GOP gubernatorial candidates Mike Braun, pictured after winning the May 7 primary election, has repeatedly emphasized the control he’d hold in the constitutionally weak office. (Whitney Downard/Indiana Capital Chronicle)
If voters elect Mike Braun to be the next Republican governor for the state of Indiana, he wants them to know that he’ll be in charge.
As the founder and CEO of Meyer Distributing, the sitting U.S. Senator likens his gubernatorial leadership style to that of a business executive — promising to review every state agency to identify more efficient operating methods in order to save taxpayers money.
“To me, if you want to have a product that you’re going to be pleased with, you need to be involved with it. Not on everything, but on the key stuff,” Braun said.
But if government is a business, that makes the General Assembly a quasi-board of trustees — one that holds the purse strings and also holds more power than the executive office when it comes to putting priorities into action.
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Previously, Braun brushed aside such concerns, saying it wouldn’t be the case for a “spark plug” like him. Clad in his favored blue shirt, the politician doubled down in a recent interview with the Indiana Capital Chronicle at the state headquarters for the Indiana Republican Party in downtown Indianapolis, saying he’d be more hands on with lawmakers than even former Gov. Mitch Daniels.
“That’s the way I run my business and my Senate office. I’m one that feels comfortable with putting the mission statement, the strategy, out there. I always pay attention to the details without being swamped by them, and then get entrepreneurial people to come along for the ride,” Braun said.
Recent governors, including Gov. Eric Holcomb, weigh in less during the legislative process. Holcomb, for example, traditionally doesn’t comment on pending legislation until it hits his desk for a signature.
Even if Braun opted to veto something, legislators can easily overrule his veto with a simple majority vote — something they repeatedly did with Holcomb.
Braun also vowed that executive actions, one of the ways governors can bypass lawmakers — would be reserved for minor action, not major overhauls. When the General Assembly was in recess during COVID-19, Holcomb repeatedly used executive orders to keep certain agencies functioning and restrict public gatherings.
Adding another wrinkle to Braun’s leadership style is his running mate: pastor and self-described Christian nationalist Micah Beckwith. Most recently, Beckwith made headlines when he said the Democratic, female-led ticket invoked a “Jezebel spirit,” a biblical term used to insult women.
Republican lieutenant governor candidate Micah Beckwith speaks on the debate stage on Tuesday, August 13, 2024. (Leslie Bonilla Muñiz/Indiana Capital Chronicle)
Beckwith told State Affairs Indiana that he believed the role of lieutenant governor had become too ceremonial and he wouldn’t hesitate to speak out against Braun if he strayed from Beckwith’s conservative values.
From the start, Braun maintained that he would still be the state’s leader regardless of Beckwith’s actions.
“Obviously, in this state, a governor is going to call the shots,” said Braun, defending himself during a debate earlier this month.
Beckwith would be first-in-line for the governor’s seat and 70-year-old Braun would be the oldest governor elected in state history.
Recent campaign missteps — including a digitally altered attack ad that Braun’s team had to revise twice — combined with polling that shows a narrowing gap between Braun and Democrat Jennifer McCormick has prompted national affiliates to pump money into the race.
Initially, the Republican Governors Association put $250,000 into the race, but this week tripled that gift in a second round for a total of $1 million in contributions after the Democratic Governors Association gave McCormick $600,000.
From CEO to governor
Braun’s emphasis on efficiency extends to the state’s smaller units of government, including the cities, towns and schools that rely on property taxes. His plan to curb property tax growth drew criticism from those who said it’d take too much from local budgets that fund law enforcement and roads.
Braun has additionally hedged on whether schools need more state funding, instead saying he believed there were more efficient ways for local districts to operate. One way previously floated by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, but rejected by lawmakers, would combine small school districts and pool their resources — something Braun didn’t appear to support.
“I don’t think you’re going to have many rural schools wanting to consolidate. For them, they’ll have to probably figure out how they might share administration with other schools — I think that would make sense. I don’t know that you need your own school board, necessarily, for every school,” said Braun, whose first elected position was on his local school board.
