- And so I think at this point, we are ready to get started. And I will first call upon Shelly to see
- if she would like to give her opening remarks. Thank you so much, Sonia. It's good to be here.
- And I'm with you in the celebration of the victory last night with the IUagers. That was exciting. Well,
- the 2026 session is continuing. I guess we began the first two weeks of December, which means we'll
- end two weeks early. And they're saying February 27th.
- Democratic caucus, our focus is on four pillars of affordability, primarily childcare, housing, healthcare,
- and utility rates. And we were very targeted in the bills that we filed. And some are moving through
- the legislature, kind of in a surprising way, we had two of our bills heard the first,
- official week, so it would have been in December. One was a medical debt bill that Senator Codora filed.
- It has since been taken over by the first author now is Senator Charbonneau, but that's sometimes how
- it goes. So we had one of our priority bills heard the first week of session back in December. We have
- another of our bills for affordability to help our
- retirees and that is the 13th check. That was heard the first week and it's moving through its Senate
- Bill 63 authored by Senator Niskotsky. I had a bill on the value of our public lands. I don't know if
- you recall, but last year I successfully amended the DNR agency bill to include an interim study in
- which we conducted that interim study over the last, over last fall. And it came up with
- several very good recommendations. I sat down with DNR and identified three that were fiscally neutral,
- so we can get those through this session. And that bill got a hearing on Monday and will be on third
- reading on this Monday. That bill does kind of three things. It will ask DNR to,
- get some proposals from our state institutions on looking at the impact of natural lands on public health
- and mental health. Number two, it's going to have the DNR look at possible efficient and consistent
- visitor fee collection systems at our state fish and wildlife areas. And then finally, the role that
- our natural lands play in mitigating and recovering from natural disaster.
- So that's exciting and we'll be on third readings on Monday. And of course, I cannot leave my time without
- telling you some things to really look out for. These are, oh, I see that, that is bill number 67. So
- the bill that I have authored and it's moving, that's bill number 67. I know, six, seven, I don't know.
- It was just a look at the draw there.
- Some things to look out for, the priority bill for the Senate Republicans is SB1, and it will put on
- further restrictions on Medicaid access and SNAP benefits. It's more fraud rhetoric, but really it's
- equating fraud rhetoric with trying to find ways of cutting people who are eligible off of Medicaid
- and SNAP funding. I think we should also look at, there are some changes to
- Senate Bill 11 introduces adding a firing squad to our execution methods in the state of Indiana. Senate
- Bill 73 criminalizes mask wearing in public spaces, public assemblies. That is a Byrne, Gary Byrne bill.
- This one is very alarming. This is Senate Bill 145 authored by Mike Young. This creates a downtown Indy,
- district with state policing and process state special prosecution leverage in this downtown district.
- That's Senate Bill 145. There is Senate Bill 236, which is a Senator Johnson bill, which will put greater
- restrictions on abortion inducing drugs, as well as greater reporting expansions on reproductive health.
- Senate Bill 138 is the school chaplaincy bill is back. That's Bill 138. That bill is back. And I thought
- this was really fascinating and alarming, but probably very important to the League of Women Voters,
- voter members. And that's Senate Bill 12 prohibiting rank choice voting.
- That's the first time I've seen that bill in my time. I mean, shoot, I feel like I'm young compared
- to some of my colleagues in the Senate in terms of my time in the Senate, but it is a prohibition on
- rank choice voting, which I really found interesting in a time and from a party that is really about,
- you know, waving the flag of government overreach, prohibiting
- rank choice voting seems like a lot of overreach. The other thing that I thought that we heard was the
- extension of our syringe exchange programs. That bill was heard and successfully got out of health and
- will be on second reading on Monday, but was not unanimous. There is still some pushback, not based on data,
- whatsoever. It's totally based on anecdotal evidence of people saying there seems to be a lot of unaccounted
- for needles out there. So that I think is something we should all be concerned about. Another government
- overreach bill because this bill only extends the sunset of local governments who have voted to
- to start and have a syringe exchange program in their counties. This would remove that and have a ban
- on syringe exchange programs for the entire state. So currently, four of our counties have syringe exchange
- programs that have changed the minds of those who were against them originally, strictly because of
- the data that it shows in bringing down rates of hep C,
- HIV and being able to track what drugs are being introduced to the market by testing the needles that
- are exchanged. So that's another bill and I should have that. Let me see if I can get that number for
- you as I wrap up my comments here. But another bill to look out for is
- that I would love your thoughts on. That is a bell to bell cell phone bans in schools. That will be
- on the floor on second readings. It made it through committee. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that
- as well as a social media ban for minors. That is another bill and that is, I think Senate Bill 129.
- But I'm gonna have to, I think there are a couple. I might be telling you wrong on that one.
- I just wanted to say thank you. Those are a few bills to keep an eye out for, as well as our priorities
- as Senate Dems. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much, Shelly, for those opening remarks
- and alerting us to those bills. Matt, would you like to now give your opening remarks? Sure.
- Excuse me. Good morning, everyone. And I thought I would start by kind of giving you the schedule for
- the session, because it is a very compressed
- session at this point. So all bills, this is the House schedule. Usually that tracks fairly closely
- with the Senate. They kind of confer with each other on it. But in the House, our bills have to be out
- of committee by January 26th. So any bill introduced that's not moved out of committee by January 26th
- is dead. So today's the 10th. That means we got a little over two weeks for bills to move out of committee.
- Then on the 28th is the deadline for bills to be called down for amendment on the floor. That's the
- second reading stage. Then final passage known as third reading in the House, that all has to be done
- by January 29th. Before we get to the end of the month, we will know which bills have survived and which
- have died in the House. Then in the second half,
- Which the other thing too is normally there's like a little halftime break or there's a couple days,
- maybe as much as a week where the legislature is in recess. They're just plowing ahead. And so there
- won't be any break. We'll just jump right into the other houses bills. And so Senate bills in the House
- will have to be out of committee by February 19th, amended on the floor by February 23rd.
- And then all Senate bills sent over to the House have to be passed third reading, basically voted out
- of the House by February 24th. And then this will be interesting to see how this works. So then there's
- normally a period for conference committees because if the second House amends the first House's bill,
- you have to have a conference committee to meet to figure out how to make that bill reconcile. They
- have to come up with a compromise to have the bill read exactly the same way.
- And then each house has to prove that conference committee report. And normally you have, you know,
- a couple of weeks to work on that kind of stuff. And it's the conference committee period is going to
- be from Wednesday, the 25th until Friday, the 27th in the house. At least that's what they're saying.
- So you've got like a three day period. If you have
- So I suspect what that means is the Senate Republicans will likely be talking to the House Republicans
- and trying to either avoid amendments in the second house or agree upon what those amendments are going
- to be. And then you can do what's called a concurrence vote, where the first house basically votes to
- accept the changes that were made by the second house, and then it would go off to the governor. So
- I suspect what that means is the Senate Republicans
- We'll see whether that's a super hectic, you know, last three days of the session or whether they kind
- of have everything greased ahead of time on that. So that's the basic schedule. Now, one thing I want
- to do before I talk about some of the priorities and what's been introduced in the House is I really
- want to raise the alarm bell about a very troubling bill, which is House Bill 1343.
- It's already been voted out of committee. I don't believe the committee report's been adopted on the
- floor yet. But it's kind of a mishmash of things. It has a lot of things about veterans and their benefits.
