Leadership at a crossroads: Holcomb talks about his tumultuous eight years as governor

Leadership at a crossroads: Holcomb talks his tumultuous eight years as governor

By Arianna Hunt, TheStatehouseFile.com

In a little over 600 hours, Governor Eric Holcomb leaves office, making one of the final significant events of his tenure the execution of Joseph Corcoran for the murder of four people in 1997.

“It’s very somber, something that you just do not look forward to,” said Holcomb, who in June joined Attorney General Todd Rokita in calling for Indiana to resume capital punishment. “But understand that when you run for the job, the law of the land here, that ultimate act of justice is part of the job.”

Holcomb said he has been transparent since before he started his governorship that he personally believes in the death penalty for crimes such as Corcoran’s. Corcoran had been on death row since 1999 for the murder of his older brother, his sister’s fiancé and their two friends, and he was executed Wednesday morning a little after 12 a.m.

“If folks want to change, there’s a means available to change,” Holcomb said. “Some, some folks, their hearts and minds have changed on this issue, and they may seek to change it, and there’s a process for that, and that’ll start in January, before we know it.”

Holcomb sat down with TSF last week for a one-on-one interview to reflect on some of his past, present and future moments as Indiana’s 51st governor. Over the past eight years, Holcomb has focused on economic and workforce development, signed a near total abortion ban into law, created Indiana’s first Office of Drug Prevention, Treatment & Enforcement to combat the opioid crisis, reduced infant mortality rates, and lead the state through the COVID-19 pandemic, a divisive Trump presidency, and protests after the death of George Floyd.

And in the final months of Holcomb’s time in office, Indiana reclaimed the means necessary to carry out executions for the first time in 15 years.

Execution has been legal in Indiana since its reinstatement in 1977, but after lethal injection became the primary method of execution, it hasn’t been easy for the state to obtain the drugs necessary. For years, Indiana has struggled to find a company willing to supply the drug because of the bad press associated with it, which is why the supplier now is by law anonymous.

For many Hoosiers, this announcement may have seemed unexpected, but Holcomb says it was a years-long process necessary for his role as governor.

“I viewed it as if you run for this job, there are a lot of things that may not be your favorite, or they may be your least favorite,” he said. “This may be my least favorite decision to ultimately make, but I know my own convictions, my what I subscribe to. [I’ve] been very transparent about that from day one and was asked about this before I ever ran for the job.

“So if anything, I would have viewed it as you’ve, you said one thing before you were elected, and now you’re saying something else, or you’re not doing the job that you were elected to do.”

‘Indiana is on the move’

Indiana has hit over $39 billion of committed capital investment this year and last year hit $28 billion, 70% from foreign direct investment. Notable projects include the $800 million Meta data center near Jeffersonville and a $13 billion contribution from Eli Lilly and Company into the LEAP Innovation District.

“Because (companies have) 49 other states to choose from, and more countries than that, and for us to be again right in the core, the middle of it all really shows that Indiana is on the move,” he said.

Holcomb has spent a lot of time overseas facilitating foreign economic development for Indiana.

“I was sitting in Kuwait City recently … and talking with five different businesses and leaders in those businesses, and a gentleman in the energy sector asked, ‘What do you think the two most important issues are for growth in your state?’ I said it is access to water and power,” Holcomb said. “Workforce has always been No. 1 to me and for years, workforce access to high talent. Now, if you don’t have the power and the water, you don’t get to the workforce question.”

For two years, Lebanon, Indiana, has made headlines for a proposed 35-mile pipeline that could pump up to 100 million gallons of water a day from the Wabash aquifer to support development of the LEAP Innovation and Research District. The district is expected to bring in thousands of new jobs and nearly double the size of the city.

Residents and surrounding communities have been concerned about what they see as a lack of transparency around the plan and if there is enough water to sustain their local communities plus the development of others for generations to come.

Holcomb said the most recent Wabash-area water study will be finished before he leaves office, but he said current data indicates the region will have the water and power to carry out the development.

“Because what’s at stake is … not just the career opportunities for real families, good, high paying salaries, but ultimately winning the AI (artificial intelligence) or the quantum war,” he said.

The quantum war refers to the race to make fully functional quantum computing technology for solving problems and processing data that normal computers cannot.

“And for a state like Indiana, that’s a very patriotic state, to be able to compete and play a part in making sure that the quantum race, the AI race, and all the good or bad that it can bring—it’s a sword and shield,” he said. “We not only need to but we want to, and we can play a primary role in technological development.”

Uncharted territory

Criticized for being too passive when he reopened Indiana in September 2020—a month after COVID-19 became the third leading cause of death in the U.S.—and for trampling on rights by “overstepping his authority” through restrictions and shutting down businesses, Holcomb’s administration was responsible for Indiana throughout COVID-19, something that he says he doesn’t regret.

“I’ve said this, and maybe it doesn’t sit well with some, but I’m extremely proud of our administration’s conduct during COVID-19,” he said. “And I’m not making excuses, but we were facing something that almost no one alive had faced since 1918, and facts were coming in and changing, and direction was being put out by multiple sources, including our federal government.

“We were following those guidelines and implementing our own plans to balance lives and livelihoods.”

From March 6, 2020, when Holcomb declared a public health emergency, to March 3, 2022, when he signed a bill to end the public health emergency, Indiana faced significant challenges, including over 25,000 deaths. Still, Holcomb says the state has made a strong recovery and has a lot to look forward to.

“We’re experiencing unprecedented growth on multiple fronts, and so for the critics, I understand. I was never going to get 100% agreement,” he said. “It was different. It was hard. It was seemingly neverending there for a while. It required people to come together when the natural tendency when you’re in an unknown environment is for some to blame others.”

Even with the criticism, he says his supporters were stronger.

“Oh, by the way, not to be petty, but I ran for re-election after COVID-19 when the population in Indiana had a chance to express what they thought, and received more votes than anyone that’s ever run for governor in the history of our state,” he said.

“So when you say a lot of people disagreed with the state’s actions during COVID-19, you’re right, but that’s relative because a whole lot more people said keep going.”

Finishing the job

When Holcomb leaves the crown molding, the seal of Indiana and his portrait freshly hung on the wall in his Washington Street office, he says the end of this chapter is just the beginning of the next one.

“I will take a step back and spend time with my wife for a couple of months and then start to really evaluate different options and potential opportunities that have come my way,” he said. “But I’m very disciplined about saying, ‘Let me finish the job I have.'”

Arianna Hunt and Connor Burress are reporters for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news site powered by Franklin College journalism students.