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“I’m talking more about each school unit, what you can do … to see if there are ways that we can reduce the administration, the operating expenses, the construction costs (and) we’re going to try to put more resources into the classroom itself,” he continued.
But Braun has been vocal about his support for expanded school vouchers. Despite having a campaign foundation arm staffed with proponents of school choice, the candidate said he hasn’t yet “made any commitment or promises” to anyone about who he’d appoint to lead the Department of Education.
Thus far, none of Braun’s gubernatorial proposals have included fiscal estimates. But he told the Capital Chronicle that his first priority would be protecting the state’s “structurally good cash flow” and better managing the revenue from taxpayers.
On top of that, he said he’d make it easier for residents to register complaints about agencies, likening Hoosiers to customers of a business.
Braun also points to his business as an example of how he’d tackle health care reform, boosting that premiums for his employees have stayed flat in the high-deductible plan — which some employees have previously called “not real insurance.”
In Congress, health care has been a target for the Republican, including a recent confrontation about drug prices that criticized pharmacy benefit managers. In a detailed gubernatorial plan to tackle rising health care costs, Braun waded into several contentious statehouse debates and argued on behalf of actions previously opposed by hospital associations and others.
Back home in Jasper
Though Braun would live during the week at the governor’s mansion in Indianapolis, he said he would continue to go home every weekend to his Jasper home — which he tried to do as often as possible while working in Washington D.C.
Braun’s presence in Jasper is evident in downtown, where a public gathering area across from the courthouse bears his name. Signs along the highway into town promote his campaign alongside anti-abortion promotions and opposition to the Mid-States Corridor.
A few steps away from the Braun-sponsored gathering area, Robert James sat on a shaded bench waiting for a mechanic to finish a car repair. He had only recently moved to Braun’s hometown from Mississippi, but James was “worried about everything” when it came to national and state campaign platforms and said he’d be voting Republican in the fall.
“I’m not against Democrats. But their ideas … they’re too far on the horizon and it sacrifices what we need to get along in the world today,” said James, a retired veteran.
A plaque in downtown Jasper notes that the Braun family paid for the space, which sits across from the Dubois County Courthouse. (Whitney Downard/Indiana Capital Chronicle)
James questioned the patriotism of the Democratic party, asking whether “they believed there’s somewhere better than this? They’d better think again.
“This is the best place in the world to live,” he concluded. “I can’t believe the amount of people who would sacrifice that.”
Specific concerns for James included the economy, border security and the lost sense of security. Jasper seemed to be safe, he emphasized, saying he loved the town he’d moved to in order to be closer to his daughter.
Immigration was also a point of concern for Dubois County Public Health Department staffers Katie Schnaus and Kristen Eckerle. Immigrants, including those with a documented status, came to the area for jobs but didn’t realize the county didn’t have the same level of resources available.
“We don’t have support for them locally,” Schnaus said, listing housing, language barriers and health needs as top concerns.
“We are the safety net so we try to do what we can,” Eckerle said, adding that transportation services were nearly nonexistent.
Braun has consistently named the nation’s southern border as one of his chief priorities, claiming that President Joe Biden’s failures on the national level have made “every state a border state.” Kamala Harris is Biden’s vice president.
“Under the (former President Donald) Trump administration, we had taken illegal immigration to record lows. As soon as the Biden-Harris administration got in there, it was open borders and the consequences of that has been chaos,” Braun said in a debate earlier this month.
Following an executive action by Biden following a failed Senate proposal, undocumented immigration at the southern border has again fallen to the same lows seen during Trump’s presidency.
He has pushed for stricter border control as part of his campaign platform and vowed to continue activating units with the Indiana National Guard to assist border states with their efforts — something Holcomb has also done.
Braun will face McCormick and Libertarian Donald Rainwater on the gubernatorial ballot; Election Day is Nov. 5.
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