Eric Holcomb seemed to be in his comfort zone.
The Indiana governor was at a table in the back room at Nick’s last Thursday afternoon, having a one-on-one conversation about issues facing the state and a few other topics. He’s relaxed in this format, in this place, in this kind of give-and-take about the job he’s had for just three months.
He likes to get out and talk with people, he said, adding he doesn’t plan to change because he’s governor. He won’t stay isolated in Indianapolis, which should be no surprise; he’s a basketball-loving Hoosier who’s proud of hitting a basket in all 92 counties in the state.
He was “feeling good” about how the Indiana General Assembly was going and sees collaboration between leadership and membership, the Senate and the House, Republicans and Democrats. He said he’s talking to a lot of people, and that talking to everybody leads to progress. He wants everyone to feel comfortable offering ideas and suggestions.
“Too often, ideas are dismissed if they come from an R or a D,” he said. “That isn’t the case in this administration, and it won’t be.”
He referred to the five priorities he set out in his State of the State speech. “Pillars,” he calls them: to cultivate a strong and diverse economy; fund a long-term roads and bridges plan; develop a 21st century skilled and ready workforce; attack the drug epidemic; and provide great government service at a great value to taxpayers.
He said he may add a sixth pillar: a healthy dose of civility.
This wasn’t a stump speech. He answered questions that he must have known he would get in Bloomington, like why he was so outspoken in favor of rolling back tougher environmental rules from the Obama administration.
“Where do you want the control to rest?” he asked, noting Indiana has made significant strides on solar, wind and other forms of alternative energy. But he said he believes clean coal can and must be part of the state’s energy mix.
“We are a state that does sit on a lot of coal,” he said. The goal is to burn that coal in the cleanest way possible, he said, and he doesn’t want a federal rule to exclude that option.
He sees the health care issue in a similar way, with no single federal solution working for everyone. He thinks states can serve as laboratories in which solutions better than the Affordable Care Act can arise, and he pointed to Indiana’s Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP 2.0) as an example. He said if the federal government would “give us the right flight plan,” the state will develop a plan to provide better quality care with more flexibility and cost controls.
Even though Vice President Mike Pence is his former boss, he kept some distance between himself and Washington party politics.
“I’m proud to be an Indiana Republican focused on taking this state to the next level,” he said when asked about the uneasy relationship between Trump and the GOP establishment. “People like the sense of certainty, sanity and civility. What Washington, D.C., is lacking, we have in abundance.” He stressed he was talking about both sides of the political aisle.
It’s been said and written that when Pence was governor, his decisions were based in ideology. Not so much for Holcomb, though he claims ideology on one particular issue.
He’s not satisfied with the amount of state funding going to high quality preschool for low-income children. He recommended doubling the amount in a pilot project to $20 million, but a Senate proposal cut that commitment considerably. He said the issue isn’t dead.
“This is ideological with me,” he said of prioritizing high-quality preschool for all kids. “What I know is, we have to continue our forward motion. I know the journey starts with one step.”
He was asked what has surprised him in his first three months as governor.
“Two things,” he said. One is the loss of anonymity, which he had anticipated to a degree. It still surprises him when he’s recognized at a drive-through window or in the bleachers at a basketball game.
The second is the power an individual has when they share information with him. Not the power he has, but the power that information has on him.
“If somebody tells me their brother died of a heroin overdose, that stays with me,” he said as an example. It makes him want to work harder to address the state’s opioid issue, one of his pillars. He feels the governor ought to be able to help.
That desire to help also framed “the three h’s” he looked for in interviewees who applied to work for him in state government: honest, humble, hungry. When asked to explain “hungry,” he said there are no more easy problems to solve; no more “low-hanging fruit.” He wants people who want to climb the tree to get the apple.
“This is not some political journey people can join,” he said. “I need people who want to make tomorrow better for people than what they have today.”