WEBVTT

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- I'm Steve Hinefeld. I'm your moderator today. I'm a contributor and board member for Limestone Post

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- Magazine. And we're getting started just a tiny bit late here. So please, if you haven't already, and

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- I think most people have, mute your audio. It's like the number of participants is going way up. A lot

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- of people on today, I'm sure, have questions.

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- So if you have a question, what you'll do is to send a direct message in chat to one question moderator.

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- Open up chat, select one question moderator, and send that person just a message that says,

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- I have a question. And then after the legislators give their opening remarks, we'll recognize you. And

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- in the order that you

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- contacted and you, you know, raised your hands, so to speak. We'll recognize you and ask for you to

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- give your questions. So stay muted until you have a chance to do that. This, all the state legislators

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- representing Bartholomew, go to the next slide if you like. Thank you. Representing Bartholomew, Brown,

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- Johnson, and Monroe counties.

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- have been invited to legislative updates. And that's a long list. I think it's something like

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- 10 representatives and six senators covers a wide range, wide area. And a few of those people represent

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- parts of Johnson County, maybe Bartholomew County. So we'd like to invite them all. Obviously, we're

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- gonna hold here.

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- Things to keep in mind, there's their names if you want to check it out. But again, things to remember,

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- this is an informative meeting, an information meeting. It's not a debate. Please be civil and respectful.

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- Be civil and respectful to the people who are here and to the people who aren't here and to the people

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- who are in

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- on the meeting and are maybe anonymous. We're going to open with each legislator's summary of significant

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- bills that passed this session. I'd say also on significant bills that didn't pass is an important topic

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- as well and their views of what will happen over the recess between now and really election and then

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- after that they'll be back in to organize in November

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- and back in for the next session in 2027. So again, we're going to look to participants to name the

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- issues and raise questions to participate. Once again, send a private chat message to one question moderator.

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- Say simply, I have a question. You'll be called on to unmute and present your question.

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- in the order the questions are received, and if time permits, you may ask follow-up questions or raise

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- other issues. We do have two legislators here. Let me have Pierce's join us as well. You can direct

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- your questions to an individual legislator, but both or all, if others join us, may respond if they wish.

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- Near the end of the meeting, something new we're trying, participants will be asked to choose from topics,

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- discuss their top priorities for legislative consideration. We're doing kind of a poll within the meeting.

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- After we do that, we're going to give the legislators an opportunity to close and we're going to moderate

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- questions and answers to try to get as many people an opportunity to participate as practical. We're

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- going to end by 10 30. Community Access Television Services CATS is recording this session, including

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- the questions, so anticipate that you might be on TV. And with that, we can go ahead with opening remarks.

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- Are we going to record this?

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- We are recording this, yes. Thank you. And I believe these are posted to the League website later. Someone

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- can provide information about that. Senator Yoder, since you were here first, you want to go first?

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- Thank you, Steve, and excellent job in stretch, stretch. So I'm texting Matt. So glad you're here, Matt.

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- It would have been a great but long hour and a half.

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- I just want to say thank you. Here we are at the end of session. I will go over maybe the Senate majority

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- priority bills and then maybe Matt can do the House priority bills and how they did. But based on our

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- conversation at the beginning, before the session even started, you voiced your

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- desires on what you would like to see what's important to you and a poll that was conducted and so I

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- tried to take that into consideration and I filed some bills accordingly. One was a bill that actually

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- came out of an interim study that I successfully got through the legislature and actually had studied

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- last interim and it was looking at the

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- economic value of our public lands. And based on those recommendations, I met with DNR and we together

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- went through all of the recommendations that were unanimously voted on in support. And we identified

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- the just few as three of them that had zero fiscal impact that DNR could get behind and support. So

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- I turned that into a bill. You said the environment was important to you. I worked that bill and all

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- the bill did was basically ask

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- the Department of Natural Resources to partner with either IU or another state university on the impact

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- of Indiana's public lands on public health indicators. And also create a mitigation plan for natural

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- disasters. Okay, so we get this, the bill is heard the first week after the two week redistricting

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- success that we had in December. When we came back in January, it was heard the first day of natural

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- resources and it was voted through unanimously. It had all kinds of support. In that meeting, most of

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- the Republicans were like, add me to the bill. It gets to the floor and it hits a wall. And they're

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- like, what is this trying to do? We don't trust a Democrat carrying this. I'm just telling you,

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- what they said. You have words on here like mental health. What are you trying to do? And all the legislative

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- services agency did was use the language that was already in code. And so it got gummed up in what I

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- later learned was a desire to sort of send a message from what happened in December with redistricting.

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- And so I worked that bill.

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- I ended up getting it through the Senate. It was controversial. You can see it was Senate Bill 67. It

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- goes over to the House. I'm in constant contact with DNR. I met with the governor about it. I think

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- basically it was what we do with most bills. This isn't needed.

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- the department can do this without this bill. And so the bill ended up dying and didn't get through

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- the House. It didn't even get a hearing, but that was frustrating. I'm still gonna go back to those

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- recommendations that we gathered from the interim study and try to push some that had a few fiscal notes

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- to it and see what we can do for next legislative session. So I'm still gonna work on it, but I wanted

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- to give you an update on that bill of the joys of politics. There was another bill that I filed

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- IU had approached me about a desire to do a feasibility study looking at their master's degree programs

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- in the behavioral health space that they could realistically keep the quality high, but Nate Turner

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- two year program into a one year program. So a student who is getting a master's degree in three years,

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- because we made that possible through the legislature a few years ago, could add on, could start that

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- and add on an additional year and finish with a master's degree in four years. Or if a student was doing

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- a four year degree, master's degree, they could finish that master's in an additional year. So it would

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- turn a three into a four or a four

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- into a five. And it was just a feasibility study targeting certain degrees that the state of Indiana

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- has a need for throughout the state. It didn't get a hearing. But I kept pushing that bill. And we were

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- able to get it into another bill. But then the

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- they call the Germaine police. The Germaine police on the sand side came out and said, it's not Germaine,

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- it has to come out. So that language came out, but then I was able to successfully get it into an education

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- bill partly. It wasn't the full bill, but the important part of the bill got into 1266. So that was

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- a minor success. So shifting a little bit to some wins that I was able to get for our district, our county.

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- Real quick, in House Bill 1001, which was a housing bill, I'll just say the Bloomington Housing Authority

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- had approached me because they want to purchase an apartment complex in our county that is not well

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- maintained. But the way that the Indiana Code is written, they're not eligible to make those purchases

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- and receive the benefits to do workforce or affordable housing. So I worked with the

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- authors of 10.01 and we were able to get that through. So that was a minor win for our specifically

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- for our community. And there was also some language that was targeting Bloomington in 10.01 and I worked

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- with the author to get that language out. So that was a win as well. I'm not saying anything about the

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- policy per se. It was just that don't really want the legislature to come in and undo what we've elected our

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- folks to do in Monroe County or Bloomington specifically. So I got that language out and it stayed out.

