- I'm Steve Hinefeld. I'm your moderator today. I'm a contributor and board member for Limestone Post
- Magazine. And we're getting started just a tiny bit late here. So please, if you haven't already, and
- I think most people have, mute your audio. It's like the number of participants is going way up. A lot
- of people on today, I'm sure, have questions.
- So if you have a question, what you'll do is to send a direct message in chat to one question moderator.
- Open up chat, select one question moderator, and send that person just a message that says,
- I have a question. And then after the legislators give their opening remarks, we'll recognize you. And
- in the order that you
- contacted and you, you know, raised your hands, so to speak. We'll recognize you and ask for you to
- give your questions. So stay muted until you have a chance to do that. This, all the state legislators
- representing Bartholomew, go to the next slide if you like. Thank you. Representing Bartholomew, Brown,
- Johnson, and Monroe counties.
- have been invited to legislative updates. And that's a long list. I think it's something like
- 10 representatives and six senators covers a wide range, wide area. And a few of those people represent
- parts of Johnson County, maybe Bartholomew County. So we'd like to invite them all. Obviously, we're
- gonna hold here.
- Things to keep in mind, there's their names if you want to check it out. But again, things to remember,
- this is an informative meeting, an information meeting. It's not a debate. Please be civil and respectful.
- Be civil and respectful to the people who are here and to the people who aren't here and to the people
- who are in
- on the meeting and are maybe anonymous. We're going to open with each legislator's summary of significant
- bills that passed this session. I'd say also on significant bills that didn't pass is an important topic
- as well and their views of what will happen over the recess between now and really election and then
- after that they'll be back in to organize in November
- and back in for the next session in 2027. So again, we're going to look to participants to name the
- issues and raise questions to participate. Once again, send a private chat message to one question moderator.
- Say simply, I have a question. You'll be called on to unmute and present your question.
- in the order the questions are received, and if time permits, you may ask follow-up questions or raise
- other issues. We do have two legislators here. Let me have Pierce's join us as well. You can direct
- your questions to an individual legislator, but both or all, if others join us, may respond if they wish.
- Near the end of the meeting, something new we're trying, participants will be asked to choose from topics,
- discuss their top priorities for legislative consideration. We're doing kind of a poll within the meeting.
- After we do that, we're going to give the legislators an opportunity to close and we're going to moderate
- questions and answers to try to get as many people an opportunity to participate as practical. We're
- going to end by 10 30. Community Access Television Services CATS is recording this session, including
- the questions, so anticipate that you might be on TV. And with that, we can go ahead with opening remarks.
- Are we going to record this?
- We are recording this, yes. Thank you. And I believe these are posted to the League website later. Someone
- can provide information about that. Senator Yoder, since you were here first, you want to go first?
- Thank you, Steve, and excellent job in stretch, stretch. So I'm texting Matt. So glad you're here, Matt.
- It would have been a great but long hour and a half.
- I just want to say thank you. Here we are at the end of session. I will go over maybe the Senate majority
- priority bills and then maybe Matt can do the House priority bills and how they did. But based on our
- conversation at the beginning, before the session even started, you voiced your
- desires on what you would like to see what's important to you and a poll that was conducted and so I
- tried to take that into consideration and I filed some bills accordingly. One was a bill that actually
- came out of an interim study that I successfully got through the legislature and actually had studied
- last interim and it was looking at the
- economic value of our public lands. And based on those recommendations, I met with DNR and we together
- went through all of the recommendations that were unanimously voted on in support. And we identified
- the just few as three of them that had zero fiscal impact that DNR could get behind and support. So
- I turned that into a bill. You said the environment was important to you. I worked that bill and all
- the bill did was basically ask
- the Department of Natural Resources to partner with either IU or another state university on the impact
- of Indiana's public lands on public health indicators. And also create a mitigation plan for natural
- disasters. Okay, so we get this, the bill is heard the first week after the two week redistricting
- success that we had in December. When we came back in January, it was heard the first day of natural
- resources and it was voted through unanimously. It had all kinds of support. In that meeting, most of
- the Republicans were like, add me to the bill. It gets to the floor and it hits a wall. And they're
- like, what is this trying to do? We don't trust a Democrat carrying this. I'm just telling you,
- what they said. You have words on here like mental health. What are you trying to do? And all the legislative
- services agency did was use the language that was already in code. And so it got gummed up in what I
- later learned was a desire to sort of send a message from what happened in December with redistricting.
- And so I worked that bill.
- I ended up getting it through the Senate. It was controversial. You can see it was Senate Bill 67. It
- goes over to the House. I'm in constant contact with DNR. I met with the governor about it. I think
- basically it was what we do with most bills. This isn't needed.
- the department can do this without this bill. And so the bill ended up dying and didn't get through
- the House. It didn't even get a hearing, but that was frustrating. I'm still gonna go back to those
- recommendations that we gathered from the interim study and try to push some that had a few fiscal notes
- to it and see what we can do for next legislative session. So I'm still gonna work on it, but I wanted
- to give you an update on that bill of the joys of politics. There was another bill that I filed
- IU had approached me about a desire to do a feasibility study looking at their master's degree programs
- in the behavioral health space that they could realistically keep the quality high, but Nate Turner
- two year program into a one year program. So a student who is getting a master's degree in three years,
- because we made that possible through the legislature a few years ago, could add on, could start that
- and add on an additional year and finish with a master's degree in four years. Or if a student was doing
- a four year degree, master's degree, they could finish that master's in an additional year. So it would
- turn a three into a four or a four
- into a five. And it was just a feasibility study targeting certain degrees that the state of Indiana
- has a need for throughout the state. It didn't get a hearing. But I kept pushing that bill. And we were
- able to get it into another bill. But then the
- they call the Germaine police. The Germaine police on the sand side came out and said, it's not Germaine,
- it has to come out. So that language came out, but then I was able to successfully get it into an education
- bill partly. It wasn't the full bill, but the important part of the bill got into 1266. So that was
- a minor success. So shifting a little bit to some wins that I was able to get for our district, our county.
- Real quick, in House Bill 1001, which was a housing bill, I'll just say the Bloomington Housing Authority
- had approached me because they want to purchase an apartment complex in our county that is not well
- maintained. But the way that the Indiana Code is written, they're not eligible to make those purchases
- and receive the benefits to do workforce or affordable housing. So I worked with the
- authors of 10.01 and we were able to get that through. So that was a minor win for our specifically
- for our community. And there was also some language that was targeting Bloomington in 10.01 and I worked
- with the author to get that language out. So that was a win as well. I'm not saying anything about the
- policy per se. It was just that don't really want the legislature to come in and undo what we've elected our
- folks to do in Monroe County or Bloomington specifically. So I got that language out and it stayed out.
- That was a win. I also was able to in a Senate priority bill, it was Senate bill. No, that was also
- a House bill. The Senate bill priorities, honestly, outside of Senate bill one, which I'll get into, were
- I don't know, lackluster. They were trying to conform to the one big, beautiful bill, H.R.1,
- the Reconciliation Federal Bill, Reconciliation Budget Bill. So let me transition to what the Senate
- majority, the Republicans in the Senate, what their priority was. Number one, it was to what they stated
- was to right-size Medicaid according to what the federal government is requesting of all the states,
- of Medicaid and of SNAP.
