] The South Bend Tribune called Braun’s flip-flop “a case of too little, too late.”[33] The Democratic Party of Indiana called for Braun’s resignation, saying he “incited violence to overturn the presidential election and end American democracy.”[34]
Braun opposes abortion.[37] He supported the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade, saying he was “excited” that states could write their own abortion laws.[38]
Interracial marriage
Braun has said that the Supreme Court of the United States was wrong in its ruling that state interracial marriage bans were unconstitutional.[39] Braun later stated that he was not paying attention to the question and that the Constitution prohibits discrimination of any kind based on race.[40]
Donald Trump
According to FiveThirtyEight, Braun voted with Donald Trump’s position 90.9% of the time between Braun’s inauguration and Trump’s departure from office two years later.[41]
During Trump’s first impeachment and impeachment trial, regarding the Trump–Ukraine scandal, Braun became one of Trump’s most prominent defenders, defending him in many media appearances.[42] He voted to acquit Trump, and when asked whether it is acceptable for Trump to withhold U.S. foreign aid to coerce a foreign leader to investigate Joe Biden, he said that he did not believe that such behavior was proper but that “it didn’t happen.”[43] Braun also said that Trump did what he did out of a desire to reduce corruption in Ukraine.[44] After Trump was acquitted, Braun said that Trump “hopefully” learned something from the trial.[45][46]
Effort to overturn 2020 presidential election result
After Biden won the 2020 presidential election, Trump refused to concede and made baseless claims of election fraud. Braun defended, and joined in, Trump’s attempt to overturn the election results and subvert the democratic process.[47] He wrote a Washington Examiner editorial criticizing the media for not taking accusations of voter fraud seriously.[48] There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud or irregularities in the 2020 election.[49][50] Along with 10 other Republican senators, Braun initially pledged to object to the counting of the electoral votes in several key states.[47] After the storming of the Capitol by a violent pro-Trump mob, Braun reversed himself and voted against objections to the election results, saying that he “didn’t feel comfortable with today’s events.”[51]
Braun supported the Republican Party’s tax legislation in 2017.[37] He said the tax reform bill was “revenue-neutral”; the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the bill would increase U.S. debt.[37] Braun has called for cuts to the U.S. budget, saying that the U.S. “has a spending problem.”[37]
Environmentalism
Braun is a self-described conservationist.[54] He has called Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg an “inspiration” and advocated that the Republican Party be more aggressive in combating climate change. He opposed the 2015 Paris climate change agreement, but supports using reforestation, carbon pricing, and carbon capture to reduce or mitigate carbon dioxide emissions.[54] He also serves as the chair of the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus, which was founded in October 2019.[55][54] Braun sponsored the Growing Climate Solutions Act, a bill that would make it simpler for farmers to sell carbon credits on existing carbon trading markets in California and in the Northeast.[56]
In 2018, Braun supported Trump’s trade and tariff policies, saying that they have “yielded phenomenal results.”[37][58] Previously, he supported free trade policies.[58]
Braun opposes the Affordable Care Act, supports efforts to repeal it, and supports a lawsuit to strike down the entirety of the ACA.[59][60] Braun has called for “free-market competition” and “market-driven” solutions on health care.[37] During his 2018 Senate campaign, he criticized incumbent Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly as a “defender of Obamacare.”[59] Braun expressed support for keeping in place protections for individuals with preexisting conditions (a popular provision of the ACA), although both House repeal efforts supported by Braun and the lawsuit supported by Braun would effectively end protections for individuals with preexisting conditions.[59][60]
Immigration
Braun has said, “building the wall must be the first step to any solution” on illegal immigration.[37][61] He opposes a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as minors, known as DREAMers.[61]
LGBT rights
Asked for his view on the legalization of same-sex marriage, Braun said, “I believe in traditional marriage.”[37][62] He fought to keep marriage defined as “between a man and a woman” in the Indiana Republican Party platform.[62] In the Indiana state legislature, he supported the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act and opposed amendments to the bill that would have banned discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.[62]
Police reform
In June 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, Braun introduced legislation to reform qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that shields police officers from lawsuits over constitutional violations if the violated constitutional right has not been clearly established in a previous court decision. His legislation would have made it easier to sue police officers for rights violations.[63] But after an interview with Tucker Carlson and backlash from police unions the next month, Braun dropped his bill.[64] In May 2021, he wrote, “I oppose any reform to the current doctrine of qualified immunity” and opposed federal efforts to reform local police departments.[65]
COVID-19 pandemic
In September 2021, Braun opposed the planned COVID-19 vaccine mandate for companies with more than 100 employees, calling it as the “biggest overreach by federal government I’ve seen.”[66] In October 2021, he invited Chicago police officers who were suspended for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19 to work in Indiana, saying, “plenty of departments are hiring now.”[67]
Braun and his wife, Maureen, have four children.[5] He is Roman Catholic.[73] Braun’s brother, Steve Braun, is also a politician in Indiana.[74]
References
^Bradner, Eric (May 6, 2018). “A leading candidate in Indiana’s GOP primary was considered a ‘hard Democrat’ by his own party”. CNN. Retrieved February 6, 2019. One of the top candidates in Indiana’s GOP primary was labeled in the Republican National Committee’s voter files as a “hard Democrat” as recently as December. … Braun’s voting record shows Braun took a Democratic ballot in some of the highest-profile primary battles the party has had in Indiana in recent decades — and skipped the most hotly contested GOP statewide races. Braun voted in the Democratic primaries in 1992, 1996, 1998, 2004, 2006 and 2008 — which were largely solidly Democratic election years. He skipped the primary in 1994, 2000, 2002 and 2010 — all strong Republican years.
^Heather Caygle & Sarah Ferris (February 5, 2020). “Indiana’s freshman senator steps up to the impeachment mics”. Politico. Sen. Mike Braun quickly vaulted from a self-described ‘no name’ to one of President Donald Trump’s most prominent and prolific defenders during the Senate’s impeachment trial. … Just over a year into his term, Braun has become a prominent GOP voice on impeachment, joking that he spends more time on TV than probably any Republican senator beside Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of Trump’s closest allies.
Current Position: Governor since 2017 Affiliation: Republican Candidate: 2022 Governor Former Position(s): Lt. Governor from 2016 – 2017; Chair of the Indiana Republican Party from 2011 – 2013
Featured Quote: “The Hoosier State has taken sustainability to heart. Indiana lives up to its Crossroads of America motto, with four major interstate highways coming together in Indianapolis, and easy access to much of the Eastern half of the U.S.”
Featured Video: Trine University 2021 Commencement Address – Eric Holcomb
Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb directed the Indiana Department of Labor to work with Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita on a lawsuit challenging the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s vaccination mandate, according to a press release Thursday.
Holcomb’s statement comes in the wake of OSHA’s emergency temporary standard, which tells employers with more than 100 employees to require employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccine or submit to semi-regular testing. OSHA said the standard will protect more than 84 million workers from COVID-19, but Holcomb said the government went too far with the mandate.
“This is an overreach of the government’s role in serving and protecting Hoosiers,” Holcomb said in the release. “While I agree that the vaccine is the tool that will best protect against COVID-19, this federal government approach is unprecedented and will bring about harmful, unintended consequences in the supply chain and the workforce.”
Holcomb’s comments reflect those of other Republican leaders, including Indiana Republican Party Chairman Kyle Hupfer, who said “the federal government has zero authority to force private business to impose this mandate on their employees” in a statement posted on Twitter.
INDIANAPOLIS – Today, Governor Eric J. Holcomb signed Executive Order 21-24. The Executive Order outlines directives to help manage the spread of COVID-19.