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- That was a win. I also was able to in a Senate priority bill, it was Senate bill. No, that was also

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- a House bill. The Senate bill priorities, honestly, outside of Senate bill one, which I'll get into, were

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- I don't know, lackluster. They were trying to conform to the one big, beautiful bill, H.R.1,

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- the Reconciliation Federal Bill, Reconciliation Budget Bill. So let me transition to what the Senate

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- majority, the Republicans in the Senate, what their priority was. Number one, it was to what they stated

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- was to right-size Medicaid according to what the federal government is requesting of all the states,

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- of Medicaid and of SNAP.

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- to deal with the abundance of administrative error in states. And Indiana has an above average administrative

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- error rate in both Medicaid and in SNAP. So Senate Bill 1 didn't just reconcile to what the federal

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- government was doing. It took a think tank

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- piece of legislation that no other state has tried and took it as far to the edge over the edge of throwing

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- people off of access to Medicaid and SNAP than any other state. It goes so far beyond what the federal

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- government is requiring.

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- I've really challenged the Senate majority on this, you know, and fought back that they're not, this

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- is not a reconciliation bill. This is a bill of brutality. This is a bill that we will feel the healthcare

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- impact on each and every one of our bills in the space of healthcare. And I think there was, you know,

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- some partnership with, I have the name of this think tank. It's like the government oversight and transparency,

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- think tank, they're out of Florida, but it's a DC think tank. And they wrote it and basically we passed

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- it. No amendments. I mean, that's what was so frustrating is there wasn't even an ability to have a

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- conversation about the space of SNAP benefits and Medicaid. It was like a deal that they made to see

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- just how far a state could go, not just with austere measures, but really

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- brutal. And that's going to be, I think, tough and felt. It's going to reverberate throughout the state,

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- I think, over the next couple of years in their attempt to right size Medicaid and SNAP. What's interesting

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- is the argument was Indiana has an above average administrative error rate in both SNAP and in Medicaid,

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- not from the provider side, but from

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- of individuals who need Medicaid and SNAP. Administrative error is not the beneficiary. It's not the

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- fraud of an individual. This is mistakes made at an administrative level. So now with SB1, they're putting

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- in a more administrative burden to address the fact that the federal government is saying, we're gonna

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- fine states pretty hefty

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- fines, penalties if you have administrative error. And so Senate Bill 1 is going to try to throw people

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- off of Medicaid and SNAP in hopes of reducing error by putting in more administrative burden. Doesn't

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- make sense, but that's Senate Bill 1 and it did pass. Senate Bill 2 was a bail bill where you're going

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- to see on your ballot this fall, an amendment, a ballot initiative, it's exciting, to change the amendment

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- on who can be denied bail.

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- and gives more discretion to a judge based on even a misdemeanor, actually. It'll be in the discretion

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- of the judge on who can be denied bail, going beyond treason and murder. And Senate Bill 2, which was

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- a priority because they needed to finish this quest to put this ballot initiative on for this coming

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- election. But Senate Bill number 2 was sort of fixing some of that. Senate Bill 4 was a,

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- the tax reconciliation or sort of a tax bill to make it in line with what the federal HR one, the one

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- big beautiful bill that was the tax side of it. In Senate bill four, they did extend SCA one from last

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- session that was devastating for our local for

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- every local government unit, including our schools. It just kicks it down the road another year because

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- they know that they did not get it right and they need to have another budget session, long session,

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- to really get in there and figure out how they're going to fix this because every community, you know,

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- north to south, east to west was crying out that what you passed is not good for our communities and

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- it needs a major fix. So they just pushed that down one more year in Senate Bill 4.

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- They also did, they addressed childcare by not opening up the budget with our sort of, if you want to

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- talk right sizing, let's right size what's in reserves because what is sort of seen as best practice

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- is between like 10 and 13% of your general fund. And Indiana now after December is going to have between

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- a 13 and 15%

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- reserve compared to the general fund. So that is above average in holding on to taxpayer funds when

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- we have serious needs in the state. And one of those is in childcare. And what Senate Bill 4 did was

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- add that out of this new fund that last year's budget bill created, that if you need to, you may use

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- these funds, $300 million to,

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- fund CCDF vouchers. Well, that's a May provision. And you can't do much with the uncertainty of May.

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- It needs to be a shall. And this money is going to be used for child care so that our child care centers

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- and families and businesses in Indiana can actually build something

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- with some certainty, can sustain something with certainty. But that's how they addressed, that's how

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- the super majority address childcare. And I was on lawmakers this weekend and this issue came up. And

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- what the Republican leadership said was, because I was pressing saying, we would not say may in creating

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- an infrastructure for our roads and bridges.

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- We want our roads and bridges strong. Child care is just as important. It's just as much infrastructure

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- in terms of the strength of this state's economy and supporting families. So until we look at it that

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- way, we're always going to be floundering. And the response was, child care is in no way comparable

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- to infrastructure like roads and bridges. It's not as critical.

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- you know, there's definitely some value differences there. And if you ask any family in Indiana, it's

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- they would probably say something quite different. So that's a little bit about what's happening in

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- the Senate. Some wins, some really frustrating misses. And with that, I'll pass it over to Representative

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- Pierce. OK, thank you, Kelly. Appreciate that. First, I'd say that

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- This was, I think for me, the most challenging session I ever had just to keep up with everything that

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- was coming at us. I mean, we've had short, you know, short sessions are always kind of hectic to begin

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- with. But, you know, wasting two weeks on the front end on the redistricting effort and then chopping

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- two districts, two weeks off the other end. So you could avoid people complaining to you about how you

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- wasted a lot of money, you know, for two weeks that ended up

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- really compressing things even more. And so you just had to really struggle to keep up with what was

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- in all these bills and things coming at you. I kind of thought of it was like, you know, having four

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- wildfires coming at you from every direction. And you're kind of standing in the middle with your garden

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- hose, trying to decide, like, which fire do I try to put out next? You know, and you kind of know that

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- eventually you're just going to be overwhelmed. And that's that's all there's going to be to it. So

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- the I think that

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- You know, it's kind of low expectations for this session, I think. The other thing that's interesting

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- to me for the last couple sessions, what traditionally has happened is the House Republicans will say

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- the first 10 bills introduced, like 1001 through 1010, are our official agenda items, you know, and

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- usually those are the bills that, you know, are going to pass in some form in some way because,

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- you know, they have to say they were successful at their agenda.

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- For the last couple years, they have not come up with 10 bills to be on their agenda. And I've kind

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- of described the Republican super majorities who've been in power for so long, kind of like these tech

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- billionaires who have like completely gone through their bucket list. They've launched themselves in

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- the space. They've done everything they can think of, and they're kind of out of things on their bucket

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- list. And so the House Republicans only had four bills on their exciting agenda list.