- to deal with the abundance of administrative error in states. And Indiana has an above average administrative
- error rate in both Medicaid and in SNAP. So Senate Bill 1 didn't just reconcile to what the federal
- government was doing. It took a think tank
- piece of legislation that no other state has tried and took it as far to the edge over the edge of throwing
- people off of access to Medicaid and SNAP than any other state. It goes so far beyond what the federal
- government is requiring.
- I've really challenged the Senate majority on this, you know, and fought back that they're not, this
- is not a reconciliation bill. This is a bill of brutality. This is a bill that we will feel the healthcare
- impact on each and every one of our bills in the space of healthcare. And I think there was, you know,
- some partnership with, I have the name of this think tank. It's like the government oversight and transparency,
- think tank, they're out of Florida, but it's a DC think tank. And they wrote it and basically we passed
- it. No amendments. I mean, that's what was so frustrating is there wasn't even an ability to have a
- conversation about the space of SNAP benefits and Medicaid. It was like a deal that they made to see
- just how far a state could go, not just with austere measures, but really
- brutal. And that's going to be, I think, tough and felt. It's going to reverberate throughout the state,
- I think, over the next couple of years in their attempt to right size Medicaid and SNAP. What's interesting
- is the argument was Indiana has an above average administrative error rate in both SNAP and in Medicaid,
- not from the provider side, but from
- of individuals who need Medicaid and SNAP. Administrative error is not the beneficiary. It's not the
- fraud of an individual. This is mistakes made at an administrative level. So now with SB1, they're putting
- in a more administrative burden to address the fact that the federal government is saying, we're gonna
- fine states pretty hefty
- fines, penalties if you have administrative error. And so Senate Bill 1 is going to try to throw people
- off of Medicaid and SNAP in hopes of reducing error by putting in more administrative burden. Doesn't
- make sense, but that's Senate Bill 1 and it did pass. Senate Bill 2 was a bail bill where you're going
- to see on your ballot this fall, an amendment, a ballot initiative, it's exciting, to change the amendment
- on who can be denied bail.
- and gives more discretion to a judge based on even a misdemeanor, actually. It'll be in the discretion
- of the judge on who can be denied bail, going beyond treason and murder. And Senate Bill 2, which was
- a priority because they needed to finish this quest to put this ballot initiative on for this coming
- election. But Senate Bill number 2 was sort of fixing some of that. Senate Bill 4 was a,
- the tax reconciliation or sort of a tax bill to make it in line with what the federal HR one, the one
- big beautiful bill that was the tax side of it. In Senate bill four, they did extend SCA one from last
- session that was devastating for our local for
- every local government unit, including our schools. It just kicks it down the road another year because
- they know that they did not get it right and they need to have another budget session, long session,
- to really get in there and figure out how they're going to fix this because every community, you know,
- north to south, east to west was crying out that what you passed is not good for our communities and
- it needs a major fix. So they just pushed that down one more year in Senate Bill 4.
- They also did, they addressed childcare by not opening up the budget with our sort of, if you want to
- talk right sizing, let's right size what's in reserves because what is sort of seen as best practice
- is between like 10 and 13% of your general fund. And Indiana now after December is going to have between
- a 13 and 15%
- reserve compared to the general fund. So that is above average in holding on to taxpayer funds when
- we have serious needs in the state. And one of those is in childcare. And what Senate Bill 4 did was
- add that out of this new fund that last year's budget bill created, that if you need to, you may use
- these funds, $300 million to,
- fund CCDF vouchers. Well, that's a May provision. And you can't do much with the uncertainty of May.
- It needs to be a shall. And this money is going to be used for child care so that our child care centers
- and families and businesses in Indiana can actually build something
- with some certainty, can sustain something with certainty. But that's how they addressed, that's how
- the super majority address childcare. And I was on lawmakers this weekend and this issue came up. And
- what the Republican leadership said was, because I was pressing saying, we would not say may in creating
- an infrastructure for our roads and bridges.
- We want our roads and bridges strong. Child care is just as important. It's just as much infrastructure
- in terms of the strength of this state's economy and supporting families. So until we look at it that
- way, we're always going to be floundering. And the response was, child care is in no way comparable
- to infrastructure like roads and bridges. It's not as critical.
- you know, there's definitely some value differences there. And if you ask any family in Indiana, it's
- they would probably say something quite different. So that's a little bit about what's happening in
- the Senate. Some wins, some really frustrating misses. And with that, I'll pass it over to Representative
- Pierce. OK, thank you, Kelly. Appreciate that. First, I'd say that
- This was, I think for me, the most challenging session I ever had just to keep up with everything that
- was coming at us. I mean, we've had short, you know, short sessions are always kind of hectic to begin
- with. But, you know, wasting two weeks on the front end on the redistricting effort and then chopping
- two districts, two weeks off the other end. So you could avoid people complaining to you about how you
- wasted a lot of money, you know, for two weeks that ended up
- really compressing things even more. And so you just had to really struggle to keep up with what was
- in all these bills and things coming at you. I kind of thought of it was like, you know, having four
- wildfires coming at you from every direction. And you're kind of standing in the middle with your garden
- hose, trying to decide, like, which fire do I try to put out next? You know, and you kind of know that
- eventually you're just going to be overwhelmed. And that's that's all there's going to be to it. So
- the I think that
- You know, it's kind of low expectations for this session, I think. The other thing that's interesting
- to me for the last couple sessions, what traditionally has happened is the House Republicans will say
- the first 10 bills introduced, like 1001 through 1010, are our official agenda items, you know, and
- usually those are the bills that, you know, are going to pass in some form in some way because,
- you know, they have to say they were successful at their agenda.
- For the last couple years, they have not come up with 10 bills to be on their agenda. And I've kind
- of described the Republican super majorities who've been in power for so long, kind of like these tech
- billionaires who have like completely gone through their bucket list. They've launched themselves in
- the space. They've done everything they can think of, and they're kind of out of things on their bucket
- list. And so the House Republicans only had four bills on their exciting agenda list.
- And in the beginning, I had a little bit of hope because they were talking about affordability, right?
- And for the first time, I sensed that the majority felt they might be a little vulnerable about people's
- just frustration with the cost of everything. And so they had two bills that were supposed to address
- affordability. The first one was 1001, supposed to be their housing affordability bill. And the premise
- of the bill was that
- the way you're going to bring housing prices down is basically just wipe out a lot of planning and zoning
- regulations. And the home builders who have several members of their association actually are members
- of the General Assembly. So they don't even need lobbyists in the hallway. They have the lobbyists like
- right in the chairs. They were driving that bill. And so it started out wiping out all kinds of local
- zoning requirements, but it included an opt back in process. So
- You know, Bloomington wanted to maintain its zoning. It would have to basically go through, I guess,
- and pass an ordinance and say we officially opt in to keeping what we had. So I thought that was a little
- bit of an illusion. That was kind of strange. And so it went over to the Senate and it got even further
- stripped down by the time it came back to the House. It essentially was this weird dereg bill where
- it limited what you could do for mitigating like water runoff, like how big your retention ponds could
- be, which I thought was
- kind of odd as a housing affordability bill. There are a couple safety features that could be mandated
- to be in homes as far as technology, the sense when the wiring is going crazy and you might have a fire
- start or something, which I quite frankly never heard of. And the home builders saying, oh, these are
- expensive and they don't really work. And so they outlawed them. And it's like, what is going on here?