The recent surge of cases due to the infectious Delta Variant has created a strain on the hospital system. The Executive Order will put in place the following measures:
Health care systems will use evidence-based decisions to monitor patient capacity and staffing levels to assess whether non-emergent procedures should be delayed or reprioritized;
Hospitals must report diversion information to the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH) to assist with monitoring resources and capacity statewide.
To assist the health care systems as they reprioritize non-emergent procedures and surgeries, the Indiana Department of Insurance (IDOI) will be issuing the following bulletins:
Extending prior authorizations for non-emergent procedures that are postponed due to capacity or staffing issues because of COVID-19;
Directing insurers to enable hospitals to expedite the process of transporting patients out of hospital care to the next appropriate setting.
To support the ongoing efforts to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, IDOH will be issuing a COVID-19 control measure. The measure will allow for schools and day cares to modify quarantine provisions if the facilities adhere to the following orders and guidance set by IDOH:
Schools and day cares that have mask requirements that are consistently followed throughout the day do not have to quarantine students, teachers and staff who are close contacts and aren’t showing symptoms of COVID-19;
Schools and day cares must continue to contact trace by notifying their local health department as well as parents, teachers and staff who were in close contact.
Current Position: Governor since 2017 Affiliation: Republican Candidate: 2022 Governor Former Position(s): Lt. Governor from 2016 – 2017; Chair of the Indiana Republican Party from 2011 – 2013
Featured Quote: “The Hoosier State has taken sustainability to heart. Indiana lives up to its Crossroads of America motto, with four major interstate highways coming together in Indianapolis, and easy access to much of the Eastern half of the U.S.”
Featured Video: Trine University 2021 Commencement Address – Eric Holcomb
Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb directed the Indiana Department of Labor to work with Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita on a lawsuit challenging the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s vaccination mandate, according to a press release Thursday.
Holcomb’s statement comes in the wake of OSHA’s emergency temporary standard, which tells employers with more than 100 employees to require employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccine or submit to semi-regular testing. OSHA said the standard will protect more than 84 million workers from COVID-19, but Holcomb said the government went too far with the mandate.
“This is an overreach of the government’s role in serving and protecting Hoosiers,” Holcomb said in the release. “While I agree that the vaccine is the tool that will best protect against COVID-19, this federal government approach is unprecedented and will bring about harmful, unintended consequences in the supply chain and the workforce.”
Holcomb’s comments reflect those of other Republican leaders, including Indiana Republican Party Chairman Kyle Hupfer, who said “the federal government has zero authority to force private business to impose this mandate on their employees” in a statement posted on Twitter.
INDIANAPOLIS – Today, Governor Eric J. Holcomb signed Executive Order 21-24. The Executive Order outlines directives to help manage the spread of COVID-19.
The recent surge of cases due to the infectious Delta Variant has created a strain on the hospital system. The Executive Order will put in place the following measures:
Health care systems will use evidence-based decisions to monitor patient capacity and staffing levels to assess whether non-emergent procedures should be delayed or reprioritized;
Hospitals must report diversion information to the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH) to assist with monitoring resources and capacity statewide.
To assist the health care systems as they reprioritize non-emergent procedures and surgeries, the Indiana Department of Insurance (IDOI) will be issuing the following bulletins:
Extending prior authorizations for non-emergent procedures that are postponed due to capacity or staffing issues because of COVID-19;
Directing insurers to enable hospitals to expedite the process of transporting patients out of hospital care to the next appropriate setting.
To support the ongoing efforts to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, IDOH will be issuing a COVID-19 control measure. The measure will allow for schools and day cares to modify quarantine provisions if the facilities adhere to the following orders and guidance set by IDOH:
Schools and day cares that have mask requirements that are consistently followed throughout the day do not have to quarantine students, teachers and staff who are close contacts and aren’t showing symptoms of COVID-19;
Schools and day cares must continue to contact trace by notifying their local health department as well as parents, teachers and staff who were in close contact.
A lifelong Hoosier, Gov. Holcomb is a veteran of the United States Navy, served as the state’s 51st Lt. Governor, was a trusted advisor to both Gov. Mitch Daniels and Sen. Dan Coats, worked for Congressman John Hostettler and is a former state chairman of the Indiana Republican Party.
He was elected governor in November 2016, following an unprecedented 106-day campaign and was sworn in on Jan. 9, 2017.
In 2018, Gov. Holcomb partnered with the Markle Foundation to launch “Skillful Indiana,” to bridge the divide between the skills Hoosiers have and the skills businesses need. Indiana is just the second state to have this program.
Under his leadership, Indiana has had two consecutive record-breaking years for job commitments. In 2018, 320 companies committed to create at least 31,000 jobs in Indiana.
Next Level Connections, a $1 billion program focused on accelerating major road projects, is focused on increasing access to high-speed, affordable internet to unserved Hoosiers, establishing more nonstop flights to and from Indiana, and committing the largest infusion of trails funding in state history.
He has a mission to increase Indiana’s competitiveness in the global economy by “bringing the world to Indiana and taking Indiana to the world.” He announced Indiana’s first-ever nonstop transatlantic flight from Indianapolis to Paris, beginning in May 2018. So far, the governor has met with officials and industry leaders in the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, Canada, Israel, India, France, Belgium, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland and the Czech Republic to showcase Indiana’s assets and build global economic ties. In 2018, Holcomb was honored as the International Center’s International Citizen of the Year.
In his first legislative session as governor, he rallied bipartisan support from Indiana lawmakers to expand pre-kindergarten for qualifying Hoosier kids and unveiled Next Level Recovery—a one-stop-shop for information and resources on the state’s comprehensive and community-based effort to fight the opioid crisis. The governor was honored with the Richard M. Fairbanks Circle of Hope Award in 2019.
Gov. Holcomb is focused on moving our state forward. In his first months as governor, he led the way for the largest long-term infrastructure investment in our state’s history with the long-term, fully-funded 20-year, $60 billion Next Level Roads program.
The governor has called workforce readiness the defining issue of the decade. To meet our state’s rapidly changing workforce needs, he unveiled the Next Level Jobs program to help connect more Hoosiers to high-demand, high-wage careers. Holcomb was awarded the 2019 Mira Trailblazer Award by TechPoint for his work with the growing tech industry in Indiana. He is the former chair of Jobs for America’s Graduates and now serves on the board of directors.
He is passionate about helping incarcerated Hoosiers break cycles by learning essential job skills. The Last Mile, a program dedicated to reducing recidivism by teaching computer coding inside prisons, chose Indiana to be the first state outside of California to participate by opening a program at the Indiana Women’s Prison in 2017. It has expanded to include the Pendleton Juvenile Correctional Facility. The governor has introduced high-wage, high demand certificate training to prepare offenders to be successful in their communities upon release.
All of this work is underscored by Gov. Holcomb’s commitment to delivering great government service for Hoosier taxpayers. Indiana was ranked first in the nation for government efficiency by U.S. News & World Report in 2017.
Holcomb currently serves as the policy chairman of the Republican Governors Association and in 2018 was named one of ten governors shaping the future of politics by The Hill.
In an article in Governing Magazine, they said, “Indiana’s governor doesn’t scream, doesn’t threaten, and doesn’t even complain. He just wins.”
Throughout his career in service, he has earned a reputation of being a consensus builder. He travels weekly throughout the state—visiting with Hoosiers wherever he goes about how to make Indiana an even better place to live, work and play. He has earned honorary doctorate degrees from Trine University, Anderson University and Ivy Tech. A lifelong basketball fan, Gov. Holcomb has shot and made a basket in each of Indiana’s 92 counties.