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- And in the beginning, I had a little bit of hope because they were talking about affordability, right?

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- And for the first time, I sensed that the majority felt they might be a little vulnerable about people's

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- just frustration with the cost of everything. And so they had two bills that were supposed to address

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- affordability. The first one was 1001, supposed to be their housing affordability bill. And the premise

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- of the bill was that

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- the way you're going to bring housing prices down is basically just wipe out a lot of planning and zoning

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- regulations. And the home builders who have several members of their association actually are members

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- of the General Assembly. So they don't even need lobbyists in the hallway. They have the lobbyists like

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- right in the chairs. They were driving that bill. And so it started out wiping out all kinds of local

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- zoning requirements, but it included an opt back in process. So

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- You know, Bloomington wanted to maintain its zoning. It would have to basically go through, I guess,

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- and pass an ordinance and say we officially opt in to keeping what we had. So I thought that was a little

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- bit of an illusion. That was kind of strange. And so it went over to the Senate and it got even further

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- stripped down by the time it came back to the House. It essentially was this weird dereg bill where

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- it limited what you could do for mitigating like water runoff, like how big your retention ponds could

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- be, which I thought was

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- kind of odd as a housing affordability bill. There are a couple safety features that could be mandated

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- to be in homes as far as technology, the sense when the wiring is going crazy and you might have a fire

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- start or something, which I quite frankly never heard of. And the home builders saying, oh, these are

00:23:25.818 --> 00:23:32.152
- expensive and they don't really work. And so they outlawed them. And it's like, what is going on here?

00:23:32.152 --> 00:23:36.702
- The only thing that really left is left in this bill that matters, maybe,

00:23:37.250 --> 00:23:44.329
- is it's mandating that every local, every county and every town have a hearing and have a process to

00:23:44.329 --> 00:23:51.407
- think really hard about all their planning and zoning requirements and what they might get rid of to

00:23:51.407 --> 00:23:58.416
- theoretically make housing more affordable. And then after they do that, they have to send a report

00:23:58.416 --> 00:24:05.214
- up to the General Assembly about whether they actually did anything. So it kind of seems like an

00:24:06.306 --> 00:24:11.324
- Yeah, I just don't know how that translates into affordable housing because the biggest problem with

00:24:11.324 --> 00:24:16.392
- the bill is, OK, let's let's totally accept the premise that all these regulations are making housing

00:24:16.392 --> 00:24:21.459
- too expensive. There's nothing in the bill that required the homebuilder to actually pass the savings

00:24:21.459 --> 00:24:26.577
- along to the person or even build workforce housing. You could be using that to build your McMansions.

00:24:26.577 --> 00:24:31.644
- There's there's actually just no guarantee at all. So I thought the whole thing was kind of misguided

00:24:31.644 --> 00:24:32.638
- from the beginning.

00:24:33.922 --> 00:24:40.561
- The other attempted affordability was House Bill 1002, which addressed utilities. And the Republicans

00:24:40.561 --> 00:24:47.070
- are really on the run on utility costs and affordability, particularly in Northern Indiana. I mean,

00:24:47.070 --> 00:24:53.904
- there is practically a pitchfork rebellion going on up there in the Nipsco territory. People are getting

00:24:53.904 --> 00:25:00.478
- bills for five, $600 combined gas and electric bills up there. And they're just outraged. So I guess

00:25:00.478 --> 00:25:02.366
- the best way you can put it.

00:25:02.562 --> 00:25:09.366
- And I actually went up there several weeks ago to a town hall meeting in Munster, Indiana to talk to

00:25:09.366 --> 00:25:15.496
- these NIPSCO people about basically who did this to them? Why are these bills so high? And

00:25:15.496 --> 00:25:22.501
- so the affordability bill, again, we had some hopes we could do some real immediate things. And so what

00:25:22.501 --> 00:25:28.766
- the bill essentially ends up doing, which is good, but it's kind of minimalist, is if you're

00:25:28.930 --> 00:25:35.136
- have a low enough income that you're part of the LIHEAP program, the low income heating assistance program,

00:25:35.136 --> 00:25:40.883
- then you automatically get put into this thing called levelized billing, which utilities would call

00:25:40.883 --> 00:25:46.744
- budget billing. But the idea is they would estimate your average use and you would just pay that same

00:25:46.744 --> 00:25:52.663
- amount every month. And then once or twice a year, the utility would do a true up and adjust that. And

00:25:52.663 --> 00:25:55.134
- so if you didn't pay enough, you'd have to

00:25:55.714 --> 00:26:01.159
- of even things up and if you paid too much I guess somehow there'd be credits or you get a rebate or

00:26:01.159 --> 00:26:06.711
- something. And the idea was that would help out lower income people from having huge spikes during the

00:26:06.711 --> 00:26:12.210
- winter or the summer when maybe they're heating or their cooling costs are really high. It also added

00:26:12.210 --> 00:26:17.870
- in you know currently now they're the winter months the utilities cannot disconnect you because we don't

00:26:17.870 --> 00:26:20.350
- want people freezing to death in their homes.

00:26:21.058 --> 00:26:27.798
- The bill now adds in a more complicated component that says when the heat index gets really high in

00:26:27.798 --> 00:26:34.537
- the summer, during those periods, you can't be disconnected. So it's a recognition that cooling can

00:26:34.537 --> 00:26:41.884
- be really important, particularly to seniors. And so that's an advantage. And probably the biggest potential

00:26:41.884 --> 00:26:47.006
- thing in the long term, this bill might do, but it just remains to be seen,

00:26:47.426 --> 00:26:53.278
- is right now we have a rate regulation system called rate of return. And what you essentially do at

00:26:53.278 --> 00:26:59.364
- the IORC is the utilities say, this is what it's gonna cost us to provide the service. And then there's

00:26:59.364 --> 00:27:05.626
- usually a big fight amongst the consumer groups about whether that's accurate or not. The IORC determines,

00:27:05.626 --> 00:27:11.712
- okay, this is how much money we think it's gonna cost for you to provide service. Then they decide what

00:27:11.712 --> 00:27:16.862
- kind of profit should they make on that? And usually that's around nine, 10, maybe 11%,

00:27:17.794 --> 00:27:25.230
- And so they set that. And what that means is you have this weird perverse incentive in the system that

00:27:25.230 --> 00:27:32.811
- the more gold plated your utility system is, the more expensive it is to provide the service, the bigger

00:27:32.811 --> 00:27:40.320
- your profit. And so what 10.02 will do is it's kind of tipping the toe in the water of something called

00:27:40.320 --> 00:27:42.558
- performance-based rate making.