- The only thing that really left is left in this bill that matters, maybe,
- is it's mandating that every local, every county and every town have a hearing and have a process to
- think really hard about all their planning and zoning requirements and what they might get rid of to
- theoretically make housing more affordable. And then after they do that, they have to send a report
- up to the General Assembly about whether they actually did anything. So it kind of seems like an
- Yeah, I just don't know how that translates into affordable housing because the biggest problem with
- the bill is, OK, let's let's totally accept the premise that all these regulations are making housing
- too expensive. There's nothing in the bill that required the homebuilder to actually pass the savings
- along to the person or even build workforce housing. You could be using that to build your McMansions.
- There's there's actually just no guarantee at all. So I thought the whole thing was kind of misguided
- from the beginning.
- The other attempted affordability was House Bill 1002, which addressed utilities. And the Republicans
- are really on the run on utility costs and affordability, particularly in Northern Indiana. I mean,
- there is practically a pitchfork rebellion going on up there in the Nipsco territory. People are getting
- bills for five, $600 combined gas and electric bills up there. And they're just outraged. So I guess
- the best way you can put it.
- And I actually went up there several weeks ago to a town hall meeting in Munster, Indiana to talk to
- these NIPSCO people about basically who did this to them? Why are these bills so high? And
- so the affordability bill, again, we had some hopes we could do some real immediate things. And so what
- the bill essentially ends up doing, which is good, but it's kind of minimalist, is if you're
- have a low enough income that you're part of the LIHEAP program, the low income heating assistance program,
- then you automatically get put into this thing called levelized billing, which utilities would call
- budget billing. But the idea is they would estimate your average use and you would just pay that same
- amount every month. And then once or twice a year, the utility would do a true up and adjust that. And
- so if you didn't pay enough, you'd have to
- of even things up and if you paid too much I guess somehow there'd be credits or you get a rebate or
- something. And the idea was that would help out lower income people from having huge spikes during the
- winter or the summer when maybe they're heating or their cooling costs are really high. It also added
- in you know currently now they're the winter months the utilities cannot disconnect you because we don't
- want people freezing to death in their homes.
- The bill now adds in a more complicated component that says when the heat index gets really high in
- the summer, during those periods, you can't be disconnected. So it's a recognition that cooling can
- be really important, particularly to seniors. And so that's an advantage. And probably the biggest potential
- thing in the long term, this bill might do, but it just remains to be seen,
- is right now we have a rate regulation system called rate of return. And what you essentially do at
- the IORC is the utilities say, this is what it's gonna cost us to provide the service. And then there's
- usually a big fight amongst the consumer groups about whether that's accurate or not. The IORC determines,
- okay, this is how much money we think it's gonna cost for you to provide service. Then they decide what
- kind of profit should they make on that? And usually that's around nine, 10, maybe 11%,
- And so they set that. And what that means is you have this weird perverse incentive in the system that
- the more gold plated your utility system is, the more expensive it is to provide the service, the bigger
- your profit. And so what 10.02 will do is it's kind of tipping the toe in the water of something called
- performance-based rate making.
- The idea is, what's going to happen is they're going to set the rates the old-fashioned way, but then
- they're going to keep them level the same for three years. The rates will either go up or down depending
- upon the performance of the utility. If the utility does a good job of keeping the lights on, responding
- during storms, there's a whole bunch of metrics. They'll measure what they're doing. If they do well,
- they'll be allowed to have some more profit. If they do poorly, if they do a poor job of customer service,
- then they would be penalized and have some profit taken away. But they're very small percentages right
- now. So it's really almost like an experiment to just see how this thing will actually work. But there's
- a possibility that this could be the beginning of a transition to a whole new system of rate making,
- which theoretically would remove this kind of reverse incentive to make things as expensive as possible
- because then you get greater profit because you have a higher kind of expense level.
- I said in the House floor, it's like, at least you're doing something. You know, I'll vote for something
- that's better than nothing. But they really missed a lot of opportunities. And, you know, Democrats
- had a number of amendments of things that could have been done to strengthen the bill. The thing that
- I was really pushing is. Right now, we pay a 7% sales tax on utility bills, which is kind of crazy because
- theoretically you shouldn't be paying sales tax on necessities like food, food and clothing. Clearly,
- energy is a necessity.
- So I had an amendment to remove that 7% tax, you know, starting on July 1st. So we can give an immediate
- 7% reduction in everyone's bills and they really need some relief like right now. But, you know, I thought,
- oh, it wouldn't be fiscally responsible. We can't do that. Oh, we can't give away all that money. And
- so that got rejected in committee. So then I came back to the House floor and I said, well, how about
- this? We'll do the 7% reduction
- on the residential, we'll do it just for a year. And then we can get into the budget cycle and we're
- going to have a discussion about making it permanent. And in order to make sure that it doesn't like
- blow up the budget, let's take away the tax break for data centers who pay zero sales tax on their energy
- consumption. And they didn't go for that either. You know, the data centers that are in the state already,
- they save 40 million dollars because they don't pay sales tax on their
- energy utilities. So it seemed kind of odd when you make the residential people pay, but the data centers
- don't have to. So, you know, the efforts to make the bill really strong, meaningful, more immediate,
- they were kind of rebuffed, but, you know, at least something passed. I'll give them a little bit of
- credit for that. House Bill 1003 was billed as this big government efficiency bill. And it was just,
- again, another kind of an illusion. You know, what Governor Braun did, along with a committee of the
- legislature,
- is they went through the Indiana code and they looked at all the boards and commissions that exist.
- And they basically tried to eliminate them all under the theory that it would make the world more efficient.
- But what they found is the bill began to move through that a lot of these boards and commissions actually
- had some value to them. And so there were big fights back and forth and the bill just kept constantly
- changing, huge hundred page amendments,
- It was kind of nutty, but at the end of the day, they passed kind of a stripped down version
- that consolidates some commissions and gets rid of others. And so again, I looked at that as more of
- a message bill and a serious attempt to really make government more efficient. And then finally, House
- Bill 1004, the fourth and final bill on their agenda was being billed as the education or schools
- deregulation bill.
- They seem to have one of these every four or five years. So what happens is the Republicans under the
- leadership of the chair of the election committee, they basically spend four or five years screwing
- up the education system by passing requirement after requirement. And then about every fifth year, they
- announced they're going to save education from all the over regulation and then go back and repeal a
- lot of the stuff that they already put in. It's a very strange thing, but they can never resist.
- putting in at least something that messes with the teachers. And so in 2004, the one thing that they
- put in there is they said that the administrators, the schools could now basically just tell teachers
- how long they have to work. Right now, I guess that needs to be bargained and discussed. And so literally
- now you could just tell a teacher, I expect you to work 60 hours a week. And the teachers would not
- have any recourse on that, which is insane.
- So I voted against the bill for that reason. And so most of these agenda bills really weren't
- very significant, or they actually did a little bit of damage. I'd say 10.02 on the utilities, moderately
- OK. At least did something. But the rest of them, really not very impressive. Finally, let me just talk
- about a few other kind of crazy stuff that happened.