- But within that bill is a provision which authorizes the adjutant general of the Indiana National Guard
- to establish a military police force which will be able to enforce laws against civilians. Basically,
- they'd just be like any other police officer.
- And then the governor is given the ability to deploy that military police force throughout the state
- or any part of the state he feels like. So to me, this is a son of Donald Trump. You know, I always
- have the feeling that Governor Braun really would like to be just like Donald Trump. And I think this
- is his attempt. It's like, gee, Donald Trump gets to send National Guard in the Democratic areas and
- he gets to send ICE into Democratic areas. I really wish I had my own police force.
- that I could send in to democratic areas. And I think Indianapolis would probably be the area they would
- do. So if we want to avoid kind of ice mayhem, ice-like mayhem at the hands of Governor Braun, we've
- got to work really hard to defeat this bill. And so I suspect it's going to be on the floor of the House
- probably next week. So we'll see how that works out. That's assuming the committee report gets adopted
- on schedule. But I'm actually very surprised that we haven't had more discussion about this in the media
- and a little bit more attention to it. So that's something to keep an eye on. Okay, so I guess the good
- news is the Republicans in the House have awakened and they have decided that affordability actually
- is a thing. Apparently, it's not a media hoax, as our president suggested. And so they're focusing in
- on a couple of areas where they say they're going to do something about affordability. They've got a bill
- on housing and essentially their answer is to override local zoning authority and authorize a lot of
- building within residential areas that many communities have not allowed. The kinds of things that have
- had a great deal of debate and pretty strenuous discussion within the Bloomington City Council. But
- the whole premise of that bill is that if you get government out of the way, if you reduce the regulations
- on building, you will save a lot of money
- in building out the infrastructure and getting the approvals for your development. The thing is, there's
- nothing in the bill that I'm aware of that would require those cost savings to actually be passed on
- to the buyers of the homes. So it could end up just being profit in the pockets of the developers. So
- we'll have to see how that bill might evolve as it passed through.
- The other area they've decided to address in the name of affordability is electric utility rates, which
- I'm like, you know, it's like about time. I've been talking about this for many years now because the
- truth is a lot of the policies put in place by the Republican majority have caused our rates to go up.
- They've basically been giving everything away to the utilities. And now they figured out that politically
- in an election year, that's not the best position to be in. And so
- The bill is a mix of some complicated things that would change the rate-making system, which theoretically
- would result in increases not being as great as they have been in the past. I'm a little skeptical about
- it. The devil's in the details, so we're working through that. The other thing that's interesting is
- for the chair of the House Utilities Committee,
- He really thinks it's not so much a problem that utility rates are high. He thinks that the problem
- is people don't understand that when it gets hot in the summer and you use your air conditioning a lot,
- you use more electricity, therefore you will have a much higher bill. So his answer to that is his one
- provision of the bill would default everybody into what's called balanced billing. So your bill would
- be the same every month and then periodically, maybe every six months.
- There would be this true up period where they would figure out whether you deserve money back because
- you use less or whether you need to pay more now because you've consumed more than anticipated. There
- would be the opportunity to opt out of that, but everyone would default in. I'm not certain that's really
- the best policy, but I'm looking forward to hearing the testimony on it.
- there'll be a lot of debate on that and I have some of my own ideas. I think the number one thing that
- we could do is basically remove the sales tax, the seven percent sales tax on utilities because we don't
- charge sales tax on food and clothing things we consider necessities and if you know utility is not
- a necessity I don't know what is. So we'll see if we can get any traction on that. The other two big
- priority bills and by the way they only have four. Normally
- And over these years, the Republicans always have 10 bills they designate as like their official agenda
- bills. I think the Republicans are running out of steam. I think they've been in control of the place
- for so long, they've completed their bucket list and they have to think hard about what they might do
- there. And so they only have two other things that they say they're gonna do as their big priorities.
- One is they got a whole big list of boards and commissions they want to eliminate, which they claim
- will make things more efficient. I think it's,
- not really the case. Most of those boards don't take up much money at all, if any. And then finally,
- for about the 18th time, it seems like they're going to have a bill to deregulate the K through 12 school
- system. So we go through this cycle where they add a lot of new regulations and requirements to how
- the schools operate. And then they say, oh, there are too many burdens on the schools. Let's get rid
- of all these regulations and then
- We have an interesting discussion about that because oftentimes the things we're trying to deregulate
- are health and safety requirements for the school or fundamental things you want to make sure kids learn.
- So it'll be interesting to see what that list of deregulated school things actually are. All right.
- And I'll just finish up because I know we've got to get to questions.
- Just as far as the Democrats are concerned, we're pleased that they're at least gonna try to do something
- on housing and electric rates. And we'll have some of our ideas we're putting forth there, but they're
- not doing anything on healthcare. They're pretty much, I think, trying to avoid that issue for this
- session. And so one of the things we'd like to least attempt to get done from the House Democrats perspective
- is to make sure that people who incur medical debt do not have that destroy their credit rating. So
- we would have limitations on
- those types of debts ending up on your credit report. Then finally, child care. They need to do something
- about child care. They want to avoid it, essentially. We think that parents should get some tax credits
- to help them afford that and that we should be fully funding the CCDF vouchers. They're really destroying
- the child care system because we're having a lot of providers have to shut down because they're just
- not getting the money any longer.
- to pay their employees. And so we're going to be, if not already, at a crisis point on that. And so
- we think that needs to be addressed. And then finally, Senate Bill 1, the property tax bill, there's
- some hope they'll fix that big giant mess that got created. I suspect they're not going to do much more
- than kind of nibble around the edges, but that's a whole nother train wreck that needs to get addressed.
- Matt, thank you so much for giving us those opening remarks and a couple of the items send chills through
- our bones. But we're glad that you're on top of all of these things. We do have one person in the queue
- to ask a question. So I hope that while she's asking her question, others of you will
- excuse me, right to one question moderator and indicate that you have a question as well. The first
- one in the queue is Sharon Rouillet. I hope I pronounced that right. If you would unmute Sharon and
- ask your question, directing it first to Matt. Sharon, you wanna? Yeah, okay, I'm here. I'm just trying
- to figure this out here.
- Should I put the video on? It's up to you. Oh, it says unable to start video. So, okay. Um, I don't
- need the video. Um, so, um, speaking of those IU Hoosiers, uh, uh, everybody in the universe is, uh,
- is cheering for IU right now.
- And I am too, but I am more concerned with Senate Bill 110. And as far as I can tell, I'm the only person
- who cares about Senate Bill 110. I've even been asked to not talk about something. They're trying to,
- it's to fix what happened in the SB1 last year.
- and to restore the elections of the IU Board of Trustees. It's the Alumni Association got two Republican
- senators to sponsor this bill and I've heard absolutely nothing about it. So should I just forget about
- it or is there any chance that there will be some action
- on Senate Bill 110, restoring elections at IU? Well, you should definitely not forget it. I doubt the
- Alumni Association is doing anything because Pam Witten is the one who got those people removed. And
- so I doubt she's going to let her Alumni Association do anything. There is some alumni who are involved
- in that association who have been working on their own to form
- a coalition to see if they can get this done. And so Senator Glick has introduced Senate Bill 110. I
- had a bill drafted for the House. You know, my advice to the people, you know, we're trying to get this
- done is, you know, let's if possible, let the Republicans lead the charge on getting those elections
- reinstated. And let's kind of get behind that and hope that they can move because I I believe there
- are probably a lot of alums across the state who are Republicans.