The governor is a graduate of Pike High School in Indianapolis and Hanover College in southeastern Indiana where he majored in U.S. History with a focus on the American Civil War and the Reconstruction Era. He is a collector of presidential signatures and currently has documents signed by all 44 of our nation’s presidents.
He and his wife, Janet, live with their Miniature Schnauzer, Henry, in the Governor’s Residence on North Meridian Street in Indianapolis.
Voting Record
Votes on Bills
Caucuses
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Offices
Experience
Work Experience
Campaign manager and district director U.S. Congressman John Hostettler
Administration Governor Mitch Daniels 2003 to 2011
From 2003 to 2011, Holcomb served as an advisor to Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, eventually rising to the role of Deputy Chief of Staff,[11][12][13] and served as campaign manager for Daniels’s 2008 gubernatorial campaign. He became Chairman of the Indiana Republican Party in 2011.[7] In 2013, he resigned to become the state chief of staff to U.S. SenatorDan Coats.[14][15] In March 2015 Coats announced that he would not run for reelection to the Senate in the 2016 election, and Holcomb announced his intention to run.[16] In February 2016, Holcomb withdrew from the Senate race.[17][18]
Results of the 2016 Indiana gubernatorial election; Holcomb won the counties in red.
Holcomb at a gubernatorial debate
Governor Mike Pence was running for reelection with Holcomb as his running mate in the spring and summer of 2016. By late June, rumors that Pence would be the Republican Party’s nominee for vice president under presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump began to gain traction. In early July, Trump officially selected Pence as his running mate. Pence then withdrew from Indiana’s gubernatorial election and Holcomb withdrew as the nominee for lieutenant governor. Holcomb decided to pursue the nomination for governor and was selected on the second ballot by the Indiana State Republican Central Committee, defeating Rep. Susan Brooks, Rep. Todd Rokita, and State Senator Jim Tomes.[21]
Holcomb chose Indiana State Auditor Suzanne Crouch as his running mate. They faced 2012 Democratic nominee and former Indiana House Speaker John R. Gregg and his running mate, State Representative Christina Hale. After an unprecedented 106-day campaign, Holcomb defeated Gregg, 51.4% to 45.4%. He ran slightly behind the Trump-Pence ticket, which carried Indiana with 56 percent of the vote.
First term
After winning the election, Holcomb announced his agenda for the upcoming Indiana General Assembly legislative session. What Holcomb calls his “Next Level Agenda” is based on five “pillars”: strengthening and diversifying Indiana’s economy, strengthening Indiana’s infrastructure, strengthening education and workforce training, strengthening public health and attacking addiction and providing great government service at an exceptional value to taxpayers. He has said that civility is the foundation on which the other pillars are based.[22]
Holcomb’s first act as governor was creating the office of drug prevention, treatment and enforcement and tasking that office with tackling the opioid crisis and other addiction issues in Indiana. Additionally, early in his first term, Holcomb pardoned Keith Cooper, who served eight years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of an armed robbery; declared a disaster emergency at the East Chicago Superfund Site; and ended contract discussions between the Indiana Finance Authority and Agile Networks to manage Indiana’s communications infrastructure, including cell towers.[23]
Holcomb has made attracting international investment and opening more overseas markets for Hoosier-produced goods a priority. Since taking office, he has led 11 international economic development trips visiting with government, business, education, military and nonprofit leaders in the United Kingdom (as governor-elect), France, Hungary, Japan, India, Canada, Israel, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, South Korea and China. He has also visited Hoosier servicemen and women and members of the United States Diplomatic Corps serving overseas.[24]
Holcomb’s international engagement strategy has resulted in foreign direct investment (FDI) into Indiana increasing 300% since 2017. In recognition of his efforts, the Indianapolis-based International Center named Holcomb its 2018 International Citizen of the Year.[25]
In April 2017, the Indiana legislature approved Holcomb’s request for higher fuel taxes and BMV registration fees to fund infrastructure spending, primarily on road maintenance and construction. The law went into effect on July 1, 2017, and is projected to raise on average $1.2 billion per year through 2024.[26]
In the first quarter of 2019, the National Journal reported that Holcomb’s reelection faced serious challenges. It ranked him number 10 on its endangered list, writing, “Holcomb is facing potential match-ups with former state health commissioner Woody Myers and state Senator Eddie Melton.”[27] By the end of the second quarter, his approval rating had risen to 50%.[28]
In November 2019, the Center for Investigative Reporting reported that Holcomb had personally pressured an Indiana OSHA investigator to drop a worker fatality case against Amazon so that Indianapolis could have a better chance at being the home of Amazon’s HQ2 (a major new office). His office denied the allegations, saying that he had not attended the meeting with the OSHA commissioner and investigator.[29] Holcomb also said the accusations against him would pose a threat to Indiana’s “positive business climate” and demanded they be retracted.[30] Regardless of whether Holcomb was directly involved, OSHA eventually dropped the citations against Amazon’s fulfillment center and the case was reclassified as one of “employee misconduct” rather than a shortfall in training and safety procedures.[29]
In July 2020, Attorney General Curtis Hill accused Holcomb of overstepping his authority by issuing a statewide face mask mandate with criminal penalties. Hill said that only the legislature has the power under the Indiana constitution to create laws.[31]
Holcomb at his second inauguration
Holcomb vetoed the laws passed in the special session, and the legislature overrode his vetoes. But on June 2, 2022, the Indiana Supreme Court sided with Holcomb. Citing the state constitution, the court found it was the legislature, not Holcomb, that had overstepped its authority. Chief Justice Loretta Rush wrote in the unanimous opinion, “Simply put, absent a constitutional amendment … the General Assembly cannot do what HEA-1123 permits, … our Constitution authorizes only the Governor to call a special session, the General Assembly can set additional sessions—but only by fixing their length and frequency in a law passed during a legislative session and presented to the Governor.”[32]
Holcomb was reelected governor in 2020, defeating former state health commissioner Woody Myers with 57% of the vote. He received the most votes for governor in Indiana history.[33]
Second term
Holcomb was inaugurated to a second term on January 11, 2021.
Holcomb’s wife, Janet, runs a family business in Madison County, Indiana.[36] They have no children, and own a miniature schnauzer, Henry Holcomb, who is known as the “First Dog of Indiana”.[37]
There’s a reason why U.S. News & World Report ranks Indiana as the top state in the nation for government effectiveness. Governor Holcomb has helped build our state government into a lean operation that’s centered around serving Hoosiers – all while making sure government is open and accountable.
Balancing budgets. Paying bills. Living within our means. That’s the motto of working Hoosier families, and it’s Governor Holcomb’s charge in leading our state. Under his leadership, Indiana is maintaining its AAA credit rating (the best in the nation!) and healthy rainy day fund, which is protecting Indiana against potential emergencies or financial downturns.
And, of course, that’s while taxes in Indiana continue to drop! Indiana’s personal income tax rate dropped to 3.23% in 2017, which is among the lowest in the nation. That’s while taxes for businesses continue to go down, and Indiana enjoys the benefits of permanently capped property taxes and no inventory tax. It’s an environment built for growth and opportunity! < BACK TO ISSUES
More Hoosiers are working today than ever before! But we aren’t stopping there. In 2017, companies committed to create more than 30,000 high-wage jobs throughout Indiana in high-growth industries like advanced manufacturing, agribusiness, logistics, life sciences, defense, technology, and more.
Whether it’s new jobs created at homegrown small businesses or international companies choosing Indiana for their next big investment, Indiana is on the map as the best place in the Midwest to do business!