- talked about before. So House Bill 1343 is the bill that included the military police force that the
- governor can deploy to be used against civilians and effectuate arrests and searches and seizures. They
- did go ahead and send that on through the system. They tried to respond to my criticism and criticism
- to others in the Senate. They put in that this force would have to follow this national incident management
- system, which
- doesn't mean a whole lot. It just means you've got to fit into whatever structure is dealing with the
- national emergency or something. But of course, I think the governor can deploy it in the law whenever
- it's necessary. So there doesn't have to be like a natural disaster or terrorist attack for it to be
- deployed. So that was kind of meaningless. And then I think it said they need to coordinate with the
- state police or something. But the one thing that I said they should have been doing, which they refuse
- to do, is only allow this military police force to be deployed to a community if the community requests it.
- It's one thing to say, hey, I've just suffered this huge natural disaster. My law enforcement's
- overstretched. Please come down and help me. That's a different situation than the governor sitting
- in his seat in Indianapolis and saying, oh, I think it's necessary to deploy the military police to
- Bloomington because maybe they're not being as tough on immigration as we'd like. Or maybe we need to
- send the military police to Indianapolis because, you know, too many crimes are happening downtown.
- So we'll just put an MP on every street corner.
- and downtown Indianapolis, and that'll take care of it. So it remains to be seen how that's gonna happen.
- The other thing is higher education, again, they just cannot resist messing with the universities. So
- they've got this crazy provision that says you cannot have a degree, a major if it doesn't, if the graduate
- is not likely to make at least as much money
- I think as least maybe more than a high school graduate would. I think they're supposed to look at some
- three-year window or something. Who knows how they're going to figure that out. That's just a crazy
- provisional. I have to see how that plays out. Then also there seems to be a complete obsession in the
- general some of these days with the adversarial nations, particularly China. They've been passing all
- these bills that
- are supposedly going to keep the adversarial nations from buying our land and doing all kinds of horrible
- things. They put in a provision that now, if you have anybody coming from one of these adversarial nations,
- and really the only one, we're not really bringing people in from Cuba, I don't think, but it's mostly
- aimed at China. Now, if you have a Chinese student who's going to come in to be a graduate student in
- certain STEM fields, the university is going to have to do this full
- kind of crazy background check, which is probably just duplicating everything the State Department already
- does before it hands out a student visa. And the interesting thing to me is through all this complete
- silence from all the universities, just chirping crickets out there, not a single concern raised by
- any of these universities. Now, maybe they were saying things in the back room someplace that I couldn't
- see, but I mean, we've been reduced to the point where
- You know, in the past, you would go on a committee and you'd have someone from a university saying like,
- well, okay, if you're gonna do this, you should know that these are some of the impacts that are gonna
- occur that might not be positive. And they don't even bother to do that. They don't show up and really
- do anything at all. So I guess I've taken a fair amount of time and we'll just get to people's questions
- now. Thanks, Shelley, and thanks, Matt. We don't have a lot of questions yet, so a reminder,
- that there's a bunch of people on the call or on the meeting. And I'm sure some of you have questions
- to ask. To ask a question, send a private chat to one question moderator and say, I have a question.
- And we will call on you as soon as we can. We have a question from someone who calls themself undecided.
- So undecided, if you're out there,
- Will you unmute yourself and ask your question? Hi. Okay. I do have a couple of questions and I know
- one at a time. So my first one is for Shelly. First, I want to say to both of the representatives that
- showed up today that I appreciate you and thank you for everything that you are doing. Shelly, I know
- I've seen you at other events. So I want you to know that it is seen by voters.
- I am an undecided voter and I have leaned Republican prior to twenty twenty four. You stated that the
- impact of Senate Bill one will be felt in the communities and I'm curious how soon is that likely to
- start to be felt and will will that likely be felt in time for the voters
- Thank you, Undecided. I appreciate your question very much. And the way that we'll all be feeling the
- impact of Senate Bill 1 in all of our healthcare expenses is probably more slower than immediate because
- as people lose access to healthcare via Medicaid, as people fail to, you know, one of the provisions
- of this bill is you have to
- And this is what they could not state clearly how they were going to fix this. But the bill's language,
- currently, you can be put on Medicaid and then be determined medically frail. But now you have to be
- determined, how is it, medically frail before you can receive Medicaid, but you can't receive Medicaid
- unless you're defined as medically frail. And so that language is in conflict with each other.
- And as I kept asking for clarity on how someone is supposed to access Medicaid, it wasn't seen as a
- problem. No, the details of Senate Bill 1 will be worked out. But in the process, people will lose access.
- In the process, people will delay getting the help that they need, getting the healthcare that they need.
- It will result in people going to the emergency room and these decisions that people make even when
- they do have healthcare and health insurance because it is just expensive. It drives up costs because
- it more frequently will create more expensive healthcare outcomes. That expense is shared among all
- people who are
- you know, trying to receive health care. So that's how we're going to feel it when we begin to make
- those austere, I would call them brutal cuts to Medicaid access. Now with SNAP, this is what was frustrating.
- In the space of SNAP benefits, the state decided again that it would not participate in the summer sum
- bucks program, which costs the state between five and $6 million to feed hungry children. I mean, this is,
- knowing that who's receiving this benefit are hungry kids. But it's a matching program where the state
- has to match what the federal government is saying, this is going to cost Indiana between five and $6
- million. Then the state has to come up with funds to pull down those dollars. And the state is saying,
- we simply don't have, we don't have that as a priority to use that money. Because I can't say we don't
- have that money to spend, we do.
- but it was just a choice. And what I heard from Mitch Robe, who is the director right now over this
- space, they made a decision to spend that $6 million in hiring administrative oversight. So they didn't
- incur those administrative penalties and making the mistakes. So they took that money that,
- they could have used with supporting son bucks and hungry kids in the summer and are going to hire,
- they said about 60 additional individuals at the state level to be able to cut down on the administrative
- penalties that they could incur if they make errors with the federal government. And that is a choice.
- And I think when you have hungry kids, that impedes somebody's ability to learn,
- to have some stability in their life. And that is felt throughout the entire community. I know I'm hearing
- from our food banks, many of our, where people can go and access food, they're feeling the strain. And
- right now, especially in the summer, that need is greater than ever. So to me, that's how we're going
- to feel the impact
- of Senate Bill 1. It won't be felt immediate. Some people will. Some people who have come to rely on
- being eligible for Medicaid, who are receiving it now and will lose access. So just so we know, this
- is trying to target where Indiana made the choice to expand access to Medicaid dollars when the Affordable Care Act.
- was put into place. States were allowed to have Medicaid expansion. And we did. And Indiana benefited
- from that, very much so. I'll leave you with this. When I hear that
- Indiana is so competitive in the space of being competitive where businesses wanna come and they wanna
- expand here, they wanna start their business here. Indiana is strong in the world of business. Well,
- why is it then that our Hoosiers being able to access healthcare and nutritious food isn't part of that
- formula of what makes us an attractive state on where
- to grow and build your business? Why is that always conveniently left out? Because I think when I talk
- to employers, being able to be innovative, having employees that are healthy, that are cared for, all
- of that is attractive to businesses. It might be a while before we feel that impact, it won't be immediate,
- but it will be felt. My second question,
- My second question actually goes to both of you. This goes to people who were registering for candidacy
- to run in the upcoming primaries and Indiana law that seems to be disenfranchising some of those people.