00:27:43.074 --> 00:27:48.887
- The idea is, what's going to happen is they're going to set the rates the old-fashioned way, but then

00:27:48.887 --> 00:27:54.871
- they're going to keep them level the same for three years. The rates will either go up or down depending

00:27:54.871 --> 00:28:00.855
- upon the performance of the utility. If the utility does a good job of keeping the lights on, responding

00:28:00.855 --> 00:28:06.668
- during storms, there's a whole bunch of metrics. They'll measure what they're doing. If they do well,

00:28:06.668 --> 00:28:12.766
- they'll be allowed to have some more profit. If they do poorly, if they do a poor job of customer service,

00:28:13.026 --> 00:28:19.088
- then they would be penalized and have some profit taken away. But they're very small percentages right

00:28:19.088 --> 00:28:25.267
- now. So it's really almost like an experiment to just see how this thing will actually work. But there's

00:28:25.267 --> 00:28:31.211
- a possibility that this could be the beginning of a transition to a whole new system of rate making,

00:28:31.211 --> 00:28:37.332
- which theoretically would remove this kind of reverse incentive to make things as expensive as possible

00:28:37.332 --> 00:28:42.334
- because then you get greater profit because you have a higher kind of expense level.

00:28:42.530 --> 00:28:47.996
- I said in the House floor, it's like, at least you're doing something. You know, I'll vote for something

00:28:47.996 --> 00:28:53.202
- that's better than nothing. But they really missed a lot of opportunities. And, you know, Democrats

00:28:53.202 --> 00:28:58.512
- had a number of amendments of things that could have been done to strengthen the bill. The thing that

00:28:58.512 --> 00:29:04.083
- I was really pushing is. Right now, we pay a 7% sales tax on utility bills, which is kind of crazy because

00:29:04.083 --> 00:29:09.393
- theoretically you shouldn't be paying sales tax on necessities like food, food and clothing. Clearly,

00:29:09.393 --> 00:29:10.590
- energy is a necessity.

00:29:11.170 --> 00:29:18.121
- So I had an amendment to remove that 7% tax, you know, starting on July 1st. So we can give an immediate

00:29:18.121 --> 00:29:25.271
- 7% reduction in everyone's bills and they really need some relief like right now. But, you know, I thought,

00:29:25.271 --> 00:29:32.023
- oh, it wouldn't be fiscally responsible. We can't do that. Oh, we can't give away all that money. And

00:29:32.023 --> 00:29:38.776
- so that got rejected in committee. So then I came back to the House floor and I said, well, how about

00:29:38.776 --> 00:29:40.894
- this? We'll do the 7% reduction

00:29:40.994 --> 00:29:47.191
- on the residential, we'll do it just for a year. And then we can get into the budget cycle and we're

00:29:47.191 --> 00:29:53.388
- going to have a discussion about making it permanent. And in order to make sure that it doesn't like

00:29:53.388 --> 00:29:59.892
- blow up the budget, let's take away the tax break for data centers who pay zero sales tax on their energy

00:29:59.892 --> 00:30:06.458
- consumption. And they didn't go for that either. You know, the data centers that are in the state already,

00:30:06.458 --> 00:30:10.814
- they save 40 million dollars because they don't pay sales tax on their

00:30:11.138 --> 00:30:17.000
- energy utilities. So it seemed kind of odd when you make the residential people pay, but the data centers

00:30:17.000 --> 00:30:22.586
- don't have to. So, you know, the efforts to make the bill really strong, meaningful, more immediate,

00:30:22.586 --> 00:30:28.172
- they were kind of rebuffed, but, you know, at least something passed. I'll give them a little bit of

00:30:28.172 --> 00:30:33.757
- credit for that. House Bill 1003 was billed as this big government efficiency bill. And it was just,

00:30:33.757 --> 00:30:39.343
- again, another kind of an illusion. You know, what Governor Braun did, along with a committee of the

00:30:39.343 --> 00:30:40.062
- legislature,

00:30:40.226 --> 00:30:46.100
- is they went through the Indiana code and they looked at all the boards and commissions that exist.

00:30:46.100 --> 00:30:52.503
- And they basically tried to eliminate them all under the theory that it would make the world more efficient.

00:30:52.503 --> 00:30:58.729
- But what they found is the bill began to move through that a lot of these boards and commissions actually

00:30:58.729 --> 00:31:04.720
- had some value to them. And so there were big fights back and forth and the bill just kept constantly

00:31:04.720 --> 00:31:07.070
- changing, huge hundred page amendments,

00:31:07.458 --> 00:31:13.833
- It was kind of nutty, but at the end of the day, they passed kind of a stripped down version

00:31:13.833 --> 00:31:20.757
- that consolidates some commissions and gets rid of others. And so again, I looked at that as more of

00:31:20.757 --> 00:31:27.818
- a message bill and a serious attempt to really make government more efficient. And then finally, House

00:31:27.818 --> 00:31:34.536
- Bill 1004, the fourth and final bill on their agenda was being billed as the education or schools

00:31:34.536 --> 00:31:35.838
- deregulation bill.

00:31:37.506 --> 00:31:42.913
- They seem to have one of these every four or five years. So what happens is the Republicans under the

00:31:42.913 --> 00:31:48.214
- leadership of the chair of the election committee, they basically spend four or five years screwing

00:31:48.214 --> 00:31:53.726
- up the education system by passing requirement after requirement. And then about every fifth year, they

00:31:53.726 --> 00:31:59.080
- announced they're going to save education from all the over regulation and then go back and repeal a

00:31:59.080 --> 00:32:04.222
- lot of the stuff that they already put in. It's a very strange thing, but they can never resist.

00:32:04.738 --> 00:32:11.158
- putting in at least something that messes with the teachers. And so in 2004, the one thing that they

00:32:11.158 --> 00:32:17.642
- put in there is they said that the administrators, the schools could now basically just tell teachers

00:32:17.642 --> 00:32:24.380
- how long they have to work. Right now, I guess that needs to be bargained and discussed. And so literally

00:32:24.380 --> 00:32:30.737
- now you could just tell a teacher, I expect you to work 60 hours a week. And the teachers would not

00:32:30.737 --> 00:32:33.534
- have any recourse on that, which is insane.

00:32:34.082 --> 00:32:40.274
- So I voted against the bill for that reason. And so most of these agenda bills really weren't

00:32:40.274 --> 00:32:47.256
- very significant, or they actually did a little bit of damage. I'd say 10.02 on the utilities, moderately

00:32:47.256 --> 00:32:54.107
- OK. At least did something. But the rest of them, really not very impressive. Finally, let me just talk

00:32:54.107 --> 00:32:57.598
- about a few other kind of crazy stuff that happened.

