New Speaker For The Indiana House

todd-huston

INDIANAPOLIS – There’s a new Indiana House speaker, for the first time in 10 years:

Fishers Republican Todd Huston has been sworn in as the new House speaker, and will preside over the chamber for the final two days of the session. Huston’s been speaker-in-waiting since November, when Brian Bosma (R-Indianapolis) announced his intention to step down.

Huston will oversee the final negotiations on the remaining bills before Wednesday’s adjournment. He says he’s been in the loop on those discussions even before the official passing of the gavel. Even before Bosma announced his retirement plans, Huston says the former speaker had made him part of those final negotiations the last few years — Huston was House Republicans’ lead negotiator on the budget and other major bills last year, when he served as Ways and Means chairman. Huston says that’s given him a running start on the transition.

Huston says he’ll follow Bosma’s example in making it a priority to safeguard the institution itself.

Legislators must adjourn on Saturday but plan to wrap up the session three days early. Huston says negotiators have been reminded it’s time to make their final compromises and get ready to wrap things up. He quoted one of Bosma’s recurring catchphrases in his first speech from the rostrum, urging legislators to finish the session “early and under budget.”

Speaker Brian Bosma

Bosma gave his own farewell address from the floor, encouraging legislators to seek the best policy for the state and then work to build consensus, not the other way around. And he urged newer legislators to prepare themselves as leaders by immersing themselves in the details of the issues they’re most interested in.

Bosma’s 12 years in the job, the last 10 in a row, make him the longest-serving speaker in Indiana history. He plans to resign from the House sometime after the May primary.