Indiana is headed towards a Legislative Special Session. Gov. Braun is not listening to Hoosiers who have overwhelmingly said
they do not want the congressional district map redrawn. This week we are asking everyone to call and write their senators to vote “No” on any redistricting proposal. This blatant power grab to silence voters is particularly egregious for rural communities already too often ignored by local and state government. Attempts to hold electeds accountable are often met with derision and disregard. How much more so will voters feel disenfranchised once the federal government overrides our own state legislators?
The following is a speech I gave at a rally in Salem (Washington Co.), Indiana. Brad Meyers, Candidate for Congressional District 9, invited me to speak about Rural Issues and the impacts of federal and state policies on our rural communities.
Greetings Congressional District 9! I’m Michelle Higgs. I’m a candidate for House District 60, which includes parts of Monroe, Morgan, and Johnson Counties. Greetings from Congressional Districts 4 and 6, which, for now, include HD 60. You can thank Republican gerrymandering for that.
Last year, I founded the Indiana Rural Summit, a grassroots coalition of candidates like myself, along with community leaders and volunteers, giving gerrymandered rural and small-town Hoosiers a voice, a choice, and a vote. Raise your hand if you live in a rural or small-town community. Now raise your hand if you think gerrymandering sucks.
I grew up in rural south Texas, in a farm house surrounded by cotton fields and orange groves. When I was a young teenager, my family moved to Martinsville, Indiana and I was introduced to living in a small town. I later had the opportunity to travel and ended up living in England and Los Angeles. When we returned to Indiana in 2016 to be near my aging parents, we moved to a rural part of Monroe County. I love Indiana but lately I’m worried that the opportunities for my family available in a big city will not be available here. A zipcode should not dictate your future.
People often say Rural is the proverbial “Canary in the Coal Mine” because what happens first in Rural is going to impact everyone else eventually. Maybe that’s because coal mines are often synonymous with rural communities.
When manufacturing jobs left America, the impact was felt in states like Indiana. Those jobs never returned. When the opioid epidemic hit, it hit hardest in rural and small-town communities because, as we now know, those communities were specifically targeted. Exploited labor had created chronic health problems that drug manufacturers like Purdue Pharma profited from. Those same communities were then stigmatized as morally failing due to drug addiction. When people wonder why rural folk do not trust drug manufacturers, it is because they have lied to them and hurt them before.
As the mental health crisis increased, these same communities saw providers leave. Self-medicating through drugs and alcohol was met with the same shame-based judgements that refuse to legalize Marijuana. Medicaid cuts now threaten the very hospitals and providers that address these harms.
When our Statehouse decided to make school vouchers universal, claiming the money goes with the child, they refused to acknowledge that most rural counties do not have any private or charter schools. That money simply leaves these public schools and goes to pay for wealthy families elsewhere.
The hospital where my brother was born no longer deliver babies. It’s now a regional cancer center. My hometown, once internationally known for its healing waters, became a superfund site. Sadly, the county is now trading valuable farmland and drinking water for a data center because technology is more profitable than food or homes. Small towns and rural spaces are now deemed expendable “for the good of the many”.
Rural is crying out for protection of water, protection of soil and farmland, protection from exploitation, protection for our families.
A fifth generation farmer following in his father’s footsteps, understands what it means to steward his land well. But now he also understands the devastation of tariffs and failed export policies. When asked, he summed up his farming experience this way, “It’s a wonderful way of life. [But] It’s a risk - and it shouldn’t be.”
It’s a risk. How many of us are feeling the weight of that sentence right now? When Congress passed the Horrible Ugly Bill, it put more and more of us at risk of losing an awful lot.
These are death-dealing policies. How’s that canary doing now?
Sometimes I think Indiana isn’t so much a rural state, like Montana or Wyoming, as much as it is a shuttered-small-town state. And that is sobering when you think about it. Recently I organized a “Motorcade for Medicaid” where we visited several southern Indiana hospitals at risk of closure due to federal budget cuts. Our group purposefully drove rural roads so we could experience what it would be like to navigate them in an emergency. Between lost cell phone coverage and road closure detours, there were times we felt lost. I can only imagine what that would be like during a medical emergency. We counted up the number of Casey’s Gas stations, liquor stores and Dollar Generals that made up multiple towns. And like the blight empty shopping malls and chain stores are to urban communities, rural starts to have a similar pattern - derelict building, near torn down barn, Casey Gas station, liquor store, Dollar General. They are lucky. Once the last store goes, the town disappears.
We all have basic needs that build upon themselves: first food and water, then shelter and warmth, then healthcare, then education and opportunity. When you think of it, Congress, in passing the Horrible, Ugly Bill and supporting Trump’s DOGE cuts and Project 2025 policies has actually worked its way backward, dismantling first Opportunity, then Education, then Healthcare, then Housing, then Food, and ultimately Water and Air.
What we are lacking is a vision for what a robust rural and small-town community could look like in the 21st century.
I tell folks if a policy works for Rural, it will work everywhere. Because for policies to work in Rural, they must be intentionally focused on what protects the earth and on what benefits people. So let’s bring back a commitment for Broadband that expands opportunity for remote employment and let’s bring back robust education funding that protects the heartbeat of our rural communities, our public schools. Let’s reimagine housing, especially in our small towns, that is community focused, not developer initiated and solely profit driven. Let’s invest in rural healthcare, recognizing it’s a major employer that puts doctors and providers closer to their patients. Let’s commit to renewable energy as a way of increasing energy independence so people do not need to choose between food on their table or keeping the lights on. And let’s protect our most valuable resources of air, water and soil for the nourishment of life and the health of future generations of Hoosiers. These are more than just policy decisions. They are moral choices that say we choose People over Profiteers.
The Profiteers try to divide us. Gerrymandering tries to divide us. But the Indiana Rural Summit’s slogan - E Pluribus Unum…Out of Many, One reminds us of who we are. We are One in speaking truth to power! We are One in reclaiming our voice! And we are One in telling our elected officials like Rep. Erin Houchin to DO YOUR DAMN JOB, reopen government and release the Epstein files.
Together let’s build a stronger Indiana, one where everyone, no matter where they live, can thrive. When I say E Pluribus Unum, you say “Out of Many, One!”
E Pluribus Unum…Out of Many, One!
E Pluribus Unum…Out of Many, One!!
E Pluribus Unum…Out of Many, One!!!
