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.