- who are not very happy about having that right to choose three trustees taken away from them with no
- debate, no discussion, no chance for amendment at all. And so it's unclear to me what the chances are
- for it to get out of the Senate, but I think that's our best hope is to have a Republican carrying the
- bill. And so I think that it's definitely worth getting engaged and I think there are some people working on that.
- Thank you, Matt. Shelly, do you want to address that question? Sharon, thank you for your question.
- You're not alone. Lots of people care about it. I've heard about them. I can't join the bill right now
- because that would definitely be a flag of ways to kill a bill at this point. So it's great that she
- has two Republicans
- on that bill and please don't give up. I mean, it needs to be calls made to every single Senator, in
- particular, the committee in which it was assigned. I need to look where it was actually assigned to
- get that chair to hear the bill. So don't give up, but you do need to probably organize quickly and
- mobilize a pretty,
- a serious campaign to get it a hearing in the committee that it was assigned. And I'll look online to
- see where it was assigned and I will let you know in the next Q&A. I just looked it up, it's in education
- and career development. Oh, well, okay, so that's Senator Ratz and just do a heavy duty full court press
- on getting him to hear the bill.
- Well, I just, I see the stadium full of fans and I just want to have a little halftime announcement
- or something like, because it's something that's important and there was initial outrage, but you know,
- the outrage has all been, you know, diminished instead of, you know, expanded due to the football, you know,
- fun and stuff. So anyways, but thank you. I appreciate any help that you can give to that little thing.
- Thank you, Sharon, for mentioning that. And as one individual put in the chat, if 800,000 IU fans can
- show up for the game, let's hope a few of them can show up and get our legislature to let our alumni
- voices count. Woohoo, go IU. OK.
- Thank you. Okay, the next person in the queue is Tammy Smith, and I'm reminding everybody, please be
- getting in the queue to ask your questions. Tammy, I'll ask you to unmute and direct your question first
- to Shelly. Hi, Shelly. Actually, this is a House bill that I have a specific question about.
- So do with that what you will. It is HJR2 and it's about county officers. And I know that, I can't remember
- the name of the committee that it was in. I know Matt is in that committee. Are those committees gonna
- meet again? Does this thing have any possibility of movement? I think it's a pretty bad idea. Okay.
- Are you familiar with that, Bill Shelley, or should we defer over to Matt to see if he's familiar with
- it? Well, I'm wondering, can you check on the number again for me? It was HJR2, but I will Google that
- again to make sure, or I'm sorry, look on IGA's site again and double check it. It had to do with county
- officers and making them not elected. There was a whole list of them.
- wanting to take away from being elected. Okay, hold on. Let me just really quickly. Yeah, I found that
- it's Elizabeth Roway introduced that and yeah, it would make basically all the mostly elected county
- offices appointed. The argument is they're ministerial, the auditor, the treasurer, the recorder, that
- they don't need to be elected because they're just doing ministerial things, not policy things.
- And I don't know if it's going to get any traction at all. I haven't heard about it yet. Yeah, I think
- that was sent to the elections committee, which I'm on. It has not been listed for the elections committee's
- first hearing. And the other thing to keep in mind is it's a joint resolution because you have to amend
- the Constitution because those offices, at least some of them, are listed in the Constitution as required
- to be elected.
- And so the process to amend the Constitution that would then allow the legislature, if it wanted to,
- to make them appointed is you have to have two separately elected general assemblies approve the resolution.
- So it'd have to go through the House and Senate this year. Then we'd have the election in November.
- Then in 27, it would have to go through the House and the Senate a second time and be approved. And
- then the legislature would have to adopt legislation putting the
- ballot question, putting the question on the ballot, should HDR2 be adopted? And so they wouldn't have
- to go to the voters probably in 2028, probably be the general election in 2028, assuming that this all
- went like clockwork. So it's a very long process. And it's not clear to me whether that is a thing that's
- going to happen or not. I mean, it's not on the Republicans' agenda list or anything.
- Right now, not much chatter about that bill. But can I say something in addition? Tammy, I know you
- didn't ask this question, but it is somehow connected. And that is Senate joint resolution one in the
- Senate. This is the second time that it will be going through and it is a constitutional amendment regarding
- concerning bail. And this will be the second time and if it passes out of, and it is a priority of the Senate,
- Republicans to get this passed. And that means if it would be successful this year getting out,
- then it would, we would, I think be able to, it would change the constitution. So while HJR 2 is starting
- the process, SJR 1 is in the last stages of the process. So I would encourage folks to look on IGA's
- website at SJR 1.
- and know that this would one, that it provides that an offense other than murder or treason is not bailable
- if proof is evident or the presumption is strong that the person did commit murder. And two, the state
- proves by clear and convincing evidence that there is a
- a severe safety concern to the community. So a change in concerning bail is up for amending the constitution
- in SJR 1. Yeah, if I could, let me just jump in there a little bit, because I serve on the Bail Reform
- Commission.
- which has kind of had this issue. So what that constitutional amendment is trying to do is right now,
- our constitution says, other than being charged with treason or murder, you have a constitutional right
- to bail. And so the only question is how high will the bail be set? And normally the judge thinks about
- that based on whether they think you might be a threat to the community, but mostly whether you'll actually
- show up for your court date.
- So if SJR 2 passes, which everyone is operating under the assumption that it will and then be approved
- by the voters, judges would then have the right to essentially determine that someone's a danger to
- the community or a flight risk and basically have them held without any bail at all. They could just
- basically call preventative detention.
- If that system goes into place, then you have to have all kinds of due process requirements because
- the judge is going to have to decide whether you should be detained without bail and you got to have
- processes to make sure people have their due process in that system. That's something to come up. I
- think there may be legislation. I haven't heard any discussion about it yet, but there was a recommendation
- that there at least be legislation to get that due process in place anticipating
- the constitutional amendment being adopted, but we'll have to see how that comes out. But I think that
- if you were a betting person, you would think that's probably going to pass this session and be on the
- ballot for the voters coming up at the end of the year. Thank you so much. And thank you for the explanation
- of how a joint resolution works. And thank you for
- Those questions, Tammy. The next individual in the queue is Kathy Roundtree. Kathy, would you direct
- your unmute and direct your question to Matt Pierce first? Good morning. Thank you folks for being here.
- I heard yesterday that there was a bill before the legislature to change the relationship of schools to
- ICE that schools were going to be required to disclose information to ICE. Do you all know anything
- about that? What the current status is and what this would involve? Thank you. Okay. Matt, do you have
- any response to this? Do you know anything about this bill? Yeah.
- The Republicans and the legislature are obsessed with having every element of state government cooperate
- with ICE fully. And so there's usually a bunch of bills or one bill with a bunch of stuff in it. So
- I would not be surprised if some kind of anti-immigration bill moves and requires people to cooperate
- with ICE. And it's probably an omnibus bill, but I don't know if it's in the House or the Senate. And
- I haven't seen anything scheduled on that yet.
- But I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of the session, a bill is moving that requires cooperation
- amongst law enforcement and all kinds of different levels of government. So we're just going to have
- to keep an eye out for that. Shelly, would you like to comment on that issue?