And we broke records again in 2018, with commitments for an additional 31,000 Hoosier high-wage jobs. Related Press Releases
Across Indiana, companies are looking to hire hardworking Hoosiers to fill great jobs – jobs in high-demand industries like manufacturing, life sciences, technology, and logistics. By 2025, there will be more than one million job openings across the state due to retirements and the creation of new jobs.
Through Governor Holcomb’s Next Level Jobs plan, we’re working to help Hoosiers build the skills needed to fill these in-demand, high-wage jobs – helping them earn larger paychecks and open new doors of opportunity.
Next Level Jobs provides Hoosiers with free classes and access to certificate programs through partners like Ivy Tech Community College and Vincennes University. There, Hoosiers are gaining the in-demand skills needed to begin their next big job!
Next Level Jobs also helps Hoosiers already on-the-job by providing employers with grants to skill-up their workforce! To learn more about Next Level Jobs, visit https://www.nextleveljobs.org/. < BACK TO ISSUES
For Governor Holcomb, making sure that every Hoosier student has a safe place to learn and grow is a top priority. That’s why Indiana is providing local school leaders with expanded resources to help them maintain secure environments for all students.
New resources include a program that’s now placed more than 3,200 handheld metal detectors in Indiana public, charter, and private schools at no cost to them. They’ve gone to more than 370 schools – including 94% of all traditional Indiana public schools – to help them track what’s coming into school buildings.
In addition, schools have expanded access to school safety grants and access to a $35 million low-interest loan program for making school updates. And Indiana isn’t stopping until all schools have the tools they need – it simply cannot wait.
When it comes to attacking the state’s opioid epidemic, Governor Holcomb has made an all-hands-on-deck call. Together, we’re working to help Hoosiers achieve and maintain recovery – bettering our communities, economy, public safety, and quality of life for all Hoosiers.
And we’re making progress with a focus on prevention, treatment, and enforcement, which includes:
• Providing communities with training and funding for naloxone, which is saving lives by reversing overdoses.
• Expanding drug take-back programs – reducing the number of drugs available for misuse.
• Increasing the number of opioid treatment sites statewide – placing nearly all Hoosiers within one-hour’s drive of help.
• Strengthening felony charges for individuals whose dealing of illicit drugs leads to the death of a fellow Hoosier. < BACK TO ISSUES
Indiana is home to one of the nation’s only fully-funded infrastructure plans of its kind – Next Level Roads. Without borrowing money from future generations of Hoosiers, Indiana is investing $32 billion into our state’s roads and bridges over the next 20 years. In the first five years alone, Hoosiers can expect to see 122 new lane miles, 1,300 bridges, and 10,000 miles of re-paved roads. That’s rolling in the right direction!
A study by Purdue University shows that 93,000 Hoosiers are currently living without access to reliable, high-speed internet service. In a world where internet access is critical for commerce, health care, education, and more. It’s critical that we expand affordable, high-speed broadband access to ALL Hoosiers.
That’s why through Next Level Connections – Governor Holcomb’s 2019 infrastructure plan – Indiana will invest $100 million to bring broadband access to rural Indiana.
Connecting Hoosiers with the world around us doesn’t stop with roads and bridges. That’s why Governor Holcomb announced plans to invest $1 billion into Indiana infrastructure! This includes:
$600 million to accelerate the completion of I-69 to 2024 $190 million for improvements along U.S. 20 and U.S. 30 in Northern Indiana New interchanges to speed up the trip between South Bend and Indianapolis on U.S. 31 $100 million to bring high-speed, affordable broadband to rural Indiana $90 million to expand connectivity of Indiana’s hiking, biking, and riding trails $20 million to attract additional international non-stop flights to Indiana < BACK TO ISSUES
For more than a decade, Indiana has been building I-69 – one continuous road connecting Evansville to Indianapolis and the rest of the state. I-69 is now complete between Evansville and Martinsville.
Through Next Level Connections – Governor Holcomb’s 2019 infrastructure plan – Indiana will invest $600 million to accelerate the completion of I-69 by three years…connecting Evansville and Indianapolis by 2024.
The Indiana General Assembly is the state legislature, or legislative branch, of the state of Indiana. It is a bicameral legislature that consists of a lower house, the Indiana House of Representatives, and an upper house, the Indiana Senate. The General Assembly meets annually at the Indiana Statehouse in Indianapolis.
Members of the General Assembly are elected from districts that are realigned every ten years. Representatives serve terms of two years and senators serve terms of four years. Both houses can create bills, but bills must pass both houses before it can be submitted to the governor and enacted into law.
Currently, the Republican Party holds supermajorities in both chambers of the General Assembly. Republicans outnumber Democrats in the Senate by a 39-11 margin, and in the House of Representatives by a 71-29 margin.
With Indiana’s state tax collections surging, a top Republican legislator is looking at possible significant changes to the state sales tax and cutting property taxes for some businesses.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Tim Brown hasn’t offered details yet for what he could propose for the new legislative session starting in January, but such changes face concerns over the possibility of an economic slowdown and the impact on funding for local governments and school districts.
Topics in Brown’s sights include expanding Indiana’s 7% sales tax that covers merchandise purchases ranging from clothing to cars so that it also is charged for spending on services, which potentially could be anything from haircuts to hospital stays. Brown said his aim would be to lower the sales tax rate if it was applied to a broader range of spending.
Brown points to a trend of more spending on services, which federal reports show now make up nearly 70% of consumer spending.
“Our sales tax base is changing a lot, so I am interested in looking at sales tax and sales tax affects everybody,” Brown said. “It doesn’t matter how much money you make, you pay sales tax.”
The Indiana House voted 67-31 Thursday to approve proposed redistricting maps, all but ensuring that their supermajority stays intact.
Only three Republicans joined the Democrats in voting against the proposal: Rep. Jeff Ellington, R-Bloomington, Rep. John Jacob, R-Indianapolis, and Rep. Matt Hostettler, R-Patoka.
Ellington, whose district would become more winnable for Democrats under the proposed maps, argued communities of interest were split apart when his district was redrawn. Jacob was drawn into the same district as a former Republican lawmaker.
The Indiana Supreme Court denied Attorney General Todd Rokita’s effort to halt a lawsuit between the governor and the General Assembly over emergency powers.
Gov. Eric Holcomb sued lawmakers over a new law that allows the legislature to call itself into special session during a public emergency. He argued the Indiana Constitution only gives the governor that power.
Rokita tried to intervene. Rokita said the governor can’t sue the legislature without Rokita’s say-so – and since the AG supports the legislature on this issue, he didn’t give it
Republicans called the 2021 legislative session “transformational.” Democrats were not quite so effusive with their praise. But everyone agrees it was a session no one will likely forget, impacted in every way by the COVID-19 pandemic.
House Speaker Todd Huston (R-Fishers) lamented the lack of connection among lawmakers this year, driven by the pandemic. But he said COVID-19 also brought positive change.
“Really forced communication among members on their bills to be far better,” Huston said. “And I think the challenge for Sen. [Rodric] Bray and I moving forward is, how do you sustain that?”
The session ended on a note of bipartisanship, with almost every Democrat joining Republicans to vote for the new state budget.
Summary
The Indiana General Assembly is the state legislature, or legislative branch, of the state of Indiana. It is a bicameral legislature that consists of a lower house, the Indiana House of Representatives, and an upper house, the Indiana Senate. The General Assembly meets annually at the Indiana Statehouse in Indianapolis.
Members of the General Assembly are elected from districts that are realigned every ten years. Representatives serve terms of two years and senators serve terms of four years. Both houses can create bills, but bills must pass both houses before it can be submitted to the governor and enacted into law.
Currently, the Republican Party holds supermajorities in both chambers of the General Assembly. Republicans outnumber Democrats in the Senate by a 39-11 margin, and in the House of Representatives by a 71-29 margin.
