There was a basic fact about Mike Pence that made him deeply different from his predecessor, Daniels—and for that matter his successor, Eric Holcomb—even if all three were committed Republicans: Pence was fixated on social issues. However they felt about these matters, Daniels and Holcomb were generally strategic enough to keep them in the background while focusing on more tangible gains that could make the state better off. Whatever partisan gain they might have secured by playing to their base with red meat on issues like abortion and LGBT equality, they mostly concentrated on the kind of consensus policies that mayors and cities appreciate most, like economic development or road funding.
Pence, by contrast, could not limit himself to these issues. Maybe it had to do with the years he had spent in Congress, where the Washington environment rewards and punishes various behaviors very differently than for executive branch leaders. He had made his name in the House as a partisan warrior specializing in anti-abortion and anti-LGBT legislation, and even challenged John Boehner from the right for the position of minority leader in 2006. Perhaps this instinct was hard to shake off as he transitioned to becoming a governor. Or maybe it’s just who he is, a deeply conservative politician who had shifted from Catholicism to evangelical Christianity as a young man and has described himself as “Christian, conservative, and Republican, in that order.” Business leaders and mayors in Indiana had hoped that after leaving Congress, as a governor now and a rumored presidential aspirant, he might ease up on divisive social issues and focus on concrete results for the state. But, given his makeup, perhaps a divisive cultural clash was just a matter of time.
When Mike Pence told me and a few other Democratic and Republican mayors that he was planning to sign the proposed “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” because it was “in my heart that it’s the right thing to do,” I believed him. (Not that it was the right thing to do, of course, but that this was in his heart.) We weren’t there to talk about religious freedom, gay rights, or any other social issue. As president of the Indiana Urban Mayors Caucus, I had come with a small delegation of mayors from around the state, mainly to try to get movement on road funding and make sure the legislature wouldn’t interfere with our ability to use tax increment financing for economic development. In the large, wood-paneled room that is the Indiana governor’s office, he hosted us graciously, warmly greeting each mayor as we stepped onto the blue carpet and saying something nice to each of us as we took a seat at his long conference table. We reviewed local priorities like tax issues and progress on the Regional Cities effort, and then, as the meeting ended, he changed the subject to the proposed bill.
I wish I could say I made a good effort to talk him out of it, but it was clear from the look in his eyes that he had made up his mind. It was also clear that he had no idea what a backlash the bill could provoke, not just from progressives but also from business-oriented Republicans. The language of the bill seemed innocent enough: “a governmental entity may not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion,” unless there is a compelling governmental interest at stake. But “person” was defined to include companies, building on the legal theory of the 2014 Supreme Court Hobby Lobby case, which interpreted federal law as giving corporations the same religious rights as people.
Effectively, this meant that any place of business, from a restaurant to an auto mechanic shop, could refuse to serve an LGBT individual or couple, provided its owner cited religion as the motivation for discriminating. It could even be interpreted to protect an EMT or physician denying care to a gay patient. And it would wipe out South Bend’s own local ordinance, passed in 2012, which prohibited workplace and housing discrimination against LGBT residents. Despite the name, its purpose was not to “restore” religious freedom—after all, religious freedom is already guaranteed in the Constitution. The bill’s actual purpose, its sponsors would later reveal, was to legalize discrimination.
ON MARCH 25, 2015, a photograph appeared showing Governor Pence, seated at his desk in that same office where he had met with our little group of mayors, signing the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” into law. Surrounding him was an anachronistic-looking group of nuns in habits, monks in cloaks, and other figures in religious garb, as well as a few men in suits whom reporters quickly recognized as the best-known anti-LGBT political activists in Indiana. The bill he signed amid that assemblage would remain intact for all of one week before Pence was forced to change course. And the national controversy he detonated from that stately desk would simultaneously destroy his credibility with many American moderates, and set him on an improbable path to the vice presidency.
The effect on our economic image was immediate and destructive: Pence had set the Silicon Prairie on fire. Until then, Indiana had managed to create a reputation as a somewhat forward-looking place to do business, thanks to a fiscally disciplined state government, low taxes, and livable communities. A nascent tech sector in South Bend was rean imating the once-moribund Studebaker corridor with data centers and start-ups. In Indianapolis, recruiting educated talent was paramount as its life sciences sector grew and was joined by a number of Internet companies drawn to the favorable business environment.
Our state was known to be a little old-fashioned—until 2018 it remained unlawful here to buy alcohol from a store on Sundays—but the growth in Indiana cities had started to make our state look like an appealingly modern place for people to build jobs, lives, and families. If anything, we had created a sense that Indiana was a place where homespun tradition and cultural modernity might coexist, like the hipster selling small-batch chocolate in a stall next to the old farmer with his eggs and pickles at the Farmer’s Market in South Bend. Part of the appeal of our state was that you could work up an appetite visiting covered bridges or attending a truck pull in Owen County, then fill up on farm-to-table pub food at Upland Brewery half an hour away in Bloomington. Add in the lower taxes and cost of living, and we could even set our sights on luring young professionals from Chicago and elsewhere who were looking for a vibrant but more livable place to put down roots.
Nothing could be more fatal to this image than for our state to become known as a place that sanctioned discrimination. To many, it called to mind the ugliest demons of our state’s past, hearkening back to the days a century earlier when the Indiana branch of the Ku Klux Klan became the most powerful political force in our state, with half the members of the Indiana state legislature on its rolls, largely based on a message that emphasized social issues like gambling, adultery, and prohibition.
Horrified mayors from both parties swiftly joined business leaders to denounce the bill. Greg Ballard, the Republican mayor of Indianapolis, joined four predecessors going back all the way to Dick Lugar in a statement that they were “distressed and very concerned” about the law. The CEOs of our most significant companies, from the engine maker Cummins to the tech firm Angie’s List, put out similar messages. The story quickly went national. On Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update,” RFRA was the top story, with Colin Jost joking that any company taking advantage of the right to discriminate would be easily recognized by a GOING OUT OF BUSINESS sign.
The fallout accelerated through the week. The NCAA signaled it might drop Indiana as a venue for major events, and even NASCAR put out a statement that it was “disappointed.” One of the newest major employers for the Indianapolis region, Salesforce.com, said it would cancel a major planned expansion into Indiana. And, denouncing “outright bigotry in Indiana,” the governor of Connecticut went as far as to ban his employees from traveling to our state on taxpayer funds.
The next Sunday morning, I was barefoot in sweatpants at home, watching TV before getting dressed for the day’s events. A beleaguered-looking Pence appeared on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, trying to reassure a national audience that the bill was not about discrimination. The interview was a disaster. When Stephanopoulos asked, “Do you think it should be legal in the state of Indiana to discriminate against gays or lesbians?” Pence paused, and winced. “George . . .” he began, then sighed.