- I don't think that really adds anything to the conversation. I am not aware of what bill that is in
- the Senate, but I'm frantically seeing if I can identify it, if it does, what the, sort of what the
- situation is. I mean, there is a Senate bill moving right now on immigration issues. It's a Senate bill,
- what is it? Senate Bill 76, it's a Liz Brown bill. There's a lot of,
- political fire around this bill because there was a immigration bill last year that she did not hear
- in judiciary and Senator Jim Banks came after her along with the attorney general and said that they
- were going to primary her because she was not hearing these bills to keep Hoosiers safe and keep
- undocumented immigrants out of the state. She pushed back and doubled down. She filed this bill. Although
- you can check it out, I've heard that the language is not as awful as the bill last year, but it's still
- something that we should be aware of. It is on second readings on Monday. That Senate bill,
- And I saw that Maria Douglas put in there Senate Bill 122 is the requirement, or SB 133, I'm not sure,
- is the bill that requires school corporations to cooperate with ICE. Thank you, Maria. I don't know
- if it's 122 or 133, but we're gonna check it out. Okay.
- Thank you both again for addressing that issue. We now have another individual in the queue. She's the
- last one. So please be listening to it, but thinking of questions to pose while we have Matt and Shelley
- available to us. I'd now call on Marion Benzoff, if you would unmute and ask your question, directing
- it first to Shelley.
- Well, it's to anybody. I just want to make sure that redistricting is dead. Is it dead or is there a
- possibility that someone will try to introduce something to resurrect it? And also just a big shout
- out to all the activism that stopped it during this special session. Thanks. Thank you, Marianne. It's
- the redistricting question is dead and
- I mean, props to Senator Bray. I mean, it's one of the reasons why I think it wasn't just to save Hoosier's
- money, it was to make sure it couldn't come back up again in the session. So the fact that we came back
- early and started the 2026 session in December means that we can't hear that or have that bill again.
- Thank you, Shelley. Matt, do you have any comments on that issue?
- Yeah, just about the House and the Senate. They have a rule called decisively defeated bill. And so
- if you have a majority of the House or the Senate vote the bill down, then that concept of that subject
- matter legislation is no longer eligible for consideration during that particular session. So the fact
- that the Senate decisively defeated the bill means that the Senate cannot take it up again during this
- session. Now,
- who always say, you're never safe till the legislature adjourns because rules committees can suspend
- rules and things can happen. But believe me, I think the last thing those Republicans wanna do is go
- back and relive the redistricting fight again. So I think we're fairly safe that they have all moved
- on to the next thing. Thank you very much. I would just for a moment pose a related question and that is,
- I know that the league was part of a coalition that lobbied greatly to try and get an independent commission.
- Do you think there's any possibility of something like that coming back before the legislature? Well,
- I've offered nonpartisan led amendments and things more times than I can count to try to make that happen.
- I think that that it
- My hope is that all this mid-decade redistricting and just the shameless admission that this is all
- being done for partisan advantage would get some people fired up that are normally not even aware of
- how districts get drawn or just think that, well, it's all a bunch of political stuff. And so I think
- that what needs to happen is this needs to become a movement because what you're asking the Republican
- majority to do is to give up
- the number one thing that preserves their power. As long as they have the majority that allows them
- to redraw the districts, both legislative districts and congressional districts, they can manipulate
- them to their greatest advantage. I think what needs to happen is we need to have people working on
- building a very broad coalition, hopefully of both Republicans and Democrats saying, look, we need to
- have a fair system and see if we can get that done because
- I think it's difficult to get these leaders whose power is predominantly made possible by the gerrymandering
- of the districts, to get them to just voluntarily give that up. That's a very big act of statesmanship,
- which we don't see too often these days. So I think it has to be something where it's a movement and
- it becomes a key thing in an election and members begin to decide, you know what, I can't be against that.
- or I'm not going to get re-elected. Of course, that's a very tall order. To me, it reminds me of the
- women's suffrage movement or civil rights movement where it's a very long sustained effort. That's what's
- going to have to happen to get that changed. Thank you, Matt. Shelly, do you have a viewpoint on that
- particular issue of redistricting commission?
- independent of the legislature. Yes, we should do it. Absolutely. Continue pushing for that. That's
- very important. Well, and it seems as if now is the time to keep pushing on that issue with the fact
- that we just had this effort
- to try to redistrict midterms. Thank you very much for your support on those things. Yes, I do have
- a few people in the queue. Tammy Smith, I believe you have another question you would like to pose.
- Thank you. This is for Shelly. You, in the past, you've had bills regarding like, I'm going to use the
- phrase period tax,
- And you have another one this year, I think. Yes, I do. How does that look? A lot of interest in it.
- And I think it's really interesting in concert with the conversation that everyone is talking about
- repealing the utility tax.
- the tax on utility rates because of the conversation that those are necessities and we don't tax necessities.
- But yes, in fact, we do, because menstrual products are necessities. And the fiscal on this is so small.
- This is a $4.5 to $5 million fiscal on it. But at a time when,
- families are feeling the squeeze when it comes to buying groceries. I've heard the resistance to this
- from my Republican colleagues on both sides. And they'll say, we're not going to hear this bill because
- it's not real relief for families.
- This isn't real relief for women and girls who pay this for 30 plus years of their lives. Let's find
- a way to provide real relief. So I hear that. And then I hear, no, we can't do it because it's too costly
- to the state. And if we repeal the tax on menstrual products, what's next? So, you know,
- Just to remind people, we have removed sales tax from lottery tickets, RV sales, we give tax breaks
- to data centers, we give tax breaks, casinos receive tax breaks, but when it comes to taxing, the one
- thing that actually gives a chance for engaging the economy
- education, we're gonna actually build an economy off of that for the state of Indiana and tax those
- items. So we're continuing that fight. We have support and interest across the board, but we just cannot,
- there are just a couple of folks in the Senate that don't appreciate the policy. So we're continuing
- to work on that. But thank you for your interest.
- I hope that you'll continue to advocate and let those in the Senate know that it needs a hearing,
- particularly Senator Holdman, who's in tax and fiscal. Thank you. Yeah, similar situation in the House.
- I mean, the House Democrats have offered, I think, five or six times this amendment to eliminate this tax.
- Every now and again, you pick up a little bit of traction, you can see some support kind of growing
- on the other side, and then something seems to deflate it. So, I mean, we just keep trying, but,
- you know, this is kind of symptom of a greater problem that I see, which is really frustrating. And
- I think that the problem probably is that we as members of the legislature have not explained to people
- enough of what's actually going on here. If you look over the past decade, the legislature has given away
- billions and billions of dollars of tax revenue. And it's mostly given away by lowering the corporate
- income tax, financial institutions tax, even the income tax, which was 3.4% and went down is going to
- go down to 2.9. And I think they're attempting to see if they can just eventually eliminate it over
- time a little bit every year.
- They point to that as their number one, helping the little guy kind of tax break. But because it's a
- flat tax in Indiana, the truth is that saving a half a percent of your income tax means one thing to
- somebody who's making, say, $50,000 a year. And it means something else to someone who's making a million
- dollars a year. So that is skewed toward the upper end if you look at it. And so my kind of criticism
- and argument that I've been kind of giving a hard time to my colleagues in Iowa is,
- They're more than willing to cut these taxes on businesses and people on the upper end and they don't
- ever raise the issue of whether it's going to impact negatively on the
- Revenues of the state. I mean, they're they're chopping away the income tax and they never say, oh,
- this is going to cost us X amount of money. But if you talk about let's have a tax credit for parents
- who need to do child care. Let's have some more appropriations. So we don't have these wait lists for
- Medicaid. We can actually meet the demands there when you talk about
- Any kind of tax break that's targeted on the little guy or the average, you know, working, who's your
- family? It's like, oh, no, that wouldn't be fiscally responsible. That will cost us way too much money.