With Indiana’s state tax collections surging, a top Republican legislator is looking at possible significant changes to the state sales tax and cutting property taxes for some businesses.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Tim Brown hasn’t offered details yet for what he could propose for the new legislative session starting in January, but such changes face concerns over the possibility of an economic slowdown and the impact on funding for local governments and school districts.
Topics in Brown’s sights include expanding Indiana’s 7% sales tax that covers merchandise purchases ranging from clothing to cars so that it also is charged for spending on services, which potentially could be anything from haircuts to hospital stays. Brown said his aim would be to lower the sales tax rate if it was applied to a broader range of spending.
Brown points to a trend of more spending on services, which federal reports show now make up nearly 70% of consumer spending.
“Our sales tax base is changing a lot, so I am interested in looking at sales tax and sales tax affects everybody,” Brown said. “It doesn’t matter how much money you make, you pay sales tax.”
The Indiana House voted 67-31 Thursday to approve proposed redistricting maps, all but ensuring that their supermajority stays intact.
Only three Republicans joined the Democrats in voting against the proposal: Rep. Jeff Ellington, R-Bloomington, Rep. John Jacob, R-Indianapolis, and Rep. Matt Hostettler, R-Patoka.
Ellington, whose district would become more winnable for Democrats under the proposed maps, argued communities of interest were split apart when his district was redrawn. Jacob was drawn into the same district as a former Republican lawmaker.
The Indiana Supreme Court denied Attorney General Todd Rokita’s effort to halt a lawsuit between the governor and the General Assembly over emergency powers.
Gov. Eric Holcomb sued lawmakers over a new law that allows the legislature to call itself into special session during a public emergency. He argued the Indiana Constitution only gives the governor that power.
Rokita tried to intervene. Rokita said the governor can’t sue the legislature without Rokita’s say-so – and since the AG supports the legislature on this issue, he didn’t give it
Republicans called the 2021 legislative session “transformational.” Democrats were not quite so effusive with their praise. But everyone agrees it was a session no one will likely forget, impacted in every way by the COVID-19 pandemic.
House Speaker Todd Huston (R-Fishers) lamented the lack of connection among lawmakers this year, driven by the pandemic. But he said COVID-19 also brought positive change.
“Really forced communication among members on their bills to be far better,” Huston said. “And I think the challenge for Sen. [Rodric] Bray and I moving forward is, how do you sustain that?”
The session ended on a note of bipartisanship, with almost every Democrat joining Republicans to vote for the new state budget.
The Indiana General Assembly is made up of two houses, the House of Representatives and the Senate.[1] Indiana has a part-time legislature that does not meet year-round. The General Assembly convenes on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in January. During odd-numbered years the legislature meets for 61 days (not necessarily consecutively) and must be adjourned by April 30. During even-numbered years the legislature meets for 30 days (not necessarily consecutively) and must be adjourned by March 15. The General Assembly may not adjourn for more than three days without a resolution approving adjournment being passed in both houses.[2] The governor has the authority to call on the General Assembly to convene a special session if legislators are unable to complete necessary work within the time allotted by the regular sessions.[2][3] Special sessions of the General Assembly were rarely called in the state’s early history, but have become more commonplace in modern times.
The General Assembly delegates are elected from districts. Every ten years the districts are realigned by the General Assembly using information from the U.S. Census Bureau to ensure that each district is roughly equal in population.[4] The districting is maintained to comply with the United States Supreme Court ruling in Reynolds v. Sims.[5]
The Indiana Senate and House of Representatives each have several committees that are charged with overseeing certain areas of the state. Committees vary in size, from three to eleven members. The committees are chaired by senior members of the majority party. Senators and representatives can be members of multiple committees. Most legislation begins within the committees who have responsibility for the area that the bill will affect. Once approved by a committee, a bill can be entered into the agenda for debate and vote in the full chamber.[6] Although not common, bills can be voted on by the full house without going through the committee process.[7][8][9]
Indiana legislators make a base annual salary of $22,616, plus $155 for each day in session or at a committee hearing and $62 in expense pay every other day.[10]
Terms and qualifications
Article 4, Section 7, of the Indiana Constitution states the qualifications to become a Senator or Representative. The candidate must have been a U.S. citizen for a minimum of two years prior to his candidacy and must have been resident of the district that he seeks to represent for one year. Senators must be at least twenty-five years of age and representatives must be twenty-one when sworn into office. The candidate cannot hold any other public office in the state or federal government during their term. The candidate must also be a registered voter within the district they seek to represent.[11][12] Candidates are required to file papers stating their economic interests.[13]
Article 4, Section 3, of the state constitution places several limitations on the size and composition of the General Assembly. The Senate can contain no more than fifty members, and the senators serve for a term of four years. The House of Representatives can contain no more than one hundred members, and the representatives serve terms of two years. There is no limit to how many terms a state senator or representative may serve.[11][12]
Checks and balances
There are several checks and balances built into the state constitution that limit the power of the General Assembly. Other clauses allow the General Assembly to balance and limit the authority of the other branches of the government.[14] Among these checks and balances is the governor’s authority to veto any bill passed by the General Assembly. The General Assembly may, in turn, override his veto by simple majority vote in both houses.[15] Bills passed by a supermajority automatically become law without requiring the signature of the governor. Once the bill is made law, it can be challenged in the state courts which may rule the law to be unconstitutional, effectively repealing the law. The General Assembly could then override the court’s decision by amending the state constitution to include the law.[11][14] The General Assembly has historically been the most powerful branch of the state government, dominating a weak governor’s office. Although the governor’s office has gained more power since the 1970s, the General Assembly still retains the power to remove much of that authority.[16]
Powers
The authority and powers of the Indiana General Assembly are established in the state constitution. The General Assembly has sole legislative power within the state government. Each house can initiate legislation, with the exception that the Senate is not permitted to initiate legislation that will affect revenue.[1] Bills are debated and passed separately in each house, but must be passed by both houses before they can submit to the governor.[11] Each law passed by the General Assembly must be applied uniformly to the entire state; the General Assembly has no authority to create legislation that targets only a particular community.[9][11]
The General Assembly is empowered to regulate the state’s judiciary system by setting the size of the courts and the bounds of their districts. The body also has the authority to monitor the activities of the executive branch of the state government, has limited power to regulate the county governments within the state, and has sole power to initiate the process to amend the state constitution.[11][17]
Under Indiana law, legislators cannot be arrested while the General Assembly is in session unless the crime they commit is treason, a felony, or breach of the peace.[9][18]
Indiana Senate
Main article: Indiana Senate
The Indiana Senate consists of 50 members elected to four-year terms. Suzanne Crouch, the Lieutenant Governor of Indiana, presides over the Senate while it is in session and casts the deciding vote in the event of a tie.[19][20] The Senate President Pro Tempore is Senator Rodric D. Bray of Martinsville.[21] The 2019–2020 Senate has a Republican super-majority, with Republicans holding 40 out of 50 seats.[22][23] The Senate offices are located in the west wing of the second floor of the Indiana Statehouse, and the Senate chambers are on the west wing of the third floor.[24]
Position
Name
Party
President/Lieutenant Governor
Suzanne Crouch
Republican
President Pro Tempore of the Senate
Rodric Bray[21]
Republican
Majority Leader
Mark Messmer[21]
Republican
Majority Whip
Michael Crider[21]
Republican
Minority Leader
Greg Taylor[25]
Democrat
Minority Whip
Lonnie Randolph[25]
Democrat
Indiana House of Representatives
Main article: Indiana House of Representatives
The Indiana House of Representatives consists of 100 members elected to two-year terms.[20] The current Speaker of the House as of March 2020 is Representative Todd Huston.[26] In 2015, the House of Representatives has a Republican majority of 70 seats, while the Democrats have 30 seats.[26][27] The House offices are located in the east wing of the second floor of the Indiana Statehouse and the House chambers are on the third floor.[24]
Position
Name
Party
Speaker of the House
Todd Huston
Republican
Majority Leader
Matthew Lehman[28]
Republican
Minority Leader
Phil GiaQuinta[29]
Democrat
History
1816 Constitution
Old Capitol Building in downtown Corydon
