Independent Women’s Forum is pleased to announce that Indiana Congresswoman Erin Houchin, an original cosponsor of the Parents Bill of Rights Bill, is the latest entry in our popular series of Champion Women profiles.
Houchin, who represents Indiana’s 9th congressional district, is a former Indiana state senator, who served as the field manager for then-Senator Dan Coats and worked for the Indiana Department of Child Services as a family case manager.
She has established herself in Congress as an advocate for families. “Parents are left to plead for information, to plead for the safety of their kids in public restrooms, to plead for a quality education, and to plead for anyone who would listen to help restore their parental rights,” she said on the floor of the House.
When Houchin’s children were small, Houchin and her husband Dustin posted a one-word admonition on their front door that could be seen just as one exited: “Contend.”
The word featured in a meditation Dustin Houchin, now a Superior Court judge, had prepared for their church. It was derived from Erin and Dustin’s reading of the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, and it became the family motto.
In 2014 Houchin, who was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2022, defeated a 26-year incumbent to win a seat in the Indiana State Senate. She became known as a staunch defender of the Second Amendment and law enforcement and a fighter for lower taxes. She authored a bill to make Indiana a Constitutional Carry State. While pursuing her political career, Erin and Dustin were also raising a young family. They have three children.
“It’s very important for women, young women in particular, to engage,” Houchin says. “Look, we need to have different voices at the table, and I think we also need to have different voices that can speak to American women, conservative women, about the values that we care about and why they should care.”
In other words—or more accurately word—Erin Houchin has a message for conservative women: Contend. Short and sweet, and you can fit it on a Post-It note. But she believes in doing it.