- And so this debate about taxes on mensal products is the same exact thing. It's like when you raise
- that, it's like, oh, you know, that might cost us some money. I don't know if we can do that. But then
- they'll give away a billion dollars.
- you know, somewhere else, or they'll come up with a way to give hundreds of millions of dollars of vouchers
- to the richest families in Indiana to subsidize their kids' private school education. It's just completely
- warped priorities. And until we can do a better job of explaining to the public how warped those priorities
- are so they get mad enough to get engaged and actually vote, that we can actually get some change in
- this whole approach.
- Thank you, Matt. Thank you. We will now go to Alice Hawkins. Alice, I know you've had your hand up there
- for a little while. If you would like to ask your question, directing it first to Matt. Well, actually,
- this is a comment that Shelly asked for. I retired from teaching in 2010 and cell phones were already
- a problem. Now I substitute teach and it just is
- a tidal wave, nobody, as I sub in all kinds of classes in high school and middle school, especially
- high school, it seems unstoppable and it is so necessary. But one of the problems is that when the kids
- have their laptops or their iPads, they run out of battery and so they can't use it.
- The kids know how to skirt things too when they use iPads. I would like to see somehow for this to be
- totally banned because if one teacher tries, it's impossible. That's my comment. Yes, Matt and Shelly,
- perhaps you'd like to comment on that and the larger
- picture of whether you see either of these bills passing relative to banning the phones in schools and
- the limitations on social media for minors? Well, with the Bell to Bell cell phone ban, last session
- we did, well, maybe it wasn't a lot, maybe it was two years ago, but we did pass some cell phone requiring
- the school boards of school corporations to create a cell phone policy. So there is already limited
- use in cell phone use during instruction time. There's limited use. What this would do is it does require
- schools, school corporations to figure out how they're going to secure these devices, who's going to
- be in charge of them, how do they get redistributed? There are lots of,
- questions there and of course funding, how they're going to pay for this that I am continuing to hear
- concerns about. Although the idea of yes, we want to keep students engaged in the classroom, but is
- this going to be again, what they're thinking is it will be put on the teachers will have to collect
- them and then redistribute them in these bags. Fort Wayne Community School Corporation, they do do this.
- It was about a million dollars for
- their school corp to do this. And the concern there is I know that like, for example, MCCSC that has
- a, they have a limited use cell phone policy that if you look at sort of what they're, they've done
- some surveys, there are some surveys out there of Indiana parents and administrators and teachers on
- the current use right now.
- What you're seeing is that there is concern on how they're gonna pay for it. And MCCSE is already taking
- about a $31 million hit because of the passing of SEA-1 and property taxes last year. So that is of
- concern, even though the majority of parents see the value, but they do want their kids to have limited use.
- That's kind of where it is, the likelihood of it passing, pretty good actually. I mean, I think it will
- probably pass having a ban on cell phone use, bell to bell. The social media, I'm not sure. I think
- I'd still like to hear from folks. I tend, you know, I liken it to seatbelt use,
- When I talked to my kids about, when I was a kid, there were no seatbelts. You just got in the car and
- you piled in. There wasn't even a question. And then when they started introducing seatbelt legislation,
- there was concern like, what if I can't get my child out fast enough? And we had to work through all
- of those questions. But now today we see the impact and the lives that have been saved. And you wouldn't
- think about not putting your child
- in a child safety seat or wearing a seatbelt in your car. So I think it's just an adjustment because
- we see the impact on mental wellness and our young people having high levels of anxiety and so much
- of that is being shown as connected to social media use.
- I think if we can come into this and come up with a policy that is going to protect young people, but
- not infringe on civil liberties, I think it would be good for us to have that conversation. Matt, would
- you like to comment, please? Yeah, I think the legislation does have a pretty good chance of passing.
- I think that,
- You know, the previous legislation was focused on how do we keep the devices from interfering with the
- actual education in the classroom. And now I think it's expanded to how do we keep these devices and
- the social media on the devices from kind of stunting kids socialization and kind of their personal
- growth. And so I believe that
- A lot of people feel it would be very positive if you had a kid spending six hours or whatever it is
- in school without the device distracting them and maybe actually learning how to talk to other people
- in the lunch room instead of all staring at their phones. So that's kind of the positive impetus for
- the legislation. But I think you do have some parents that say, hey, look, I like being able to communicate
- with my kids throughout the day.
- And I'm particularly concerned that if there's a mass shooting occurrence, that my kid be able to call
- for help. And so I think that's probably the biggest kind of pushback. It's like, hey, what if some
- kind of emergency arises and kids need to call 911 or something and they don't have their device to
- do it? And so I think that that will be the main issue that probably has to get worked through. Thank
- you both for weighing in on that question.
- The next individual in the queue is Maria Douglas. Maria, if you would unmute and direct your question
- first to Matt Pierce. Thank you so much. I want to thank both of you for always showing up and for the
- work that you do. I saw Senator Yoder all over yesterday. Maybe it wasn't yesterday, but just all over
- and in terms of also
- uh, spending time with the NAACP, um, state, uh, gathering. So, um, and I saw, um, representative Pierce
- at a local event, uh, an all in for democracy coalition or no common cause, uh, situation. So it's always
- great to see you both showing up. Okay. So I had, I had a question and I still do, and I want to comment
- as a parent, um,
- in terms of the cell phone situation. I have two children. They are almost grown. They went through
- MCC. One is currently there. And until there is gun reform, I want my kid to be able to have their cell
- phone in school. Cell phones are not going away. They're not
- lessening in terms of tools. So for me, it's less way less about removal and restriction and way more
- about education and navigating how to use them. Yes, I think that's all I want to say about that.
- Thank you. So my question, because I've only worked
- and paid really, really close attention to the legislative sessions for three years. Can you help me
- understand these vehicle bills? Because I've like looked them up, I've like, or I mean, I've looked
- up, Googled it, I've chat, you know, AI'd it and like, those vehicle bills, people can like put language
- in there or pass things real quick. Like, there's a lot,
- there's quite a few vehicle bills listed right now so maybe other people have this question too but
- if you could help me understand what a vehicle bill is and what yes i would appreciate that thank you
- yeah sure thing this is a parliamentarian's dream to talk about the vehicle bills okay so um each house
- introduces 25 bills that are essentially at least in the house i think it's 25
- that are essentially shells. There's nothing in them. And they're assigned to the Rules Committee and
- they basically sit there in case some topic comes up that the majority wants to address that they didn't
- think about before the bill filing deadline. And so if they decide that there's something new, they
- want a new bill, what they do is they, the Rules Committee, at least this is how it works in the House.
- It might be, I think in the Senate, they actually assign them to an individual.
- Um, you know, one individual kind of has custody of them, whatever, but, um, in the house, the rules
- committee will essentially the speaker really, but that the vehicle bill will get given to a member
- and they become the author of the bill. And then it's assigned to the committee and it's still an empty shell.
- Then you have to, in the committee, you have to amend into it the contents you want to put in the bill.