Indiana’s first constitution was ratified on June 10, 1816, and the election of the first General Assembly took place on August 5 of that year.[30] They convened in the original three-room statehouse located in Corydon. The body consisted of ten senators and twenty-nine representatives, sixteen of whom had been signers of the Indiana state constitution. There, the General Assembly began its development into the institution it is today.[31][32] The original constitution provided that representatives served terms of one year and senators served terms of three years, and permitted an annual meeting of the assembly from December until March.[33]
At first, there was only one political party of any consequence in Indiana, the Democratic-Republicans. The party was, however, broken into three divisions that would later split off into their own parties. The divisions were mainly over the issue of slavery, but they would develop more differences in later years.[34] The Jennings party, made up of abolitionists, was dominant in the beginning. The Noble party was in favor of slavery, and the Hendricks party was generally neutral, although Hendricks himself was openly anti-slavery.[34] In 1818, the Noble party tried to impeach Governor Jennings over his role in the negotiations of the Treaty of St. Mary’s. After two months of debate in the House, and Jennings having destroyed the evidence of his role, the House of Representatives dropped the investigation and issued a resolution that confirmed Jennings in his position as governor.[35]
In its first two decades, the General Assembly laid the foundation of the state. They created the framework for the state’s public school system, began construction on the State Seminary and of roads in the southern part of the state. Initially, the General Assembly was faced with low tax revenues. In response to the problem, they created the Bank of Indiana and sold nine million acres (36,000 km2) of public lands to finance their projects. The General Assembly relocated the capital to Indianapolis in 1824, and in 1831 they authorized the construction of the first dedicated statehouse.[32][36]
In the 1830s, the Whigs split from the Democratic-Republicans in response to national policies. The Whigs held a strong majority in the General Assembly in that decade.[37] In 1843, the remnants of the old slavery party had strengthened into the Democratic Party and swept into power, the Whigs never regained their majority and the Democrats maintained power until the middle of the American Civil War. In 1836 the General Assembly passed the Mammoth Internal Improvement Act and set plans into motion to modernize the state’s infrastructure. The wilderness of northern and central Indiana was slowly developed as the General Assembly approved the construction of roads, canals, railroads, and numerous other infrastructure projects. This led the state to near bankruptcy in the late 1830s, but it was avoided when the General Assembly spun off the failing canals, and half of their debts, to private companies in 1841. The failure of the projects was the main factor in the Whig’s loss of power.[38]
The state constitution had come under considerable criticism beginning in the 1840s because it allowed most government positions to be filled by appointment. The problem with this method of filling positions did not manifest itself until the advent of the state’s political parties. Once in power, a party could stack the government with its own members, making it difficult for the minority to regain power. Another problem was that the authority for many trivial issues was not delegated to other authorities. For example, if a man was to divorce his wife, the divorce bill had to be approved by the General Assembly before he or she could legally remarry.[39]
1851 Constitution
In 1851, a new state constitution was created and ratified. Among the constitution’s new clauses was an extension of the terms of representatives to two years and senators to four years. It also made many of the previously appointed positions open to public election.[40] The new constitution delegated many minor tasks to newly created elected offices. With its workload considerably decreased, instead of meeting annually, the General Assembly only convened a session every two years. The new constitution also placed new limits on the General Assembly’s power to create local laws, the General Assembly having become notorious for creating state-level laws that were only applied to one town or county.[33][41][42]
The new constitution led to the gradual erosion of the Democratic majority. In 1854, the Republican Party was established and drew in many of the former Whigs. That year the General Assembly was split with no party attaining a majority. The Democrats held the largest number of seats, but the Whigs and Republicans caucused to form a majority and control the assembly. The result was a deadlock on most issues because Republicans and Whigs could not agree on most major issues.[43] By 1858, the Whigs were almost completely disempowered and the Republicans gained enough seats to become the largest party, but not enough to form a majority on their own. That year Governor Ashbel P. Willard called the first special session of the General Assembly because they had been unable to pass an appropriations bill. Democrats regained a small majority by gaining the votes of the disaffected Whigs in the 1860 election.[44]
During the 1860s and the American Civil War, the legislature was the scene of intense debate. At the beginning of the war, the General Assembly was controlled by the southern sympathetic Democrats.[45] Governor Oliver Morton and the Republican minority were able to prevent the General Assembly from meeting in 1862 and 1863 by denying the body quorum.[45] Morton even had some members of the body arrested or detained on suspicions of disloyalty. The lack of funding created by this crisis again led to the near bankruptcy of the state. In 1864, the Republicans gained a majority and convened the General Assembly to remedy the state’s funding problems.[45]
During the 1880s and 1890s, Indiana industry began to grow rapidly because of the Indiana Gas Boom, leading to the creation of many labor unions and a return to Democratic control of the General Assembly. One of the events to occur during the period was the Black Day of the General Assembly, a situation arising from Governor Isaac P. Gray’s desire to be elected to the United States Senate. Beginning with the state senate’s refusal to seat a new lieutenant governor, fighting broke out in the chamber and spread throughout the statehouse. Shots were fired, and Democrats and Republicans threatened to kill each other before police could bring the situation under control.[46] A second bout of violence broke out in the 1894 regular session when Republicans locked the doors of the House chambers preventing Governor Claude Matthews from delivering a veto of a bill that repealed over a decade of Democratic legislation. The governor personally led fellow party members in beating down the door and unsuccessfully attempting to fight their way to the podium to deliver the vetoed bill; one newspaper said Democrats and Republicans “fought like beasts of the forest.”[47] During those decades, the General Assembly enacted a series of laws to protect the rights of workers and encourage more industrial growth. The women’s suffrage movement also began in the state and rallies were held in Indianapolis to support the female suffrage legislation that was ultimately voted down in the General Assembly.[48]
During 1907, the General Assembly made Indiana the first state to enact eugenics legislation, and the law remained in effect until 1921. The law led to the forced sterilization of thousands of criminals until it was ruled unconstitutional by the Indiana Supreme Court in 1921.[49]
In 1921, Julia Nelson was the first woman elected to the Indiana General Assembly.
Scandal erupted in 1925 when it was discovered that the Indiana Branch of the Ku Klux Klan controlled over half the seats in the General Assembly. During the session, Grand Dragon D. C. Stephenson boasted “I am the law in Indiana”.[50] During the next two years, the federal government intervened, Stephenson was convicted of murder. After the governor refused to pardon him, Stephenson indicted his co-conspirators, leading to many of the state government being charged with various crimes and removing much of the Klan’s power.[44][51]
In the 1930s, the General Assembly established the state’s first general welfare programs to help the poor affected by the Great Depression. The General Assembly passed the nation’s first DUI laws in 1939, establishing a blood alcohol level of .15 as the legal limit. The 1940s led to the first African American being elected to the Indiana Senate and legislation that desegregated the public schools in 1949.[44]
The General Assembly established the state’s first sales tax at two percent in 1962. The revenues from the tax led to a host of new projects across the state. The General Assembly also passed the Indiana Civil Rights bill in 1963, granting equal protection to minorities in seeking employment.[52] In 1970 a series of constitutional amendments were passed. Among them was one that authorized the General Assembly to meet annually instead of biennially.[44]
During the 1988 session, the Indiana House of Representatives was split evenly between both parties for the first time in Indiana’s history. After a period of negotiations, both parties agreed to share majority powers, alternating which party controlled the position of speaker each day. The same General Assembly legalized horse racing in the state in 1989.[44]
Governor Evan Bayh called a special session of the General Assembly in 1992 because no budget had been passed in the regular session. During the special session, the General Assembly passed the budget and also legalized the operation of riverboat casinos in the state, overriding the governor’s veto to prevent it.[44]
The General Assembly passed property tax reform legislation in 2008, capping property taxes at one percent, making Indiana one of the lowest property tax locations in the nation.[53]
Lutholtz, M. William (199). Grand Dragon: D. C. Stephenson and the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana. West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press. pp. 43, 89. ISBN1-55753-046-7.
have resided in the precinct at least 30 days before the next election;
be at least 18 years of age on the day of the next general election;
not currently be incarcerated for a criminal conviction.