00:32:57.794 --> 00:33:03.918
- talked about before. So House Bill 1343 is the bill that included the military police force that the

00:33:03.918 --> 00:33:10.224
- governor can deploy to be used against civilians and effectuate arrests and searches and seizures. They

00:33:10.224 --> 00:33:16.409
- did go ahead and send that on through the system. They tried to respond to my criticism and criticism

00:33:16.409 --> 00:33:22.957
- to others in the Senate. They put in that this force would have to follow this national incident management

00:33:22.957 --> 00:33:23.806
- system, which

00:33:24.098 --> 00:33:28.801
- doesn't mean a whole lot. It just means you've got to fit into whatever structure is dealing with the

00:33:28.801 --> 00:33:33.550
- national emergency or something. But of course, I think the governor can deploy it in the law whenever

00:33:33.550 --> 00:33:38.207
- it's necessary. So there doesn't have to be like a natural disaster or terrorist attack for it to be

00:33:38.207 --> 00:33:42.863
- deployed. So that was kind of meaningless. And then I think it said they need to coordinate with the

00:33:42.863 --> 00:33:47.658
- state police or something. But the one thing that I said they should have been doing, which they refuse

00:33:47.658 --> 00:33:52.638
- to do, is only allow this military police force to be deployed to a community if the community requests it.

00:33:53.634 --> 00:33:58.607
- It's one thing to say, hey, I've just suffered this huge natural disaster. My law enforcement's

00:33:58.607 --> 00:34:03.787
- overstretched. Please come down and help me. That's a different situation than the governor sitting

00:34:03.787 --> 00:34:08.967
- in his seat in Indianapolis and saying, oh, I think it's necessary to deploy the military police to

00:34:08.967 --> 00:34:14.251
- Bloomington because maybe they're not being as tough on immigration as we'd like. Or maybe we need to

00:34:14.251 --> 00:34:19.431
- send the military police to Indianapolis because, you know, too many crimes are happening downtown.

00:34:19.431 --> 00:34:21.918
- So we'll just put an MP on every street corner.

00:34:22.306 --> 00:34:30.357
- and downtown Indianapolis, and that'll take care of it. So it remains to be seen how that's gonna happen.

00:34:30.357 --> 00:34:38.105
- The other thing is higher education, again, they just cannot resist messing with the universities. So

00:34:38.105 --> 00:34:46.308
- they've got this crazy provision that says you cannot have a degree, a major if it doesn't, if the graduate

00:34:46.308 --> 00:34:49.726
- is not likely to make at least as much money

00:34:49.954 --> 00:34:56.523
- I think as least maybe more than a high school graduate would. I think they're supposed to look at some

00:34:56.523 --> 00:35:02.840
- three-year window or something. Who knows how they're going to figure that out. That's just a crazy

00:35:02.840 --> 00:35:09.345
- provisional. I have to see how that plays out. Then also there seems to be a complete obsession in the

00:35:09.345 --> 00:35:15.788
- general some of these days with the adversarial nations, particularly China. They've been passing all

00:35:15.788 --> 00:35:16.862
- these bills that

00:35:17.282 --> 00:35:23.592
- are supposedly going to keep the adversarial nations from buying our land and doing all kinds of horrible

00:35:23.592 --> 00:35:30.022
- things. They put in a provision that now, if you have anybody coming from one of these adversarial nations,

00:35:30.022 --> 00:35:36.154
- and really the only one, we're not really bringing people in from Cuba, I don't think, but it's mostly

00:35:36.154 --> 00:35:42.226
- aimed at China. Now, if you have a Chinese student who's going to come in to be a graduate student in

00:35:42.226 --> 00:35:46.334
- certain STEM fields, the university is going to have to do this full

00:35:47.298 --> 00:35:53.948
- kind of crazy background check, which is probably just duplicating everything the State Department already

00:35:53.948 --> 00:36:00.287
- does before it hands out a student visa. And the interesting thing to me is through all this complete

00:36:00.287 --> 00:36:06.502
- silence from all the universities, just chirping crickets out there, not a single concern raised by

00:36:06.502 --> 00:36:13.028
- any of these universities. Now, maybe they were saying things in the back room someplace that I couldn't

00:36:13.028 --> 00:36:16.446
- see, but I mean, we've been reduced to the point where

00:36:16.898 --> 00:36:22.733
- You know, in the past, you would go on a committee and you'd have someone from a university saying like,

00:36:22.733 --> 00:36:28.456
- well, okay, if you're gonna do this, you should know that these are some of the impacts that are gonna

00:36:28.456 --> 00:36:34.180
- occur that might not be positive. And they don't even bother to do that. They don't show up and really

00:36:34.180 --> 00:36:40.014
- do anything at all. So I guess I've taken a fair amount of time and we'll just get to people's questions

00:36:40.014 --> 00:36:45.182
- now. Thanks, Shelley, and thanks, Matt. We don't have a lot of questions yet, so a reminder,

00:36:45.346 --> 00:36:53.690
- that there's a bunch of people on the call or on the meeting. And I'm sure some of you have questions

00:36:53.690 --> 00:37:01.953
- to ask. To ask a question, send a private chat to one question moderator and say, I have a question.

00:37:01.953 --> 00:37:10.543
- And we will call on you as soon as we can. We have a question from someone who calls themself undecided.

00:37:10.543 --> 00:37:13.406
- So undecided, if you're out there,

00:37:13.762 --> 00:37:21.297
- Will you unmute yourself and ask your question? Hi. Okay. I do have a couple of questions and I know

00:37:21.297 --> 00:37:28.981
- one at a time. So my first one is for Shelly. First, I want to say to both of the representatives that

00:37:28.981 --> 00:37:36.590
- showed up today that I appreciate you and thank you for everything that you are doing. Shelly, I know

00:37:36.590 --> 00:37:42.558
- I've seen you at other events. So I want you to know that it is seen by voters.

00:37:43.586 --> 00:37:54.284
- I am an undecided voter and I have leaned Republican prior to twenty twenty four. You stated that the

00:37:54.284 --> 00:38:04.877
- impact of Senate Bill one will be felt in the communities and I'm curious how soon is that likely to

00:38:04.877 --> 00:38:12.638
- start to be felt and will will that likely be felt in time for the voters

00:38:16.930 --> 00:38:25.944
- Thank you, Undecided. I appreciate your question very much. And the way that we'll all be feeling the

00:38:25.944 --> 00:38:35.222
- impact of Senate Bill 1 in all of our healthcare expenses is probably more slower than immediate because

00:38:35.222 --> 00:38:44.148
- as people lose access to healthcare via Medicaid, as people fail to, you know, one of the provisions

00:38:44.148 --> 00:38:46.622
- of this bill is you have to

00:38:46.722 --> 00:38:54.211
- And this is what they could not state clearly how they were going to fix this. But the bill's language,

00:38:54.211 --> 00:39:01.484
- currently, you can be put on Medicaid and then be determined medically frail. But now you have to be

00:39:01.484 --> 00:39:08.901
- determined, how is it, medically frail before you can receive Medicaid, but you can't receive Medicaid

00:39:08.901 --> 00:39:15.742
- unless you're defined as medically frail. And so that language is in conflict with each other.

00:39:16.258 --> 00:39:24.620
- And as I kept asking for clarity on how someone is supposed to access Medicaid, it wasn't seen as a

00:39:24.620 --> 00:39:33.567
- problem. No, the details of Senate Bill 1 will be worked out. But in the process, people will lose access.