- So if you have some brand new subject matter, you have to go into the committee, you have a public,
- you know, it's a regular public hearing of the bill. And then that's where you debate whether to fill
- the empty bill with the new content. And you vote on it just like you would vote on an amendment to
- any other bill. And then once that amendment gets put into the vehicle bill, then
- It moves along just like any other bill. Now, I've raised several years ago in the House because I serve
- on the Rules Committee, I raised this issue that you have a problem if you have a vehicle bill that's
- empty and it doesn't get filled up until committee, you don't have any window in which to amend the
- new content that went into the vehicle bill. In the House, basically for me complaining, added in some
- additional rules that make sure there's a window then
- that anybody can offer amendments in committee to be able to change the content of the new bill, whatever
- that might be. I hope that helps. That was a matter of parliamentary procedure that I'd never heard
- of before. Shelly, do you have any response from the Senate perspective? It's similar.
- I'll just give you a perspective from the minority leader. We don't have that. I can't just file whatever
- bill. If something interesting comes up, I'm like, oh, we didn't think about that. I don't have that
- ability. I will give an example of how a vehicle bill has been used in the last two years. So this year,
- for example, I think I mentioned that Senate Bill 85, which is the medical debt bill that Senator Codora
- filed and was heard. It was heard in December.
- That was one of his five bills that he was allowed to file. Then he learned that in order for it to
- move forward, it had to be the first author needed to be a Republican Senator. So he gave that bill,
- but he was already out of bills. So he was allowed to use one of the vehicle bills to file before the
- deadline, another of his to make five for him. So that's how the vehicle bill was used for the minority.
- for the minority caucus, but that's, I hope, a bigger, more full picture of what vehicle bills are,
- but they do look ominous. I mean, you go onto the IGA website, it's just like a wall of vehicle bills.
- It says nothing, and you don't even understand why they're all there, but never have I ever seen them
- all be used or even close to getting them, but I think the rules say how many we each get.
- Thank you so much, both of you, for that. So it's as sneaky as I kind of thought it was, perhaps. Well,
- it is hanging there in the background. So Maria, thank you for drawing our attention to it. The next
- individual in the queue is Mary Coy, if you would unmute and ask your question, directing at first to
- Shelly this time.
- Hi, Shelley. This isn't really an IGA question, but it concerns all of us. Would you like to comment
- on the US Postal Service rule on postmarks related to absentee voting? Let's see, am I up now? Yes,
- go for it. I think that that decision by the post office does not
- have much impact on Indiana because our absentee or anybody can vote by mail, which is absentee voting
- here since we don't have like pure vote by mail. The rule is that the ballot has to be received by the
- clerk by noon on election day. And they're not using post post marks as any indicator of whether the
- ballots were timely received. So I don't I'm not aware
- of an impact on that here. Now, there are other states that allow ballots to be counted several days
- after the election if they have a postmark from election day or prior, and that can have a pretty significant
- impact in those states where they've had ballots come in, you know, dribble in two or three days after
- the election that were mailed before the election. And so in those states, I think it's going to have
- a significant impact, and you could wonder whether or not the post office is doing something to impact
- But I'm not aware of our laws, since we have such restrictive laws on absentee voting in Indiana, that
- it's not as big of an issue. Good. Thank you. Okay. The next person in the queue is Kathy Caldy.
- If you would unmute and ask your question, Kathy, and I will tell everyone I just have one additional
- person in the queue right now. So if you're thinking of asking a question, please address one question
- moderator. Okay, Kathy, Caldy.
- Kathy, are you still wanting to ask a question of our legislators? Okay, not hearing Kathy Caldi. The
- next person in the queue is Katrina Luce. If you would like to unmute and ask your question, Katrina. Hi.
- My question, I suppose, goes to Shelley. How effective is it to contact a senator or any other legislator
- if you do not live in their district? Because I have a personal connection, for example, with Senator
- Holdman from years ago, but I don't live in his district. Would he get the email? Would he pay any attention
- to the email?
- Thank you for that question, Katrina. I would say because you have a personal connection with him, I
- would definitely reach out to him and make your case, have that relationship established. He will get
- it. You do have to put your information when you send an email via the Senate District inbox, but he'll
- still get it.
- I think it would be valuable, but you're right. Personally, when I get emails, I will ask, I need to
- know, are they in district or not? I still consider it because many times I don't get anything in district
- and I'm kind of curious where people are, but I do weigh them differently. I do wanna know,
- What are people in Senate District 40 feeling about whatever policy it is? So that's kind of what I
- would say, Katrina. And maybe you have other people who are in Senator Holdman's district. You can encourage
- them. So he doesn't have somebody screening his emails for him? He probably has someone else reading
- them because they got this new system and for the,
- your district inbox, which is new over the last couple of years. And it does, I think it's been harder
- for us to access those emails directly. You have to go through some hoops to make that happen. So someone
- is gathering that information, but I don't think they're, I mean, I don't know if I like the term,
- What term did you use? Screening. Screening. That I don't know. I guess that would probably be up to
- the legislator. I don't wanna hear anything outside of my district. I don't know, but it will land somewhere
- in their inbox. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Katrina. Yes, Matt, did you have anything to add?
- of up to each member how they want to handle it. So for example, I read all my own email directly. I
- was a staffer for legislators for 10 years and so I was used to being the person looking at other people's
- email and stuff and I just feel like I should do it myself. So I tend to do more stuff myself than maybe
- some other members just because I used to be the staffer who did it. But
- The downside of that is when the mail really starts flooding in and it gets really busy, you can get
- behind on the email and that can be a problem too. So that's not a perfect solution either. But I think
- that most members probably have their legislative assistant going through the mail, looking for stuff
- that's super priority like, hey, I can't get my Medicaid benefit. This is a crisis. I really need to
- get my medicine now and make sure that gets to the immediate attention pile. And then if you have a
- lot of emails coming in on one subject, they're probably summarizing
- what came in. And so the member can kind of get a shorthand of what's happening with the email if they
- choose to have somebody kind of triaging it for them, because it can get a little bit overwhelming at
- times. And I do think that it's kind of not a yes or no answer. And do they care about stuff outside
- their district? For the most part, I would say that they're going to be most influenced by hearing from
- their own district. So for example,
- If I were to get a hundred emails from Martinsville saying, protect my second amendment rights, don't
- do any gun safety legislation, right? That probably, you know, I'm elected to represent people in district
- 61. And so I'm going to be asking myself, what did people in district 61 think about that? Now, on the
- other hand, it does kind of tell you one thing that you've got a bunch of people around the state who
- are kind of engaged on an issue and care about it. And you can kind of see what's coming in. And so
- sometimes that,
- makes an impression. It's like, okay, there are lots of people around the state that are paying attention
- to this issue. And so that maybe gets a little more focus than some other issues. But by and large,
- I think the answer is legislators are most interested in hearing from their own constituents, which
- is why when we had things like this battle over redistricting, you know, building coalitions, networking,
- using social media,
- getting friends of friends, family members who live in other districts. So if you have somebody who
- lived in Bedford, who lived in Martinsville, who lived out in Greene County, and you can get them engaged
- to contact their legislator, that's when you then can really make some headway on influencing
- the legislature. So at the end of the day, on the big issues, I think you have to get involved in statewide
- organizations or just statewide efforts to get people from all over the state contacting their legislators.
- Thank you both very much for that answer. Excuse me, this is Kathy Caldy and I finally figured out how
- to unmute. Okay, Kathy, we will now allow you to go ahead and ask your question of the legislators.
