Brian Howey

I am a descendent of two Hoosiers who fought in the American Civil War. Two of my great-great grandfathers enlisted in Indiana regiments to preserve the United States. When an emerging Republican congressional “leader” – U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia – used “Presidents Day” to call for a “national divorce,” my first instinct…

The fact that there’s been 67 mass shooting events in the United States this year by this date (Feb. 16) is ample evidence that something is going terribly wrong. Things are haywire in American society. Now, consider this new phenomenon: Armed Hoosier toddlers. In January, a 4-year-old Beech Grove boy was seen in a shocking…

Indiana’s political scene is in distinct decline. Our congressional races are no longer competitive in General Elections, whereas in past decades there would be half a dozen or so of seat changes between Republicans and Democrats. Since the 2011 reapportionment, not a single congressional incumbent has been upset. Our General Assembly has become lop-sided. For…

When it comes to switching parties, the list is a long one and recently dominated by the Southland, which in the wake of the 1965 Great Society Voting Rights Act prompted an overt migration from the Democratic to the Republican party, as President Lyndon B. Johnson aptly predicted. The list includes some titanic American figures,…

To understand Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch’s governing philosophy, one only needs to look south of the Ford Center to the beautiful Stone Family Center for Health Sciences that houses the Indiana University School of Medicine’s southernmost regional campus. In 2012, then-State Rep. Crouch was in the process of dealing with a rare career setback. When…

In mid-May 2003, in what Howey Politics described as “Mitch Mania during Mitch Week,” it was President George W. Bush who coined the political slogan for a Hoosier generation. Daniels was the man of the hour when President Bush came to the Indiana State Fairgrounds. Bush lauded Daniels, his departing OMB director as “my man…

What we didn’t realize last June when the House Jan. 6 Committee began its hearings was that it was the recalcitrance of Vice President Pence that kept the American democracy as we knew it from unraveling before our disbelieving eyes. We didn’t realize that if Pence had caved to President Trump, delaying the Electoral College…

In gauging the dynamic of Trump/Pence 3.0, look no further than star-struck U.S. Rep. Jim Banks. “Donald Trump remains a very popular figure in the Republican Party in each corner of the country,” Banks told “Fox News Sunday” last weekend in the aftermath of Nov. 8. “I believe that Donald Trump was a very effective…

Indiana remains, essentially, a one-party state after Tuesday’s mid-term election. Republicans are poised to increase their state Senate and House super majorities; elected Diego Morales as secretary of state by a 14 percent plurality despite numerous allegations of vote fraud and sexual harassment, and came within several points of picking off the 1st Congressional District…

What do you get when you cross an elephant with RINO? It’s an ancient joke with a contemporary twist, with the answer rhyming with “Hell if I know!” But that seems to be the final homestretch tagline from pundits and operatives. As journalist Mark McKinnon observed on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” earlier this week, “Things are…