- This happened on both the Republican side and the Democrat side. There were candidates or people who
- filed for candidacy
- And on both sides, the chair of the party waited until after the candidacy deadline and then utilized
- that little gap between their deadline to challenge their applications. They challenged them based on
- Indiana law. And I want to know a couple of things. One, your personal feelings on that in a time when
- so many people are coming forward
- to try to oppose what is going on at a state level, to oppose what's going on at the national level.
- I find that that's really unfortunate. And what you are looking to do or have considered, maybe done
- in the past or looking to do in the future, to change the law so that more people aren't having to,
- say, have voted in the prior to primaries under your party.
- Thank you. First, I'll jump in and talk about that. So that's something the Republicans did many years
- ago. And I think they've tightened it down since then. The problem that they say they're solving is
- they think that Democrats were filing in the Republican primaries to basically see if they could masquerade
- as a Republican. And their argument is that
- you know, these parties are separate entities and they should be able to decide who's going to represent
- them and who's actually qualified to try to be nominated to be the nominee for the particular party.
- And so they basically said if you hadn't been in some way voting in primaries for that party to show
- that you're actually consider yourself a member of that party, then you would have to get the county
- chair to essentially sign and say, okay, you're kind of a legitimate person even though you haven't
- voted in the
- required primaries to show you're actually a member of our party, I as the chair consider you a member
- of our party and you can run. The way it works is when you file your candidacy form, you have to check
- a box that says, I voted in the correct number of primaries or my county chair has said it's okay for
- me to run and you have to sign that and directly you commit perjury if you don't do it.
- You know, if you're not checking that box, then there is a period of time for the county chair to come
- in and say, hey, they didn't meet the statute, and therefore I don't think they should run. And so I
- personally think that that's not worth all the time and energy that's there. I think that voters can
- probably figure out who are big, the party diehards, who's actually a legitimate member of their party.
- The other thing that used to happen too, and I've heard people talk about this, if you go back even
- 20, 30 years ago, what would happen is if you had an incumbent, and maybe the incumbent is often unopposed,
- but the opposite party has until sometime in the summer to go ahead and have a caucus and basically
- nominate someone, basically fill the slot.
- you know, when the filing ends in February, you might say, oh, this is awesome. I don't have a,
- you know, an opposite party opponent in the fall. You know, I'm home free. But then sometime in the
- summer, they could drop in and they could recruit a candidate and put them in a place and then you would
- have a fall opponent. So one of the things that was happening is the other party, they would just basically
- hang out there for like the last 15 minutes of the filing period. And if no Republican say had filed
- against the Democrat,
- the Democrat would get one of their friends to file to be the Republican nominee, which would then freeze
- out the party from being able to fill the vacancy in the summer. And that was, I think, becoming kind
- of a routine thing in both parties to basically have like a straw person in the corner that they could
- put into place. And so I think that's what the law was attempting to stop from happening. But I agree
- that it does create additional hurdles
- for people who want to run in a primary and participate in the process. It has made the news that the
- Democrats did implement this this year as well. The Democrat chair has challenged applications this
- time as well. It's up to each county chair. Both Republicans and Democrats are using that law.
- Now here, for example, the person who's running against me in the primary has never voted in any election,
- let alone a primary. And the county chair said it was fine for her to run. So each county chair gets
- to decide whether they use that law or not. And I also should point out to you that this law got a lot
- of scrutiny because you remember there was a millionaire poultry farmer who wanted to run against,
- I think, Todd Young, a guy named Rust.
- And he hadn't voted in the right number of primaries. And so the party moved to get him off the ballot.
- He sued, took it all the way up to the state Supreme Court saying that, hey, this violates my rights.
- It's not a legal law. And the courts upheld it and said that it was legal or constitutional. Shelly,
- do you want to respond? I do.
- a little personal to me because as somebody who grew up in Indiana, in a really conservative community,
- family, I thought I was a Republican. I mean, I don't know how to get more, try to remain nonpartisan
- here, but I thought that's who I was. I didn't really understand a lot of that. So when I first started
- voting, I voted Republican.
- And it wasn't until like my mid to late, you know, around 25 that someone said, you should read both
- platforms and see, you know, you don't really, you're not really vibing here with one of these parties.
- You should probably go read the platforms and see where you more accurately fit. But if I have decided
- to run like I did 20 years later, and I'll tell you how that started and decided, wow,
- I want to get involved. I didn't even know that I am a crowd Democrat. I didn't know. I mean, under
- those kind of choices, I couldn't have run for anything. And I think that is happening. I haven't heard
- so much in Monroe, but because I go back and forth to Indianapolis a lot, I know they're struggling
- with this quite a bit in Marion County. But fast forward 20 years when I did decide just
- out of the blue to get involved in politics. Like so many people are this year or right now because
- they're, you know, they want to do something and we want them to do something. So they are filing, whether
- that is to be a precinct chair. Thank you. I don't know why we would decide who can and cannot be a
- precinct chair or a delegate or run for school board or whatever the case may be.
- I know that is, you know, the prerogative of a county chair, but that kind of enthusiasm, you know,
- when I decided to run later on, 20 years later, after 25, earlier than that, but I did have a, you know,
- I had pulled that Democrat ticket, you know, enough that there was no question, as a nobody getting
- into public service and running for the first time, there wasn't a question.
- You know, it does happen, and I think this experience has created a lot of heat and opportunity for
- us to revisit that, just as the different parties. You know, we're in a super majority, so we can't
- change the rule, but you know, when we do reorganize, it's always a good question to ask who's running
- for county chair, how they would approach these decision-making,
- in their tenure as a county chair, what their values are. I think that's a good question to ask.
- Excuse me. Undecided, we have another questioner and I'd like to move on to the next person if you don't
- mind. Thanks for your questions. Good discussion. We have a question from Ethan Fairbanks. Ethan, can
- you unmute yourself and ask your question?
- Hi, thank you, Steve. So I have a question, but also a comment for undecided question regarding SB1
- and the effects on general Hoosier health and well being as a result of that. So real quickly, I'm a
- fourth year medical student. I've been in Indiana my whole life, Hoosier through and through. I'm going
- to find out where I'm going to be placed for residency in about two weeks. I also do a lot of work sort
- of behind the scenes on
- health care advocacy and have been doing a lot of work on SB1 as it was in the legislative session.
- So I did want to provide a little bit of information on some specifics that we can expect from the harm
- from that bill and also as well as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act too. So in terms of short-term impact,
- I mean, Hoosiers are going to be feeling the pain of having
- reduced services at hospitals, especially those in rural areas. We've already seen a few examples of
- these with OB clinic closures, as well as reduced services at Columbus Regional Hospital, for example.