- Okay, thank you. And it's kind of not a question, but an observation from one we've been talking. I've
- worked in a school system for over 25 years and
- been involved longer than that with my own kids. And on the cell phone usage, it's really difficult
- for kids to have the restraint to leave them alone. I mean, if there was a way to get them to put them
- in their backpacks and I've worked in a high school now and sub in the high school and it's, you know,
- half of them do and half of them
- don't understand that a parent can get a hold of the office and they can get a hold of them. And they're
- doing things like, oh, well, I got to know what my lunch is, or my grandpa, I need to hear from him
- if he's in the hospital. And we understand that. But they just don't even have a concept because it's
- always been accessible to them.
- that like in the older days, obviously I'm older, that the office can get ahold of you. And so I'm not
- sure how to, you know, my whole feelings on that because I understand it all, but I also see in the
- high school level, they just don't get it. No, I mean, they don't understand that there's any other way
- that life would work because it's part of them. Like was it Maria or Marsha said, it's part of their
- life and it's what they've always known. They don't have a concept that there's any other way. We can't
- seem in every class to get some kids to focus on learning instead of their cell phones. Anyway, I just wanted
- to make that comment. I understand people worried about things happening within the school or tornadoes
- and things like that, but it is an issue and it's one that is very difficult for all the teachers to
- be on board or the students to even follow through on it. So I don't quite know where to go on that
- one except to
- wanted to express that it is an issue, especially schools. And it's one that is gonna be difficult to
- enforce. And with the money that it costs, I can't see school boards, I can't see schools being able
- to do that. So thank you for all the comments on those things. Kathy, thank you for your comments as well.
- as a person right there in the schools living this every day. I don't do Shelly or Matt would either
- if you want to comment on Kathy's remarks. I just really appreciated them. I think she very appropriately
- described the complexity of this issue. You can see the benefit, you can also see the challenges.
- I really, you did a good job of laying out sort of the pros and cons of both sides, both sides of the
- argument. And it's kind of where I am in finding my way through the legislation. It's interesting that
- what we heard and some of the data that we've been looking at, it is interesting to talk about this
- in terms of, I mean,
- You know, I'm a mom, I have three kids. I love the fact that I know I can get ahold of them. I also
- looking at the data have seen some of the challenges of, you know, God forbid something happening and
- the data showing that it actually isn't helpful
- when people can have that one-on-one exchange with parents during an emergency. I know that sounds really
- counter to what you would think, but that is some of the data that we're seeing, so that's there. The
- other is something really striking. They were talking about how Fort Wayne in particular, when the students,
- were observing that when you walk into the cafeteria during lunch, it was quiet. And that's because
- everybody was just on their phones. And now they're walking into the cafeteria and everyone is talking
- and having conversation and thinking about the value of learning how to socialize and how
- to make small talk or just to build those relationships. So it is a complex issue and I really appreciate
- everyone's thoughts on the matter. Thank you. Yeah, I just wanna say that this is a classic world of
- a legislator, right? So you have kind of competing policies or competing
- priorities and you have to figure out which is most important or is there a way you can come up with
- a creative solution that allows the two different things to be reconciled. So, you know, I think there's
- probably a positive to having kids just kind of talking to each other old fashioned way and socializing
- and things like that. And so that's one positive. But on the other hand, you have parents who want to
- be able to be in contact with their kids and they want to be certain they can call for help if they
- need it when something happens. And so you've got
- two kind of conflicting things there. And the question is, can you come up with a way to make both of
- those work together somehow? Or can you get enough information to decide whether one really outweighs
- the other? So for example, do we have any peer reviewed kind of academic studies about the impact? I'm
- sure we do. We just have to go find them. But the impact of
- cell phones and social media on kids and the way they interact. And is that really a negative or is
- that just kind of a new world that we older people can't understand because we didn't have those devices
- when we were kids? And then that would help you decide how significant of a problem is it that kids
- spend all day on their phones and maybe social media is causing some kind of mental health problems.
- And if you reach a conclusion about that, then you might say, well, OK, maybe that outweighs the concern
- about the potential
- where there's an emergency and somebody needs to use their phone. And so all, you know, that's,
- that's the, you know, when legislators are working at their best, they're kind of figuring all that
- out and they're getting the data and the information that are listening to people and they're weighing
- all that. And they're, if they're lucky, they come up with a creative way to make everything work together.
- Thank you. I want to think, I think
- I want to thank you for the question and the comments, Kathy, and also both of your responses, Matt
- and Shelley. I think one of the things that is always intriguing to me with the legislature when they're
- thinking of things like this is that they don't think about the practicalities of actually implementing
- this kind of
- new rule for the schools and how much it's going to cost to do that for the schools. You're right, it's
- very complex. It's not just put it away, turn it off or not. Thank you very much for all of these comments
- on that touchy subject. We do have another individual in the queue,
- Alexander Schalk would like to ask question. If you would unmute Alexander and direct your question
- to our legislators. Hello, this is my first time coming to one of these and I can't say I really followed
- up on what's going on in the interstate legislature. I know it's important, but it's hard to follow
- local politics sometimes with how little they talk about it. But my question is,
- How do Democrats maintain leverage and get bills they want passed or influence bills when there's a
- Republican supermajority in both houses? I'm just kind of curious how that works because it seems like
- the Republicans could just push the Democrats out entirely if they wanted to. Matt, would you like to
- address that first?
- Yeah, that's a real problem because it's pretty hard if you're a minority member to get your bills heard.
- And one reality is oftentimes our priorities, our policy preferences don't mesh with what the majority
- wants. And so right there, you hit a brick wall. But for other things that are less partisan, I find
- that the key thing is you just have to figure out a way to make it look like somebody else's idea. And
- you can get your idea kind of stuck
- a Republicans bill that's moving through, talk somebody into accepting an amendment. There are different
- ways you can do that. Occasionally, the Republicans, I've had this experience, it's kind of strange.
- I actually had previous Governor Holcomb, his office actually asked me to carry a bill about the state
- archives because they said nobody else seems to understand in the legislature what the archives even does.
- So like, would you carry our agency bill? And so I thought that was kind of strange. And it was very
- technical, you know, not really political stuff, but that was just interesting. And then I had another
- experience last year where we had testimony this summer about signal jammers. Basically criminals have
- these devices that block your cell phone and your ring door camera and all this kind of stuff. And it
- makes it easy for them to commit the crime without being surveilled. It makes it hard for you to call
- for police.
- In this meeting, I started discussing it, and that happens to be one of my areas of expertise. And so
- the chair of the committee, a Republican, just said like, well, you know about this stuff. Why don't
- you just carry the bill in the next session? Now, the interesting thing that happened there is the bill
- left the House. No problem there. But then it got to the Senate, and the Senate chair of the committee
- over there couldn't understand why a Democratic bill had passed the Republican House, and he would not hear it.
- But there was a Senate bill that came over. So we just took the Senate bill and pretty much put my version
- of the bill in the Senate bill and passed it. So a senator could have the glory of having gotten his
- bill passed, even though it was basically my language in it. So playing some of those funny games, I
- call them funny games, but just there are ways you can finesse it to get your policies through, even
- if you can't have a big bill signing with the governor.
- Thank you. Shelly, do you want to talk about that a little bit? Alexander, welcome. I'm glad you're
- here. I would say you're right. It is definitely more challenging for the minority to get bills heard
- and passed in a super majority. Case in point, I mean, you know,
- I have a bill that got heard Monday morning at 10 a.m. And it kind of startled me because I am not used
- to having on the first week having a bill heard. And I'll tell you, it caught me a little flat-footed
- because I hadn't done my work in educating people on what the bill is. And if I was a member of the
- majority, they would just assume, oh, it's all good.