How to register
Use our Register to Vote form below to fill out the National Voter Registration Form.
Sign and date your form. This is very important!
Mail or hand-deliver your completed form to the address we provide.
Make sure you register before the voter registration deadline.
Election Day registration N/A
Voting Rights restoration
If you have been convicted of a felony and have questions about whether you can register to vote, visit Restore Your Vote to determine your eligibility.
You are a Military or Overseas voter if you are in uniformed services, living overseas OR a spouse or dependent of a uniformed services voter. To get registered and vote, you can utilize Overseas Vote Foundation.
If you have additional questions about elections and voting overseas you can use our state specific elections official directory or contact the Overseas Vote Foundation.
Voting with Disabilities
The polling place for each precinct must meet accessibility standards under federal law.
The polling place must have facilities accessible to elderly voters and voters with disabilities so that these voters have the same opportunity for access, participation, privacy, and independence available to all voters. This includes:
Parking spaces marked and available for voters with disabilities with blue signage An accessible path to the facility that an individual travels to reach the polls Accessible entrances to the facility The paths of travel within the facility to the space where the voting systems are located The space in the facility where the voting systems are located
If you believe that the polling place for your precinct does not comply with accessibility requirements, contact your county election board as soon as possible to inform them about this problem. It may be possible for the board to make temporary or permanent changes to the polling place to make it more accessible for all voters.
For more information, you can utilize the American Association of People With Disabilities (AAPD) resource.
Early Voting
In-person early voting can be done at your board of elections beginning 28 days before Election Day and no later than 12:00 pm on the day before Election Day. Each county has their own schedules, so be sure to check what the dates and times are in your area.
Vote by Mail (Absentee)
Absentee ballot rules
You may vote by absentee ballot In Indiana if:
You have a specific, reasonable expectation that you will be absent from the county on Election Day during the entire 12 hours that the polls are open (6:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m.).
You have a disability.
You are at least 65 years of age.
You will have official election duties outside of your voting precinct.
You are scheduled to work at your regular place of employment during the entire 12 hours that the polls are open.
You are prevented from voting due to the unavailability of transportation to the polls.
You will be confined due to illness or injury or you will be caring for an individual confined due to illness or injury during the entire 12 hours that the polls are open.
You are prevented from voting because of a religious discipline or religious holiday during the entire 12 hours that the polls are open.
You are a participant in the state’s address confidentiality program.
You are a serious sex offender as defined in Indiana Code 35-42-4-14(a).
You are a member of the military or a public safety officer.
How to get Absentee ballot
Use our Absentee Ballot form below to prepare your application.
Sign and date the form. This is very important!
Return your completed application to your Local Election Office as soon as possible. We’ll provide the mailing address for you.
All Local Election Offices will accept mailed or hand-delivered forms. If it’s close to the deadline, call and see if your Local Election Office will let you fax or email the application.
Make sure your application is received by the deadline. Your application must actually arrive by this time — simply being postmarked by the deadline is insufficient.
Please contact your Local Election Office if you have any further questions about the exact process.
What to do next
Once you receive the ballot, carefully read and follow the instructions.
Sign and date where indicated.
Mail your voted ballot back to the address indicated on the return envelope.
Your voted ballot must arrive by the deadline or it will not be counted.
Absentee ballot application deadline
In Person: 1 day before Election Day
By Mail: 12 days before Election Day
Absentee ballot submission deadline
Received by noon on Election Day.
Absentee Ballot (form)
Elections Alert (Form)
Pollling Information
Polling Place Locator
If you have further questions on your polling place location, please contact your county clerk.
Polling Place Hours
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Polling places are open from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm on Election Day.
Poll Worker Information
In order to be a poll worker in Indiana, you must:
Be registered to vote in Indiana
Be at least 18 years of age (or 16/17 if participating in Election Day Live)
Be entitled to compensation
Be a resident of the precinct for the 30 days prior to the election
Connie Lawson is Indiana’s 61st Secretary of State. As Indiana’s Chief Elections Officer, she is focused on ensuring the integrity and security of our state’s elections. Since taking office, Secretary Lawson has championed sweeping election reforms, and has led the effort to clean Indiana’s voter rolls. A tireless advocate for increasing Indiana’s financial literacy and protecting Indiana investors, Secretary Lawson educates Hoosiers about smart money decisions and fights for stringent penalties for white collar criminals. She is also directing substantial innovation and leveraging cutting edge technology to improve how businesses interact with government by leading the charge on the state’s business one-stop portal.
Secretary Lawson is not just an advocate for election security. She is also working to modernize elections through vote centers. As a state Senator, Secretary Lawson authored legislation allowing any county in the state to move to the vote center model and no-excuse early voting for all. As Secretary of State, she works to educate voters and elected officials on the cost saving benefits and convenience of the vote center model, which allows voters to vote anywhere in their county and requires extra early voting locations. Thirty-five counties and counting have since made the decision to adopt vote centers.
She is committed to putting financial criminals behind bars, and believes that stronger financial literacy is the best way to protect Hoosiers from falling prey to scams. Hoosiers’ financial education is often overlooked, but Secretary Lawson is working to end this cycle by covering the taboo topic of money and providing free financial courses in high schools statewide.
She’s also working to modernize the way the state does business by creating INBiz, a nationally recognized one-stop business portal that serves as businesses’ single point of contact for registration, filing, reporting and making payments across state agencies.
Secretary Lawson lends her substantial leadership experience to help great organizations. She serves as Past President of the National Association of Secretaries of State, an honorary governor of the Richard G. Lugar Excellence in Public Service Series, the honorary chairwoman of the Lupus Foundation of Indiana, and a co-chair of the Hendricks County United Way.
Prior to serving as Secretary of State, Lawson served in the Indiana Senate for sixteen years, where she accomplished significant legislative success. Respected across the aisle, she quickly earned the admiration of her colleagues and made history in 2006 when she was selected as the first woman to serve as Majority Floor Leader in the Indiana Senate.
Before joining the Indiana Senate, Lawson served as Clerk of the Hendricks County Circuit Court for eight years. During her tenure, she was named elections administrator of the year by the Indiana State Election Board and clerk of the year by the Indiana Clerk’s Association, both in 1993.
As a public servant, Lawson has been a true inspiration to women in government, an agent of change for Indiana counties and a determined advocate for the prevention of diseases that would rob us of our loved ones. In addition to her public work, she and her husband Jack own Lawson & Company, an auctioneer and real estate company.
A coalition of voting-rights groups is sponsoring a contest for Indiana residents to draw new maps for congressional and legislative election districts across the state.