- In terms of long-term impact, and this is the thing that really worries me as someone that wants to
- practice medicine in the state, is concerns for rural hospital closures. I know that we are already
- expecting at least 12 to close as a result of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
- We're going to be pushing off hundreds of thousands of users off of Medicaid. That's not just going
- to have short-term harm for them in terms of being able to keep up with their checkups or pay for their
- medications or just go about their day-to-day life. That's going to have long-term impacts across the
- state when we end up seeing more people go to ER visits as opposed to primary care clinics,
- pushing off care, delaying care. Eventually, those ER visits will lead to unnecessary deaths and frankly
- increased costs
- since we are essentially going to be pushing people away from preventative healthcare long-term.
- And frankly, a concern that I have is, again, as someone graduating from medical school in this state,
- has always wanted to practice medicine in the state, is that I and many of my peers fear that we're
- going to be watching a slow-motion collapse of our state's health infrastructure, which in addition
- to the harms to patients I've already mentioned, will likely, I expect, to increase the already
- and nursing shortages that we're having across the state. So my questions to both Shelley and Matt,
- and it's a bit of a proposal as well, is what is the counter argument or counter narrative that you
- and your caucuses at State House have when trying to combat this upcoming disaster, this slow motion
- disaster that we're walking into? And if you do not currently have one, which frankly, fair enough,
- this is an extremely complicated issue,
- There are groups of physicians and medical students that are trying to work on this. And if you're willing,
- we would love to work with you as well. Thank you, Ethan. Just out of curiosity before I answer this
- question, are you looking at Indiana to be placed? Indiana is on my rank list, yeah. Okay, good. I hope
- it works out that you are here. No, you
- You're absolutely right in so many of your comments. I did file a bill this year that was a
- It did not, I mean, the fiscal impact was such that it just required FSSA to bring about some accountability
- and transparency in the department. Like what is the definition of being medically frail? When you send
- out these letters, have them be understandable, meet some threshold of knowing what to do. Many times
- the notices that go out, they are so confusing, they contradict themselves within the letter itself.
- It's old language. So that bill that I filed,
- You know, I know it's not everything, but at least give an opportunity for individuals who are eligible
- to receive Medicaid. So that bill, I think that is an important piece here for going to have it put
- some responsibility on FSSA to make the process better. Additionally, if we're going to require performance
- I think it should be the same for our state agencies. When you call, it's very, very difficult. They
- have cut back on staff so much that it is a long, long wait. On the floor of the Senate, we were dealing
- with a bill, and I don't remember what the number was, but it was addressing long-term care.
- And it was mainly Medicaid through our Pathways program, different than the Medicaid that we have through
- our Medicaid expansion program. So SB1 is technically trying to address throwing those individuals off,
- those who received Medicaid through the expansion. The Pathways program was intended to give
- individuals more ownership and self-determination in staying home and receiving healthcare and you would
- receive a waiver and you wouldn't have to go into a facility, especially nursing facilities because
- the care is so expensive. But when we heard that bill, I have received so many pieces of communication
- from individuals in navigating that space of just the Medicaid waivers.
- being put off, being on the waiver. We have a large wait list and individuals who could be served at
- home, but because they can't get off the wait list, they're put into a full term nursing facility, which
- is so much more expensive to the state of Indiana. So even in our Medicaid space for the aging and disabled,
- it's right now not
- Not healthy, I was gonna say disaster, but it too is frustrating. And what can we do? I think we continue
- to file bills. I'm in the process of trying to figure out, you know, what are other states doing that
- can be something that we can at least file and fight for in Indiana. Instead of always being on the
- defensive, be on the offensive. And I think there was some,
- wins in that space. Matt said that about utilities. We've talked about affordability, and for the first
- time, finally, the Republicans are talking about affordability. But I think in this space, it would
- be good to continue pushing it and be on the offensive and give us something that we can really fight
- for. So I'm with you. And if you're not, everybody on this call should
- see the good work that good trouble is making, which is. Shelly, you've muted yourself. I did. I didn't
- even touch anything, but OK. It's a miracle. I think my computer is telling me, be quiet.
- So I was just saying, if you haven't, I don't know if this is who you work with, but for all those on,
- if you can follow what Good Trouble does, Good Trouble Coalition is Indiana's sort of a more progressive
- wing. You know, you have your Indiana State Medical Association, which tends to be more conservative,
- good group. I mean, I've worked with them, but Good Trouble Coalition is for
- medical students and providers, health care providers in the state of Indiana who want to see
- more progressive policy. And it's a good group to follow. I benefit, they are in good communication
- with me on where they are with certain bills and they're very helpful in terms of education and policy
- insight. Good trouble coalition.
- Yeah, all those points that you raised, those are raised during a debate. The Republicans are well aware
- of them. I mean, when that bill came through the House, I think we had 17 amendments offered on the
- bill trying to address all these different impacts to make the point, try to hold them accountable,
- make sure they understood what they were doing. But what you have to understand is the mindset of the
- people in charge now. They have one single-minded goal.
- And that is to reduce the cost of Medicaid. And they're going to do that by getting as many people off
- of Medicaid as possible. Now, they know they can't just stand up and say that because people might think
- that's a little cruel. So instead, they say, just as the federal government has, oh, we have all this
- horrible waste, fraud, and abuse in our Medicaid program. And you know what? A lot of that's
- from undocumented immigrants. They use a little less kind description.
- So that's the premise of the bill, and that's how they're pushing it, because they're not taking what
- the approach they should be. They should be saying, asking themselves, why do we have so many people
- in our state that don't have health care, that don't have insurance, that can't afford it? Why are so
- many people coming on to Medicaid? What is wrong with our system? How do we overhaul this whole thing
- to make it work better? And in the meantime, how do we find the resources to actually serve the people
- that need this. And it's frustrating because it's just a bunch of political soundbites. All of these
- new requirements that will be designed to create bureaucratic trap doors so they can dump people off
- the program, that system will actually cost taxpayers more than the existing system. And that was proven
- before when they put in all these work requirements. But it's good politics to go out and say, hey,
- you got to work to get your health care.
- You're probably in a crappy job you don't like because at least it has health care and you can't go
- do what you really want because then maybe the other employer doesn't offer health care. So those people
- should have to get out and work too. Right. And it ignores the facts and disabilities and all the other
- kinds of things. And so this is this is not a bug in the system. This is how the system is designed.
- They want lots of people off this program. They're going to use these requirements. That's why they
- went even beyond the federal government
- to require this constant documentation and reporting. And it's all going to be designed to trick bag
- people and get them off the program. So the question is, how quickly will the train wreck be apparent
- to everyone in the state? When will enough people be negatively impacted by this, where they begin to
- ask the question, who did this? And what are you going to do to fix it? And then at that point, we might
- get to actual some real solutions. But right now, it's just a single-minded,
- drive to get the cost of this program way down, and there's no concern about how many people get kicked
- off. That's the whole goal, is to kick as many people off as possible. Thanks. I think Ethan may have
- a follow-up, but we also have a question. I want to get to as many people as we can who haven't asked
- questions. I think Stephanie Carmer has a question. Stephanie, can you unmute yourself and ask your
- question? Yes. I wanted to get your opinion
- between SB1 and SB285, what do you think this administration's goals actually are for Hoosiers? What
- is the goal with the combo of these two bills? What are they trying to achieve? 285, again, is the one
- where they're gonna jail or arrest homeless people. Well, thank you.
