SUMMARY:
Two weeks out from Election Day and, unintentionally, it’s “Fire Week” on HoosLeft. Thursday night, we’ll talk with volunteer firefighter and State House candidate Josh Burbrink, but tonight’s guest is State Representative Randy Novak, a 33-year veteran of the Michigan City Fire Department who rose to fire chief before being caucused into Indiana’s House District 9 last October, succeeding retiring Rep. Pat Boy. Novak and Scott trade stories from his firefighting and LaPorte County Council career — including organizing a daily COVID-era information-sharing call with regional officials — before widening out into the state of the union: the collapse of political decorum and the open intimidation Novak has watched colleagues absorb at the Statehouse, a shared diagnosis (arrived at from very different directions) that both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders tapped into a real sense that the system is rigged for the few, and decades of “socialism” as a meaningless slur aimed at everything from Social Security to teacher pay. Novak, a self-described union man and “simple person” who’s spent 40 years in public service, digs into Indiana’s property-tax overhaul (SEA 1) and its squeeze on fire departments and schools, his own bill updating 1981-era volunteer firefighter stipends, the data-center boom reshaping LaPorte County, and his push to strip data centers’ sales-tax exemption on electricity to ease the burden on NIPSCO ratepayers — all while arguing public utilities should never have been handed to private investors in the first place.
Progressive Indiana Network: https://progressiveindiana.net
HoosLeft: https://hoosleft.us
Randy Novak: https://www.electrandynovak.com/
WHAT’S INSIDE:
00:00:20 Introduction
Scott marks two weeks to Election Day and previews this week’s Thursday bonus episode with HD-59 candidate and volunteer firefighter Josh Burbrink, before introducing tonight’s guest: Randy Novak, a 33-year Michigan City Fire Department veteran and retired chief who went on to lead the LaPorte County Council and was caucused into Indiana House District 9 (Michigan City, northern LaPorte County, and eastern Porter County) after the retirement of Rep. Pat Boy.
00:03:24 One Year In: The Caucus Process
Rep. Novak joins the show.
Novak marks his first anniversary in office and walks through how his caucus worked across two counties’ party chairs, arguing a caucus makes more sense than a costly special election for a two-year House term.
00:06:24 Who Is Randy Novak?
Novak introduces himself: 47 years married, joined a volunteer fire department in 1981 and the Michigan City Fire Department in 1986, served 33-plus years including as union president and a pension-oversight appointee under Speaker B. Patrick Bauer, retired as fire chief, and still chairs the LaPorte County Fire Chiefs Association representing 16 volunteer and two career departments.
00:08:14 Michigan City Roots and the Toughest Calls
Scott and Novak swap commiserate about their shared Michigan City roots and Randy remembers the toughest calls of his career, including a Seventh Street apartment fire where a wall collapse badly injured a fellow firefighter.
00:10:35 Universally Beloved Public Servants
Scott and Novak reflect on the broad public respect for firefighters, with Novak drawing a contrast between fire service (”we come, and we’re problem solvers”) and law enforcement.
00:11:25 Organizing Indiana’s COVID Response
Novak describes organizing a weekly, hour-long Zoom call of up to 75 regional officials — school superintendents, hospital administrators, health departments — during COVID to centralize information LaPorte County otherwise lacked, and says he’d like to revive the model.
00:14:32 End Times Fascism and the Shape of the Moment
Scott cites End Times Fascism by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor, framing the current moment as religious extremism, tech-billionaire “neo-feudalism,” and the climate crisis all burning at once.
00:15:58 A Fever in the Heartland: Echoes of the 1920s Klan
Scott references Timothy Egan’s A Fever in the Heartland, on 1920s Klan leader D.C. Stephenson’s rise in Indiana, and worries the embers of that era’s extremism were never fully put out.
00:17:06 A Hopeful Breeze Across Indiana
Novak says he senses a refreshing political shift in the state after a long dry spell, and Scott notes a surge of new political engagement.
00:18:25 Political Intimidation and the Death of Decorum
Novak describes a shift from private arm-twisting to public, televised threats against members who won’t toe the line, and says he’d rather go home than be “a puppet.”
00:22:47 Business-Friendly vs. Citizen-Friendly, and the Road to Trump
Scott and Novak discuss Indiana’s “business-friendly” branding and the state’s gutting of IDEM environmental regulations, then trace a line from the 1980s repeal of the Fairness Doctrine through talk radio, Fox News, and social media to Trump exploiting the resulting outrage machine.
00:25:08 Trump, Bernie Sanders, and a Rigged System
Scott argues Trump and Bernie Sanders both tapped into the same real grievance — a system rigged for the wealthy few — despite vastly different prescriptions.
00:25:55 Union Pride and “A Thousand Millionaires”
Novak, a former Teamster and 33-year IAFF member whose wife retired from a union job at American Airlines, calls unions the last thing holding up the middle class and relays a line from Senator Rodney Pol: if Elon Musk moved his 14 kids to Indiana, they’d each get a $10,000 school voucher.
00:28:07 Privatizing Public Goods: Charter Schools
Scott and Novak argue Indiana has defunded and tried to privatize public goods, starting with schools, even though 90% of Hoosier kids attend public school and the strongest-performing states have well-funded public systems; Novak faults education bills from Indianapolis-area Rep. Bob Behning‘s committee for not fitting the state’s other 91 counties.
00:31:34 “Socialism for the Charter Schools”
Novak notes closing public schools must be offered to charter operators for a dollar regardless of what taxpayers paid to build them, prompting Scott’s line that this is “socialism for the charter schools.”
00:32:24 A Century of Red-Scare Tactics
Scott traces a century of Republicans branding anything benefiting the many as “socialism” — Social Security, Medicare, and more — arguing the label has been rendered nearly meaningless.
00:33:27 Make America Great Again, Revisited
Scott argues MAGA nostalgia for the 1950s ignores that the era’s prosperity rested on high union density, a 90% top marginal tax rate, and massive public investment like the interstate system — all policy choices, not accidents.
00:35:00 Minimum Wage and a Firefighter Stipend Bill
Novak highlights Indiana’s unchanged $7.25 minimum wage and details his own first-session bill raising volunteer firefighters’ clothing and gear stipends — flat since 1981 — from $100 to $250 each, which passed unanimously.
00:36:51 Volunteer Firefighters and SEA 1’s Fallout
Novak says volunteer firefighters save Indiana an estimated $4.5–6 billion a year versus paid staffing, and he and Scott connect strained fire department budgets to SEA 1, the 2025 property-tax law that cut into local, school, and fire-department revenue.
00:41:57 Data Centers: Brownfields, Tax Abatements, and Moratoriums
Novak describes a Michigan City data center built into a former windshield-wiper factory, and he and Scott agree brownfield sites beat farmland for siting; Novak says a Microsoft data center going into La Porte agreed to 100% union labor and no tax abatements, while several counties statewide have passed moratoriums as Governor Braun pushes the technology forward.
00:47:45 Taxing Data Centers and NIPSCO’s Guaranteed Profits
Novak pushes to strip data centers’ sales-tax exemption on the electricity they purchase to ease the burden on ratepayers of NIPSCO, the most expensive utility in Indiana; Novak argues utilities should be nonprofit public entities rather than investor-owned companies guaranteed a near-10% rate of return, and recalls an August 11th windstorm outage as evidence of eroding union-linemen staffing under private ownership.
00:53:35 Closing Pitch and Where to Find Randy Novak
Novak makes his closing case — pointing to 40 years of public service and a deliberately modest legislative salary — and directs voters to electrandynovak.com or his personal cell phone for questions.
00:56:55 Show Outro