Voting-rights activists have complained the Republican-dominated Legislature isn’t involving the public enough in the redistricting work and that partisan gerrymandering has helped Indiana Republicans gain outsized power in state government.
The House and Senate both voted Thursday in favor of a bill extending the current legal deadline for adjourning this year’s legislative session from April 29 until Nov. 15.
Legislative leaders say they plan to end this year’s regular session in the coming week and then bring all lawmakers back later in order to determine new congressional and General Assembly districts.
The redistricting data isn’t expected to be released by the Census Bureau until August, at the earliest. The legal deadline for turning in the redistricting data was March 31, but the Census Bureau said it needed more time because of operational delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The bill now goes to Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb for consideration.
A coalition of voting-rights groups is sponsoring a contest for Indiana residents to draw new maps for congressional and legislative election districts across the state.
Voting-rights activists have complained the Republican-dominated Legislature isn’t involving the public enough in the redistricting work and that partisan gerrymandering has helped Indiana Republicans gain outsized power in state government.
The House and Senate both voted Thursday in favor of a bill extending the current legal deadline for adjourning this year’s legislative session from April 29 until Nov. 15.
Legislative leaders say they plan to end this year’s regular session in the coming week and then bring all lawmakers back later in order to determine new congressional and General Assembly districts.
The redistricting data isn’t expected to be released by the Census Bureau until August, at the earliest. The legal deadline for turning in the redistricting data was March 31, but the Census Bureau said it needed more time because of operational delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The bill now goes to Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb for consideration.
Monroe County confirmed 50 new COVID-19 cases Friday, the most recorded this week. On Thursday 17 cases were reported.
The state dashboard added one new death to the county’s total, now at 203.
The county has been in the yellow advisory for nearly two months. Its seven-day positivity rate is up to 4.8 percent Friday from 4.5 percent Thursday. The county has confirmed 15,599 cases since the pandemic began.
In District 8, which includes Monroe, Brown, and Bartholomew counties, 63 people are hospitalized with COVID-19, up from 59 Thursday. Hospitalizations are at their lowest level since the beginning of August.
Monroe County’s weekly cases per 100,000 are up to 121 from 92 last week. It’s the first increase per 100,000 the county has recorded since September.
Indiana
The state recorded 2,358 new COVID-19 cases Friday. The state has reported 1,030,291 COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic.
The Indiana Department of Health confirmed 37 COVID-19 deaths Friday. That brings the total to 16,336.
The state recorded 1,269 hospitalizations Friday, down from 1,312 Thursday.
The state’s seven-day positivity rate Friday is 7.6 percent, up from 7.5 percent Thursday.
The Indiana Department of Health announced the state surpassed 1 million confirmed COVID-19 cases.
The milestone coincides with the state reporting its fewest number of new cases since Aug. 1 – IDOH reported 701 new cases Monday.
From mid-April to July, Indiana averaged about 650 new cases per day. But during the delta surge, average daily cases more than quadrupled in August. September averaged nearly 3,500 a day.
But October’s daily average, so far, has plummeted to just about 2,031.
That aligns with decreases across the board for hospitalizations, cases and deaths after the late summer surge from the more infectious delta variant. Delta still accounts for 99.6 percent of sampled COVID-19 cases.
Indiana reported its most recent 100,000 cases in the last five weeks. Marion, Allen and Lake counties reported the most new cases with more than 4,000 each. Though, important to note: taking into account population, Lake County boasts the third lowest rate of cases per 10,000 residents.
Ohio, Warren and Benton counties reported the fewest, with less than than 150 new cases.
Indiana health officials reported 49 new COVID-19 cases Friday in the Monroe County area, up from 35 Thursday, and 29 Wednesday. Last week on Aug. 25, the county recorded 60 new cases –the highest number of new cases in a day since Feb. 3.
The county reported no new deaths Friday, and the total since the pandemic was declared in April 2020 is 187.
Indiana
The state recorded 5,079 new cases of COVID-19 Friday, down from 5,222 Thursday and up from 4,822 Wednesday. The number topped 5,000 most of last week, marking the highest number of daily cases since Jan. 9.
The Indiana Department of Health recorded 20 new deaths Friday – measuring the time from Aug. 27 to September 2. The state’s overall total is 14,121.
Indiana COVID-19 update April 29, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kalDWRwkz7w
Governor Holcomb Indiana COVID-19 update March 29, 2021
Monroe County confirmed 50 new COVID-19 cases Friday, the most recorded this week. On Thursday 17 cases were reported.
The state dashboard added one new death to the county’s total, now at 203.
The county has been in the yellow advisory for nearly two months. Its seven-day positivity rate is up to 4.8 percent Friday from 4.5 percent Thursday. The county has confirmed 15,599 cases since the pandemic began.
In District 8, which includes Monroe, Brown, and Bartholomew counties, 63 people are hospitalized with COVID-19, up from 59 Thursday. Hospitalizations are at their lowest level since the beginning of August.
Monroe County’s weekly cases per 100,000 are up to 121 from 92 last week. It’s the first increase per 100,000 the county has recorded since September.
Indiana
The state recorded 2,358 new COVID-19 cases Friday. The state has reported 1,030,291 COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic.
The Indiana Department of Health confirmed 37 COVID-19 deaths Friday. That brings the total to 16,336.
The state recorded 1,269 hospitalizations Friday, down from 1,312 Thursday.
The state’s seven-day positivity rate Friday is 7.6 percent, up from 7.5 percent Thursday.
The Indiana Department of Health announced the state surpassed 1 million confirmed COVID-19 cases.
The milestone coincides with the state reporting its fewest number of new cases since Aug. 1 – IDOH reported 701 new cases Monday.
From mid-April to July, Indiana averaged about 650 new cases per day. But during the delta surge, average daily cases more than quadrupled in August. September averaged nearly 3,500 a day.
But October’s daily average, so far, has plummeted to just about 2,031.
That aligns with decreases across the board for hospitalizations, cases and deaths after the late summer surge from the more infectious delta variant. Delta still accounts for 99.6 percent of sampled COVID-19 cases.
Indiana reported its most recent 100,000 cases in the last five weeks. Marion, Allen and Lake counties reported the most new cases with more than 4,000 each. Though, important to note: taking into account population, Lake County boasts the third lowest rate of cases per 10,000 residents.
Ohio, Warren and Benton counties reported the fewest, with less than than 150 new cases.
Indiana health officials reported 49 new COVID-19 cases Friday in the Monroe County area, up from 35 Thursday, and 29 Wednesday. Last week on Aug. 25, the county recorded 60 new cases –the highest number of new cases in a day since Feb. 3.
The county reported no new deaths Friday, and the total since the pandemic was declared in April 2020 is 187.
Indiana
The state recorded 5,079 new cases of COVID-19 Friday, down from 5,222 Thursday and up from 4,822 Wednesday. The number topped 5,000 most of last week, marking the highest number of daily cases since Jan. 9.
The Indiana Department of Health recorded 20 new deaths Friday – measuring the time from Aug. 27 to September 2. The state’s overall total is 14,121.
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The Indiana General Assembly is the state legislature, or legislative branch, of the state of Indiana. It is a bicameral legislature that consists of a lower house, the Indiana House of Representatives, and an upper house, the Indiana Senate. The General Assembly meets annually at the Indiana Statehouse in Indianapolis.
Members of the General Assembly are elected from districts that are realigned every ten years. Representatives serve terms of two years and senators serve terms of four years. Both houses can create bills, but bills must pass both houses before it can be submitted to the governor and enacted into law.
Currently, the Republican Party holds supermajorities in both chambers of the General Assembly. Republicans outnumber Democrats in the Senate by a 39-11 margin, and in the House of Representatives by a 71-29 margin.