- a great question. I think it wasn't on Senate Bill 1, but you're connecting these dots. I connected
- these dots on the bill that we talked about earlier, 1343. Because in 1343, there is this language that
- they put in there that growing the military police force in our National Guard, that language was so
- striking and disturbing that it got a lot of attention. But also in this bill was language in pulling
- back on support from the Military Family Relief Fund. It put up greater barriers to be able to access
- it. And now that bill passed and the language was that a military family could not access. We're talking
- small. It's a lifetime check for
- Military families who have some issues with needing support, needing to cover your necessities,
- it's $2,500. And it's out there for every military family can access its lifetime. One $2,500 grant
- of support. I'm sorry, it's $2,500. But they increase that, that you cannot even prove that you need it.
- those who are eligible cannot make more than two times the federal poverty level, which is about $31,000
- a year. And then you have to prove, you have to make your case in front of administration that you will
- use the $2,500 to cover your bare necessities, that it is absolutely needed. Well, if you're making
- $31,000, anything is gonna be absolutely needed for $2,500. But we argued that, and I made this connection
- with 285 because we know that
- It can be some nights, 44% are veterans who are experiencing homelessness. And so we are putting up
- these barriers to actually access needs to help our veterans. And yet we're criminalizing homelessness
- without a real path forward in helping local communities. One of the really bothersome pieces of 285
- was this day limit.
- And communities like Bloomington were actively trying to create partnerships with law enforcement and
- the homeless community, homeless individuals. And the arbitrary cap of days, we were hearing from both
- law enforcement and from local municipalities that have programs that it was just not enough time. They
- needed more time. And that did not get changed.
- you're correct. We have vulnerable individuals who need access to healthcare, who need access to nutritious
- food, and SB1 is just sort of unraveling any kind of safety net that's there that, as Ethan was sharing
- earlier, is going to have a greater impact across our
- local communities that are already feeling the pinch of what we did last year with Senate Enrolled Act
- 1. So it's a terrible recipe for disaster. And I'm glad that you're connecting these dots because they
- need to be connected. And I don't see how this makes Indiana stronger. If we're going to truly create
- programs to help our homeless Hoosiers,
- It is not Senate Bill 285. If we truly want a healthy citizenry, it isn't Senate Bill 1. So we've got
- a lot of work to do, and I appreciate folks being on this call and asking these really important questions.
- Matt, would you like to comment? Yeah, it can be difficult to psychoanalyze what drives the Republicans,
- but I think the core of their philosophy
- is that government should be as small as possible and government can't do anything right. It always
- does everything in a wasteful way. And so they're not fans of these assistance programs and they don't
- look to the government as an instrumentality through which the people can solve the problems that confront
- them. It's just not really in their DNA. And so on 285, you know, a bill like that, I mean, you might
- take a look at it and, you know, from the other viewpoint and say, what does it take
- to scale up the services that are needed to address the underlying problems that are causing people
- to be unhoused in the first place. But instead, they always want to treat the symptom and never the
- cause of the disease. So in this case, what's the symptom? Oh, I don't like being confronted by homeless
- people when I walk around downtown Indianapolis. So what's my solution? I need to get them off the streets.
- How do I do that? I basically have a zero tolerance approach. And I basically say, if you don't get
- out of here,
- We're just going to arrest you. Now, that bill last year didn't get through. It got through this year
- in the House. You know, we beat them up pretty hard on it and they they they've put in like three or
- four different things which they think are off ramps that can avoid actually getting arrested and put
- in the jail. The police officer supposed to think about whether an involuntary commitment might be better.
- There can be diversion programs and said jail. You know, there's just all these
- off ramps they put in there to try to basically shut up the people are complaining about how you really
- shouldn't just be jailing the unhoused. The ultimate problem is the programs don't exist. So when that
- bill came to the floor of the house on second reading, I offered an amendment that said the bill cannot
- become effective until the state has three regional substance use disorder and mental health residential
- treatment facilities.
- that have the capacity to treat the population of the unhoused as it's counted every year. And I told
- them that, you know, you are going to end up in jail and the sheriffs really oppose that bill. And we
- told them that you're just going to fill up the jails, make them overcrowded. They're already kind of
- overcrowded now. And the sheriffs have been telling us for years
- that they are basically the mental health treatment facility in most of these communities and they don't
- have the ability to do it. And it frustrates them that they kind of have to deal with the people who
- really need mental health services and they're just stuck in a jail where they can't get them. And so
- on one hand, they kind of knew that it looked bad. So at least they tried to put in all these theoretical
- off ramps to avoid the misdemeanor part of the bill. But at the end of the day,
- They just want the problem to be out of sight. They are not really looking to solve the problem.
- To them, the solution is just getting it out of sight. I think that's what was going on there. Thank
- you for your response. Sorry. Thank you. We're nearing the end of our Q&A time. Ethan, did you have
- a very quick follow-up?
- Hopefully quick, yes. And I also want to say in comment to Stephanie's question, Indiana also ranks,
- I believe, ninth in terms of the prison population that goes to private prisons. So maybe that's part
- of the dots we should be connecting as well. But my follow up is regarding the, again, the Medicaid
- issues. I wanted to ask Matt and Shelley, if either of you are familiar with Connecticut's transition
- away from managed care entities back in 2012,
- to administrative service organizations and the associated costs, savings from that, as well as increased
- enrollment in Medicaid in Connecticut. I'm not familiar with the Connecticut program, but I can tell
- you we've also had many, many, many long discussions about managed care. I am not a fan of managed care.
- And again, I think that the powers to be
- have tried managed care because they think it's a way to cap their costs. They can do some kind of capitation
- fee or something and have more predictable costs. But I think it's interesting because I'm pretty sure
- that Mitch Rove, the Secretary of the Family Social Services Administration, had criticized the Holcomb
- administration for offloading that Pathways program, the Medicaid for the aged, to a bunch of managed
- care organizations. And I think he might have fired one.
- There might be an opening here to do something differently on the managed care front. He did fire one.
- It was the only Indiana based one. It was the only nonprofit one, but just saying. Agreed. I'll take
- a look, Ethan. Great, thank you. And just to clarify on that as well. And also, Matt, thank you for
- that SB 285 amendment that was followed quite closely by those that were watching it.
- For Indiana, we would be expected to save between $490 to $870 million annually by going this direction.
- I brought this up in testimony against SB1 in the State House and the Ways and Means Committee. And
- there are other people like me in medicine that are trying to push this more. So if this is a conversation
- you're open to having down the road, I think be on the lookout for a message from us. We're about to
- have open a poll.
- on zoom where we're going to ask you to select your top we take about a minute everyone who's on this
- and select your top three i believe items that you'd like to see the legislature addressed and we're
- going to kind of pull this together really quickly and give some feedback to matt and shelly so go ahead
- and do that it should be popping up on your screen if it hasn't already select
- three of those items that you would like to see addressed and we'll try to get results as we get Matt
- and Shelly to make their final, their closing remarks. We have 14, so 14 items. Just scroll down, be
- sure you see everything.
- such a challenging thing. There are so many topics to address and everyone is complex and needs to be
- addressed in some detail and with some complexities. So we could go all day, but people have other things
- to do probably.
- that we have 70% of people participating, I'm going to stop the poll and share the results.
