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Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb said he is comfortable with the difficult decisions his administration made to shut down schools, businesses and public gatherings during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I don’t have any regrets because I was operating with the information that I had at the time,” Holcomb told reporters Wednesday following prepared remarks he made to the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense, a group formed in 2014 to conduct an assessment and make recommendations regarding U.S. biodefense efforts.
“I get it, to each their own. Everyone’s got an opinion,” he added. “I’m comfortable with the decisions that we made. Put yourself in a situation where you have multiple experts not agreeing with one another, and then you have to make the decision. And I was very comfortable. I slept well every night even though it was a very heavy time for our state and nation.”
The commission held a public meeting Wednesday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to discuss state and local efforts to strengthen public health and defenses to agricultural and biological threats.
In defending his administration’s response, Holcomb also pointed to the state’s strong economic rebound, which was due in part to federal stimulus funds.
His position stands in stark contrast with some held by leaders of his own party, who have said that Indiana waited too long to end COVID restrictions, to the detriment of small businesses, working families and children’s education.
U.S. Sen. Mike Braun, who is vacating his Senate seat to run for governor, introduced federal legislation earlier this month to ban federal mask mandates for schools, public transit systems and domestic air travel. The measure came following a surge in COVID cases in Indiana and across the U.S., stoking fears of possible mask mandates, lockdowns and other mitigation measures.
Braun has also promised to “never lockdown” the state if elected governor.
Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch, who is now running for governor, echoed Braun’s sentiment.
“Since COVID we’ve seen an increase in depression and anxiety among Hoosiers. If I’m elected governor, there will be no mask mandates or shut downs imposed on Hoosiers,” Crouch said in a statement to IBJ.
Former Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill, who is also running for governor, said he would not require people in public universities, businesses, government offices or churches to wear face coverings.
Eric Doden, a Fort Wayne businessman running for governor, said the freedom of Hoosiers “was traded for government overreach” during the pandemic.
“We were told to trust the science, which now shows that mask mandates and extended lockdowns were detrimental to our children and small businesses,” Doden said in a written statement to IBJ. “We won’t be doing any of that again under a Doden administration.”
In the 2021 legislative session, state lawmakers upset with pandemic restrictions gave themselves the power to intervene during public health emergencies. Holcomb filed a lawsuit in response, and the Indiana Supreme Court ruled that the law was unconstitutional.
Indiana’s COVID-19 restrictions were in line with many Republican-controlled states around the country. The statewide mask mandate was lifted in April 2021, when fewer than 10 states had rescinded such requirements. Additionally, Holcomb signed a bill banning state and local governments from requiring vaccine passports. Holcomb ended the state’s public health emergency on March 3, 2022.
Holcomb made public health a staple of his 2023 legislative agenda. State lawmakers approved about two-thirds of the money that Holcomb sought for a public health commission to address the state’s poor national rankings in areas such as life expectancy, smoking, obesity and improving local emergency services.
In his comments to the commission—which includes former lawmakers and public officials, including former Indiana Rep. Susan Brooks, who co-chaired Wednesday’s meeting—Holcomb also touched on Indiana’s vulnerability to public health threats and the state’s effort to land a tech hub.
Heartland Bioworks, a consortium of Hoosier stakeholders in the fields of advanced manufacturing and biotechnology, submitted an application to the United States Economic Development Administration for official designation as a Regional Technology and Innovation Hub.
“I would encourage this commission to consider the relevance of Bioworks, and others around the country, to our nation’s biodefense and biotech readiness,” Holcomb said. “This is the work that we’re doing, and it goes hand in glove with your mission. I think it will be complementary.”
Indiana was one of eight states selected for a U.S. Department of Defense regional technology and innovation hub that will be part of a federally funded national network of centers supporting domestic production of microelectronics, semiconductor manufacturing and other advanced technologies.
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Perhaps no person in the history of Indiana has violated more civil rights and hurt the next generation of Indiana children more than Governor Holcomb. The fact he claims “I slept well every night” shows he lacked the leadership or concern for Hoosiers. A real leader would have worried about the long term impact his decisions were making.
Exactly what civil rights did he violate. Please be specific. I don’t think you’ll be able to do so.
Nelson….. death is certainly a long term impact.
I disagree. I think he did well for the State of Indiana. Very well. I am a Democrat, and seldom have good things to say about Holcomb, and certainly not of any of the Republican bozos running to replace him. Indiana doesn’t have Disney World or the beaches, the only reason DeSantis could keep his state close to being on keel. And, I apologize to Bozo, who probably doesn’t deserve to have his name linked to what laughably we call potential governors. These men would destroy Indiana forever…
Not sure? Keep track of college graduates leaving Indiana upon graduation. If they thought there was a future here, they’d be staying. But they’ve left the farm and been to Paris, and now they’re not going back to the farm. Or anywhere else in Indiana
Eric was / is not a good Governor. His COVID response just showed how bad he was as a Governor. And he raised taxes
Yes, because what Indiana needed was Don Rainwater spending four years doing on the job training for a job he wasn’t qualified to handle.
Of course Hoosier voters turned right around and elected Diego Morales to office, and he’d already been fired from the office he now leads twice. His first action as Secretary of State was to hire his brother-in-law, a car salesman, to a six figure job. Who couldn’t have seen that coming?
And they also elected Todd Rokita, because they decided that he was in improvement over a bipartisan batterer of woman in Curtis Hill, so Todd could spend their tax dollars tilting at various windmills and losing what feels like 98% of his cases.
Go on telling me about how establishment Republicans are the worst thing happening in Indiana. Seems to me like they’re the only thing preventing the movie Idiocracy from happening in real life.
Eric was / is a GREAT governor. His mostly centris politics are what we need in Indiana. Of course that’s why the right wing extermists in Indiana don’t like him…. What taxes did he raise?
“We won’t trust the science in a Doden administration”.
What nonsense. Why don’t we also just close all the hospitals in Indiana while we are at and prohibit the practice of medicine too?
The cavalcade of stupid things said by 2024 Indiana gubernatorial candidates in a race to gain the affection of Republican primary voters is appalling. What’s the most frightening is that I think most of them have come around to believing this kind of nonsense, too.
Agree – “hurt the next generation of Indiana children ” – but they lived when so many others in states that were more lenient, didn’t. It’s hard t prove a negative, but masking and vaccines saved countless lives. Guess we learned nothing from the polio pandemic.
He loved the limelight like NY Gov Cuomo.
All about him and following the beloved Dr.Fauci, who funded the lab and the research that released Covid on us.
Put your tin hat back on buddy
Bernie – Please get the help you so desparately need.
Governor Holcomb did the best he could with the information that was being spewed out but people that probably did not have any business making such proclamations. They didn’t have the facts but pushed certain points of view. The sad part is that these views became so intransigent that no one would revisit them or re-evaluate them.
Like all these people who claims masks do not work… when in reality masks do not work unless 99.5% of the people in the room are wearing them and we live in a selfish society who values being uneducated over the greater good…
Can someone ask Hogsett and Craine the same question? IBJ, do you know any “journalists”?
Regardless of why he made decisions or what he knew at the time, what is so wrong about regretting that those decisions shuttered small businesses, put thousands out of work, and put the most vulnerable students further behind in their education? To say he has “no regrets”, and that “he slept well at night”, I see as a very flippant response to those that remain impacted. It says to me, “I really didn’t care, and still don’t care, about the negative impacts”. Lack of empathy much?