00:39:33.567 --> 00:39:42.430
- In the process, people will delay getting the help that they need, getting the healthcare that they need.

00:39:42.722 --> 00:39:51.422
- It will result in people going to the emergency room and these decisions that people make even when

00:39:51.422 --> 00:40:00.297
- they do have healthcare and health insurance because it is just expensive. It drives up costs because

00:40:00.297 --> 00:40:08.997
- it more frequently will create more expensive healthcare outcomes. That expense is shared among all

00:40:08.997 --> 00:40:10.302
- people who are

00:40:10.978 --> 00:40:17.865
- you know, trying to receive health care. So that's how we're going to feel it when we begin to make

00:40:17.865 --> 00:40:25.440
- those austere, I would call them brutal cuts to Medicaid access. Now with SNAP, this is what was frustrating.

00:40:25.440 --> 00:40:32.533
- In the space of SNAP benefits, the state decided again that it would not participate in the summer sum

00:40:32.533 --> 00:40:39.902
- bucks program, which costs the state between five and $6 million to feed hungry children. I mean, this is,

00:40:40.130 --> 00:40:47.077
- knowing that who's receiving this benefit are hungry kids. But it's a matching program where the state

00:40:47.077 --> 00:40:53.957
- has to match what the federal government is saying, this is going to cost Indiana between five and $6

00:40:53.957 --> 00:41:00.905
- million. Then the state has to come up with funds to pull down those dollars. And the state is saying,

00:41:00.905 --> 00:41:07.852
- 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

00:41:07.852 --> 00:41:10.078
- have that money to spend, we do.

00:41:10.626 --> 00:41:19.360
- but it was just a choice. And what I heard from Mitch Robe, who is the director right now over this

00:41:19.360 --> 00:41:28.443
- space, they made a decision to spend that $6 million in hiring administrative oversight. So they didn't

00:41:28.443 --> 00:41:36.478
- incur those administrative penalties and making the mistakes. So they took that money that,

00:41:36.770 --> 00:41:44.186
- they could have used with supporting son bucks and hungry kids in the summer and are going to hire,

00:41:44.186 --> 00:41:52.048
- they said about 60 additional individuals at the state level to be able to cut down on the administrative

00:41:52.048 --> 00:41:59.687
- penalties that they could incur if they make errors with the federal government. And that is a choice.

00:41:59.687 --> 00:42:05.694
- And I think when you have hungry kids, that impedes somebody's ability to learn,

00:42:05.794 --> 00:42:15.061
- to have some stability in their life. And that is felt throughout the entire community. I know I'm hearing

00:42:15.061 --> 00:42:23.982
- from our food banks, many of our, where people can go and access food, they're feeling the strain. And

00:42:23.982 --> 00:42:32.816
- right now, especially in the summer, that need is greater than ever. So to me, that's how we're going

00:42:32.816 --> 00:42:34.462
- to feel the impact

00:42:34.626 --> 00:42:43.277
- of Senate Bill 1. It won't be felt immediate. Some people will. Some people who have come to rely on

00:42:43.277 --> 00:42:51.928
- being eligible for Medicaid, who are receiving it now and will lose access. So just so we know, this

00:42:51.928 --> 00:43:01.950
- is trying to target where Indiana made the choice to expand access to Medicaid dollars when the Affordable Care Act.

00:43:02.114 --> 00:43:11.942
- was put into place. States were allowed to have Medicaid expansion. And we did. And Indiana benefited

00:43:11.942 --> 00:43:18.494
- from that, very much so. I'll leave you with this. When I hear that

00:43:18.722 --> 00:43:26.751
- Indiana is so competitive in the space of being competitive where businesses wanna come and they wanna

00:43:26.751 --> 00:43:34.625
- expand here, they wanna start their business here. Indiana is strong in the world of business. Well,

00:43:34.625 --> 00:43:42.732
- why is it then that our Hoosiers being able to access healthcare and nutritious food isn't part of that

00:43:42.732 --> 00:43:46.942
- formula of what makes us an attractive state on where

00:43:47.170 --> 00:43:55.269
- to grow and build your business? Why is that always conveniently left out? Because I think when I talk

00:43:55.269 --> 00:44:03.290
- to employers, being able to be innovative, having employees that are healthy, that are cared for, all

00:44:03.290 --> 00:44:11.782
- of that is attractive to businesses. It might be a while before we feel that impact, it won't be immediate,

00:44:11.782 --> 00:44:15.006
- but it will be felt. My second question,

00:44:15.842 --> 00:44:25.290
- My second question actually goes to both of you. This goes to people who were registering for candidacy

00:44:25.290 --> 00:44:34.829
- to run in the upcoming primaries and Indiana law that seems to be disenfranchising some of those people.

00:44:34.829 --> 00:44:44.005
- This happened on both the Republican side and the Democrat side. There were candidates or people who

00:44:44.005 --> 00:44:45.822
- filed for candidacy

00:44:45.986 --> 00:44:54.284
- And on both sides, the chair of the party waited until after the candidacy deadline and then utilized

00:44:54.284 --> 00:45:02.581
- that little gap between their deadline to challenge their applications. They challenged them based on

00:45:02.581 --> 00:45:10.960
- Indiana law. And I want to know a couple of things. One, your personal feelings on that in a time when

00:45:10.960 --> 00:45:13.726
- so many people are coming forward

00:45:13.986 --> 00:45:22.181
- to try to oppose what is going on at a state level, to oppose what's going on at the national level.

00:45:22.181 --> 00:45:30.376
- I find that that's really unfortunate. And what you are looking to do or have considered, maybe done

00:45:30.376 --> 00:45:38.490
- in the past or looking to do in the future, to change the law so that more people aren't having to,

00:45:38.490 --> 00:45:43.358
- say, have voted in the prior to primaries under your party.

00:45:47.682 --> 00:45:55.610
- Thank you. First, I'll jump in and talk about that. So that's something the Republicans did many years

00:45:55.610 --> 00:46:03.307
- ago. And I think they've tightened it down since then. The problem that they say they're solving is

00:46:03.307 --> 00:46:11.619
- they think that Democrats were filing in the Republican primaries to basically see if they could masquerade

00:46:11.619 --> 00:46:15.006
- as a Republican. And their argument is that

00:46:15.234 --> 00:46:20.908
- you know, these parties are separate entities and they should be able to decide who's going to represent

00:46:20.908 --> 00:46:26.367
- them and who's actually qualified to try to be nominated to be the nominee for the particular party.