- It looks like the top ones were healthcare, Medicaid got 57%, 32% for housing affordability and zoning,
- and then 29% on data centers, on education, and homeless support for people with experience, homelessness
- and childcare funding. And then 25% for natural resources.
- summarize that for anybody who needs that additional detailed information. Stop sharing now.
- Very interesting. Big tie for third place there. So I think we're about ready for
- legislators to conclude. Can you maybe each take about five minutes or so and maybe look to the future
- a little bit as to rather than being depressed about what just happened. I'll go first real quick Steve.
- I want to thank everybody. You know I was looking at health care number one, housing number two, and
- for me it was child care. There were a lot of in the
- high 20s, but child care is a tough one because as somebody who, I'm not going to deny it, had some
- long cries and frustrations and felt like I was just white-knuckling it with three kids and trying to
- figure out child care and how grateful I was that
- when they transitioned into public school, it was just like, we made it. That's how I felt. And it's
- kind of like when you're sick. When you're not sick, it's hard to really remember how bad it was when
- you're sick. And when you have kids and you're going through this, it's hard to care about it when you're
- not, and you just let it go. But when you're in it, it is all consuming, which is why
- as a state, we really need to, it doesn't get the attention because not every person is worried about
- childcare. It's kind of like access to abortion services, quite honestly. If it doesn't impact you,
- your passion isn't there. So I just wanna give a little shout out to childcare because it's so important
- and serves such a critical foundational piece to an individual's overall
- trajectory of success in being able to access high quality childcare in those early years. I look forward
- to the interim and really getting down. I am going to look at the way Vermont is approaching childcare.
- Their employers have said, yes, we know we want to be part of the solution, but we don't want to get
- into the business of childcare, which is the approach that Indiana has taken. Indiana said, we're going to let
- Employers take care of this and will offer a tax credit to those employers who offer childcare. And
- so it requires our employers to get into the business of childcare. What Vermont is doing is those employers
- said, We would rather pay a small tax and pool our money and give it to the state.
- to manage, you know, have our public school systems expand their pre-K, expand their childcare centers
- because we trust those areas. So I'm gonna look at Vermont. Thank you, Ethan. I'll look at Connecticut
- and to see how, what they're doing in the space of managed care and how they're unraveling what they
- thought was a good direction and how they're undoing that and saving the state money. And I also wanna
- make sure that we,
- Do continue to do what we can in housing. I filed a bill this session and it was based off of what Kentucky
- is trying to do. It's kind of it's called Yigby. It's just yes in God's backyard. That's the it's the
- catchy phrase, but. Some of that language was in 1001, but it got taken out. But what I filed in the
- Senate side was our.
- religious institutions are the second largest property owner in the country. First is government, then
- it's churches. What my bill said is, if a religious institution wants to get into the space of affordable
- housing and partner and workforce housing, they can do that.
- but those savings have to be passed on to those either starter homes or if there's going to be a different
- kind of zoning on their religious institution property. Well, how that was different, what was filed
- in the house was it didn't require that those investments from religious institutions be affordable
- or go to workforce housing or be a path for first time owners or be starter
- or be about addressing the housing crisis with people who need access to housing. But the bill I filed
- did, it required that. My bill didn't get a hearing and the language in the House got brought out, got
- taken out of the bill. But there has to be more that we need to do in the space of housing because 1001
- and 285 seem to be
- also a contradiction with one another. So I thank everyone. We've got a lot of work to do. We're also
- in a time of the election and I encourage everyone to get involved and stay involved and stay connected
- to Representative Pierce and myself. I'll put my email in the chat so you can reach out to me. Thank
- you so much.
- So on a positive note, you know, looking forward to the next session, I have had some discussions with
- Republicans. I serve on the courts and criminal code. So we tend to we work together on criminal code
- reform, which was pretty successful, got rid of mandatory minimum drug sentences and really tried to
- redirect the system away from mass incarceration into actually kind of effective programs that will
- actually help people be productive citizens, not just warehouse them.
- And so we've been able to get some significant stuff done in the past. They have suggested to me that
- they want the next session to be the session where we finally create the infrastructure to have residential
- treatment facilities so we can actually get people where they need to be to get the help they need.
- And so I have a little bit of hope there. I'm kind of cynical because what happens is even if you have
- people that are kind of in the subject matter area like courts and criminal code, it's got to get through
- the money people.
- And they're just like a whole separate universe under themselves. And if you can't convince them to
- put the money in, you just don't get the money. And so I'm hoping it's just not the same old nothing
- happens kind of thing. But at least there is some interest in the other side of the aisle. So I'm hoping
- that maybe we can get that done. I would just say that overall, I mean, I know people are frustrated.
- I mean, it's really frustrating to see
- You know, the real challenges that people are facing not getting addressed at the same time, a lot of
- crazy bad policies, agenda items that just don't seem to connect to reality. And so this is things that
- cause people to want to kind of give up. Quite frankly, this the frustration almost grows into hopelessness.
- And I guess that's the message that I want to tell people is this will never change unless we get
- people activated in Indiana, half the people don't vote. They've checked out. And the irony is the people
- who have checked out are the people who are struggling the most and could benefit the most from a government
- that actually wanted to address these real challenges. And so, you know, for people who constantly ask
- me, what are we going to do? What can we do? How can we stop this? How can we reverse this trend? What
- can we do? The answer is we have a window now. The legislature is done. There'll be some study committees
- probably in the fall, maybe a few meetings in the summer.
- on some topics, but this is the window now for the voters to decide who's gonna run the state, who's
- gonna be running the legislature. And if half the people stay home and are not interested, you're probably
- gonna get the same result you've always gotten. And so my message is, be politically involved, work
- for the candidates you think are gonna best support your policy goals,
- And get your friends and family engaged. Make sure they're registered to vote. You know, make sure they
- understand what the choices are and get them to the polls when it comes time to do that. And that's
- the only way this is going to change. And even if you end up having, you know, even if you don't take
- over the state house in one shot, which, you know, might be a little bit unrealistic. But if the Republicans say, wow,
- a lot more people were voting and they weren't voting for me. And even though I won, there's like something
- going on out there. I might want to modify my approach to some things here because there's going to
- be another election two years later. And all that can work together to push the legislature in the right
- direction. And so that's just my number one message is be politically involved, channel your energy
- into figuring out how you can get people into elective office that are going to be
- addressing your needs and your challenges and the policies that you want to see enacted. And thanks,
- everyone, for being in these forums through the session and trying to follow all the craziness that
- was coming at us at Warp Speed. Thank you. Thank you so much. So final legislative update for the 2026
- session signing that happened a week ago, eight days ago. So we're on to the new year. Check vote.
- The League of Women Voters Online Voter Guide Vote 411 for more information and join us for future candidate
- forums and so on. In the fall, we'll have a preview of the 2027 legislative session. You can follow
- the work of the General Assembly at iga.in.gov.
- and thank you to our legislators, especially Matt and Shelly who joined us today. Thank you to all of
- you who are on the meeting. Thank you to Community Access Television Services, team members that pulled
- this together today, and to our sponsors, LWV Bloomington Row County, LWV Brown County, LWV Johnson
- County, also the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce, Limestone Post Magazine,
- the NAACP branch for Monroe County and Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Columbus, Indiana. Thank
- you and we'll see you in the fall.