- I had discussed having it heard in natural resources because that's where the bill was placed and it
- got put on the agenda on Friday for 10 a.m. on Monday. So I had to work really quickly and when on Thursday
- when it was up for second readings, I did have Senator Glick approach me and she said, you're gonna
- have to talk to some of my members because they think you're up to something nefarious and you're trying to,
- pull one over and so people aren't going to support it. And so I'm working all weekend trying to call
- people and educate them that there's nothing nefarious here. I mean, believe me, I wanted to do something
- a lot bigger, but the amount of hoops I had to jump through just to get something pared down that was
- fiscally neutral, where DNR, the department head would be neutral or supportive,
- Getting a Republican to sponsor it with me, to be the second author on it was a Herculean effort, but
- we're going to hopefully get it heard on thirds. I have heard that some people will vote against it,
- retribution on redistricting. So any help that people could have to let their legislators know to please
- support the bill on third readings, it's a good bill.
- I think knowing, first of all, it actually partners our DNR with our state higher education institutions
- for something good to look at the impact on public health and mental health of our public lands on Hoosiers
- Health. I think that's good. Being able to figure out a fair, efficient way to collect fees from our
- fish and wildlife areas in our state property, so we say,
- public lands so we can support them and take care of them is a good thing, but we'll have to see. Oh,
- and additionally, to be able to learn the role that our public lands can play in mitigating natural
- disasters, that's a good thing. So any help that you can have in Senate Bill 67, Senate Bill 67, that's
- the one it is, I would really appreciate it. Thank you so much, Shelley.
- We are quickly running out of time now, and I'm so proud of everybody for having so many questions.
- I'm going to allow one more individual, and it's George Hegeman to ask his question. Hopefully, we can
- cover the topic efficiently so that each of you will have a minute or so to give some closing remarks
- for us. George, would you like to ask your question? Hi, Matt. Hi, Shelley. Thank you for being here.
- I have less question than a comment. I didn't get the bill number, but Shelly mentioned the fact that
- there are going to be restrictions potentially on syringe and needle exchange. This is a bad idea. Any
- restriction of syringe and needle exchange lies open the issue of hepatitis B, HIV,
- And because of the warming of the climate, malaria, chikungunya, chagas, dengue, West Nile virus, all
- of these blood-borne diseases, the objection to the needle and syringe exchange program is that the
- number of needles coming back doesn't equal the number of needles set out. Well, there are just so many
- different ways that needles can be disposed of in sharps, by third parties,
- in all sorts of manner that this is really not a problem. It has been always something like a seven
- back for every 10 out ratio whenever there's a needle exchange program, whatever the venue,
- whatever the time. And it's just one of the issues that we face. Lawrence County has recently cut out
- a needle exchange program. Monroe County,
- bears heavily the responsibility for even the surrounding counties for needle exchange and syringe exchange
- programs. This is an important public health issue, and I hope that you both, at any point you can,
- will do something to cut off this bill at its socks. Thank you.
- Okay, I definitely want to, thank you, George, so much. Okay, so the bill is a good bill, actually.
- It's Senate Bill 91, I'm a co-author on that bill, but the bill pushes out the sunset of our current
- syringe exchange programs for 10 years, because if we don't do that, all syringe exchange programs will sunset
- this next year. So this bill just pushes that out another 10 years. My point was only that in committee
- when we heard the bill, it did pass out of health on the Senate side and it's up for second reading
- amendments on Monday. But the reason why I was concerned is those individuals that are opposed to it
- want to ban syringe exchange programs in
- Indiana entirely. And to me, that is government overreach because this is a total local control issue.
- Your county commissioners have to vote to approve. And as you said, George, we don't have very many
- of these in Indiana, but those counties that have them, they are seeing 83% of those syringes being
- brought back. And so,
- those counties that don't have a syringe exchange program, 100% of those syringes aren't coming back.
- So, you know, 83% of these syringes are being returned. And it does, you know, all of the diseases that
- you were mentioning, absolutely, this is good. You know, in Scott County, that we saw the largest rates
- of HIV in, and,
- hepatitis in the country. They voted to ban their, to remove, to repeal their syringe exchange program
- back in 2021. And so Clark County passed a syringe exchange program. And so they are now servicing Scott
- County and Clark, Marion, Allen, Monroe, these counties that have
- the syringe exchange programs, they are showing with data the impact that it's having in reducing all
- of those and the impact that it's having in being able to trace, they test the syringes that are brought
- back to see what new drugs are out there on the market now that they can prepare for. They don't have
- any of that data if we don't have those syringes. So it's serving, and it's that one touch to
- extend a hand in harm reduction, in helping individuals get the care that they need and possibly get
- on the road to substance use treatment. So it's good. Senate Bill 91 is a good bill to support. We just
- don't wanna see it killed because of anecdotal evidence based in fear and lack of evidence. But as I
- hear on the floor,
- I don't, I just don't like needles. Well, that's no reason to not support science or data. So I signed
- Bill 91, support it, it's a good one. Matt. Yeah, just very quickly, unlike most laws, the syringe law
- has a sunset date on it because you have to really struggle to get these programs approved by the legislature
- or authorized for the locals. And that's because you have a whole set of people who are not interested
- in looking at the science
- or understanding harm reduction, they just feel it's morally wrong to assist someone in taking illegal
- drugs. They think it encourages it and causes it to happen more. Then they blame every time there's
- a needle found in a public park or someplace, it's blamed on the needle exchange program. That's why
- you have to struggle every so many years to keep the program going. If we can get it extended for a
- decade, that would be pretty good because that would give us some more breathing room.
- hopefully people's attitude to change by that time. I want to thank you both and I also want to thank
- the audience for all your good questions and just for being so engaged and make sure that you get your
- circles of influence involved in discussing these issues and supporting our legislators who took the
- time to show up and to the extent possible those that weren't
- able to show up today. Shelly and Matt, would you like to have maybe a minute each to summarize for
- us where you see things going? Matt, how about you first? Yeah, I think we've pretty well covered it.
- I would say it's going to be a very fast session.
- The good news is Republicans seem to understand that people need some help with their bills, or at least
- you better have something you can point to when you run for reelection. And so that's giving us an opening
- to push to try to really get something significant done on these affordability issues. And let's just
- hope we can also push hard to get something done on child care and health care and the whole array of
- challenges that people face. Shelly.
- I would thank everyone for participating today and it will be a fast session. I just ask you to look
- at the language of SB1, which is greater and stronger restrictions to Medicaid access and more opportunities
- to throw people off who are eligible as well as SNAP benefits. So take a look at that one, because it
- is the priority for the Senate, ours, and stay engaged, stay involved. It'll be pretty fast if you can.
- Get to the State House, that's fantastic. If you can connect with advocacy group, that's even better.
- And definitely stay connected to me and let me know where you are with some of the bills that you're
- hearing. And s40 at iga.in.gov is one of the email addresses you can use or shelly.yoder at iga.in.gov.
- Okay, thank you so much. This is our first legislative update for 2026. Please join us on January 31st
- at 930 for our next update. You can all follow the General Assembly at their website, iga.in.gov. And
- I want to make sure to thank Matt and Shelley
- for taking the time to be with us this morning. All of you for joining us, CAT, Community Access Television
- Services, all of our team members and our sponsors, the League from Bloomington, Monroe County, Brown
- County and Johnson County, the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce, the Limestone Post Magazine,
- NAACP branch in Monroe County,
- and the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Columbus. Thank you all. Thank you.