00:46:26.367 --> 00:46:31.825
- And so they basically said if you hadn't been in some way voting in primaries for that party to show

00:46:31.825 --> 00:46:37.283
- that you're actually consider yourself a member of that party, then you would have to get the county

00:46:37.283 --> 00:46:42.687
- chair to essentially sign and say, okay, you're kind of a legitimate person even though you haven't

00:46:42.687 --> 00:46:43.390
- voted in the

00:46:43.490 --> 00:46:50.614
- required primaries to show you're actually a member of our party, I as the chair consider you a member

00:46:50.614 --> 00:46:57.737
- of our party and you can run. The way it works is when you file your candidacy form, you have to check

00:46:57.737 --> 00:47:04.792
- a box that says, I voted in the correct number of primaries or my county chair has said it's okay for

00:47:04.792 --> 00:47:10.878
- me to run and you have to sign that and directly you commit perjury if you don't do it.

00:47:11.042 --> 00:47:17.504
- You know, if you're not checking that box, then there is a period of time for the county chair to come

00:47:17.504 --> 00:47:23.841
- in and say, hey, they didn't meet the statute, and therefore I don't think they should run. And so I

00:47:23.841 --> 00:47:30.177
- personally think that that's not worth all the time and energy that's there. I think that voters can

00:47:30.177 --> 00:47:36.702
- probably figure out who are big, the party diehards, who's actually a legitimate member of their party.

00:47:36.898 --> 00:47:44.054
- The other thing that used to happen too, and I've heard people talk about this, if you go back even

00:47:44.054 --> 00:47:51.782
- 20, 30 years ago, what would happen is if you had an incumbent, and maybe the incumbent is often unopposed,

00:47:51.782 --> 00:47:58.937
- but the opposite party has until sometime in the summer to go ahead and have a caucus and basically

00:47:58.937 --> 00:48:02.014
- nominate someone, basically fill the slot.

00:48:02.370 --> 00:48:07.572
- you know, when the filing ends in February, you might say, oh, this is awesome. I don't have a,

00:48:07.572 --> 00:48:12.991
- you know, an opposite party opponent in the fall. You know, I'm home free. But then sometime in the

00:48:12.991 --> 00:48:18.681
- summer, they could drop in and they could recruit a candidate and put them in a place and then you would

00:48:18.681 --> 00:48:24.533
- have a fall opponent. So one of the things that was happening is the other party, they would just basically

00:48:24.533 --> 00:48:30.006
- hang out there for like the last 15 minutes of the filing period. And if no Republican say had filed

00:48:30.006 --> 00:48:31.198
- against the Democrat,

00:48:31.362 --> 00:48:38.153
- the Democrat would get one of their friends to file to be the Republican nominee, which would then freeze

00:48:38.153 --> 00:48:44.687
- out the party from being able to fill the vacancy in the summer. And that was, I think, becoming kind

00:48:44.687 --> 00:48:51.285
- of a routine thing in both parties to basically have like a straw person in the corner that they could

00:48:51.285 --> 00:48:57.820
- put into place. And so I think that's what the law was attempting to stop from happening. But I agree

00:48:57.820 --> 00:49:00.318
- that it does create additional hurdles

00:49:00.514 --> 00:49:08.282
- for people who want to run in a primary and participate in the process. It has made the news that the

00:49:08.282 --> 00:49:15.899
- Democrats did implement this this year as well. The Democrat chair has challenged applications this

00:49:15.899 --> 00:49:23.134
- time as well. It's up to each county chair. Both Republicans and Democrats are using that law.

00:49:23.618 --> 00:49:30.656
- Now here, for example, the person who's running against me in the primary has never voted in any election,

00:49:30.656 --> 00:49:37.299
- let alone a primary. And the county chair said it was fine for her to run. So each county chair gets

00:49:37.299 --> 00:49:44.073
- to decide whether they use that law or not. And I also should point out to you that this law got a lot

00:49:44.073 --> 00:49:50.585
- of scrutiny because you remember there was a millionaire poultry farmer who wanted to run against,

00:49:50.585 --> 00:49:53.150
- I think, Todd Young, a guy named Rust.

00:49:53.506 --> 00:50:01.277
- And he hadn't voted in the right number of primaries. And so the party moved to get him off the ballot.

00:50:01.277 --> 00:50:08.898
- He sued, took it all the way up to the state Supreme Court saying that, hey, this violates my rights.

00:50:08.898 --> 00:50:16.444
- It's not a legal law. And the courts upheld it and said that it was legal or constitutional. Shelly,

00:50:16.444 --> 00:50:18.686
- do you want to respond? I do.

00:50:18.850 --> 00:50:27.149
- a little personal to me because as somebody who grew up in Indiana, in a really conservative community,

00:50:27.149 --> 00:50:35.289
- family, I thought I was a Republican. I mean, I don't know how to get more, try to remain nonpartisan

00:50:35.289 --> 00:50:43.588
- here, but I thought that's who I was. I didn't really understand a lot of that. So when I first started

00:50:43.588 --> 00:50:45.822
- voting, I voted Republican.

00:50:46.306 --> 00:50:53.865
- And it wasn't until like my mid to late, you know, around 25 that someone said, you should read both

00:50:53.865 --> 00:51:01.649
- platforms and see, you know, you don't really, you're not really vibing here with one of these parties.

00:51:01.649 --> 00:51:09.358
- You should probably go read the platforms and see where you more accurately fit. But if I have decided

00:51:09.358 --> 00:51:15.870
- to run like I did 20 years later, and I'll tell you how that started and decided, wow,

00:51:16.194 --> 00:51:23.782
- I want to get involved. I didn't even know that I am a crowd Democrat. I didn't know. I mean, under

00:51:23.782 --> 00:51:31.673
- those kind of choices, I couldn't have run for anything. And I think that is happening. I haven't heard

00:51:31.673 --> 00:51:39.261
- so much in Monroe, but because I go back and forth to Indianapolis a lot, I know they're struggling

00:51:39.261 --> 00:51:46.014
- with this quite a bit in Marion County. But fast forward 20 years when I did decide just

00:51:46.114 --> 00:51:52.875
- out of the blue to get involved in politics. Like so many people are this year or right now because

00:51:52.875 --> 00:52:00.109
- they're, you know, they want to do something and we want them to do something. So they are filing, whether

00:52:00.109 --> 00:52:06.870
- that is to be a precinct chair. Thank you. I don't know why we would decide who can and cannot be a

00:52:06.870 --> 00:52:12.414
- precinct chair or a delegate or run for school board or whatever the case may be.

00:52:13.058 --> 00:52:20.404
- I know that is, you know, the prerogative of a county chair, but that kind of enthusiasm, you know,

00:52:20.404 --> 00:52:28.116
- when I decided to run later on, 20 years later, after 25, earlier than that, but I did have a, you know,

00:52:28.116 --> 00:52:35.462
- I had pulled that Democrat ticket, you know, enough that there was no question, as a nobody getting

00:52:35.462 --> 00:52:41.118
- into public service and running for the first time, there wasn't a question.

00:52:42.722 --> 00:52:50.704
- You know, it does happen, and I think this experience has created a lot of heat and opportunity for

00:52:50.704 --> 00:52:58.685
- us to revisit that, just as the different parties. You know, we're in a super majority, so we can't

00:52:58.685 --> 00:53:06.906
- change the rule, but you know, when we do reorganize, it's always a good question to ask who's running

00:53:06.906 --> 00:53:12.094
- for county chair, how they would approach these decision-making,

00:53:12.418 --> 00:53:20.172
- in their tenure as a county chair, what their values are. I think that's a good question to ask.

00:53:20.172 --> 00:53:28.566
- Excuse me. Undecided, we have another questioner and I'd like to move on to the next person if you don't

00:53:28.566 --> 00:53:36.720
- mind. Thanks for your questions. Good discussion. We have a question from Ethan Fairbanks. Ethan, can

00:53:36.720 --> 00:53:40.158
- you unmute yourself and ask your question?

00:53:40.706 --> 00:53:46.987
- Hi, thank you, Steve. So I have a question, but also a comment for undecided question regarding SB1

00:53:46.987 --> 00:53:53.330
- and the effects on general Hoosier health and well being as a result of that. So real quickly, I'm a

00:53:53.330 --> 00:53:59.863
- fourth year medical student. I've been in Indiana my whole life, Hoosier through and through. I'm going

00:53:59.863 --> 00:54:06.395
- to find out where I'm going to be placed for residency in about two weeks. I also do a lot of work sort

00:54:06.395 --> 00:54:07.902
- of behind the scenes on

00:54:08.546 --> 00:54:14.425
- health care advocacy and have been doing a lot of work on SB1 as it was in the legislative session.

00:54:14.425 --> 00:54:20.538
- So I did want to provide a little bit of information on some specifics that we can expect from the harm

00:54:20.538 --> 00:54:26.711
- from that bill and also as well as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act too. So in terms of short-term impact,

00:54:26.711 --> 00:54:30.238
- I mean, Hoosiers are going to be feeling the pain of having

00:54:30.594 --> 00:54:36.574
- reduced services at hospitals, especially those in rural areas. We've already seen a few examples of

00:54:36.574 --> 00:54:42.673
- these with OB clinic closures, as well as reduced services at Columbus Regional Hospital, for example.

00:54:42.673 --> 00:54:48.594
- In terms of long-term impact, and this is the thing that really worries me as someone that wants to

00:54:48.594 --> 00:54:54.515
- practice medicine in the state, is concerns for rural hospital closures. I know that we are already

00:54:54.515 --> 00:54:59.134
- expecting at least 12 to close as a result of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

00:54:59.522 --> 00:55:05.286
- We're going to be pushing off hundreds of thousands of users off of Medicaid. That's not just going

00:55:05.286 --> 00:55:11.281
- to have short-term harm for them in terms of being able to keep up with their checkups or pay for their

00:55:11.281 --> 00:55:17.160
- medications or just go about their day-to-day life. That's going to have long-term impacts across the

00:55:17.160 --> 00:55:22.463
- state when we end up seeing more people go to ER visits as opposed to primary care clinics,

00:55:22.463 --> 00:55:28.516
- pushing off care, delaying care. Eventually, those ER visits will lead to unnecessary deaths and frankly

00:55:28.516 --> 00:55:29.438
- increased costs

00:55:29.762 --> 00:55:35.406
- since we are essentially going to be pushing people away from preventative healthcare long-term.

00:55:35.406 --> 00:55:41.399
- And frankly, a concern that I have is, again, as someone graduating from medical school in this state,

00:55:41.399 --> 00:55:47.218
- has always wanted to practice medicine in the state, is that I and many of my peers fear that we're

00:55:47.218 --> 00:55:53.036
- going to be watching a slow-motion collapse of our state's health infrastructure, which in addition

00:55:53.036 --> 00:55:58.622
- to the harms to patients I've already mentioned, will likely, I expect, to increase the already

00:55:58.946 --> 00:56:05.621
- and nursing shortages that we're having across the state. So my questions to both Shelley and Matt,

00:56:05.621 --> 00:56:12.296
- and it's a bit of a proposal as well, is what is the counter argument or counter narrative that you

00:56:12.296 --> 00:56:19.037
- and your caucuses at State House have when trying to combat this upcoming disaster, this slow motion

00:56:19.037 --> 00:56:25.712
- disaster that we're walking into? And if you do not currently have one, which frankly, fair enough,

00:56:25.712 --> 00:56:28.382
- this is an extremely complicated issue,

00:56:28.770 --> 00:56:37.394
- There are groups of physicians and medical students that are trying to work on this. And if you're willing,

00:56:37.394 --> 00:56:45.459
- we would love to work with you as well. Thank you, Ethan. Just out of curiosity before I answer this

00:56:45.459 --> 00:56:53.764
- question, are you looking at Indiana to be placed? Indiana is on my rank list, yeah. Okay, good. I hope

00:56:53.764 --> 00:56:56.958
- it works out that you are here. No, you

00:56:57.186 --> 00:57:04.222
- You're absolutely right in so many of your comments. I did file a bill this year that was a

00:57:04.706 --> 00:57:11.613
- It did not, I mean, the fiscal impact was such that it just required FSSA to bring about some accountability

00:57:11.613 --> 00:57:18.203
- and transparency in the department. Like what is the definition of being medically frail? When you send

00:57:18.203 --> 00:57:24.667
- out these letters, have them be understandable, meet some threshold of knowing what to do. Many times

00:57:24.667 --> 00:57:31.067
- the notices that go out, they are so confusing, they contradict themselves within the letter itself.

00:57:31.067 --> 00:57:33.982
- It's old language. So that bill that I filed,

00:57:34.242 --> 00:57:43.915
- You know, I know it's not everything, but at least give an opportunity for individuals who are eligible

00:57:43.915 --> 00:57:53.217
- to receive Medicaid. So that bill, I think that is an important piece here for going to have it put

00:57:53.217 --> 00:58:03.262
- some responsibility on FSSA to make the process better. Additionally, if we're going to require performance

00:58:03.394 --> 00:58:13.424
- I think it should be the same for our state agencies. When you call, it's very, very difficult. They

00:58:13.424 --> 00:58:23.851
- have cut back on staff so much that it is a long, long wait. On the floor of the Senate, we were dealing

00:58:23.851 --> 00:58:33.086
- with a bill, and I don't remember what the number was, but it was addressing long-term care.

00:58:33.794 --> 00:58:43.577
- And it was mainly Medicaid through our Pathways program, different than the Medicaid that we have through

00:58:43.577 --> 00:58:53.175
- our Medicaid expansion program. So SB1 is technically trying to address throwing those individuals off,

00:58:53.175 --> 00:59:01.758
- those who received Medicaid through the expansion. The Pathways program was intended to give

00:59:02.466 --> 00:59:09.592
- individuals more ownership and self-determination in staying home and receiving healthcare and you would

00:59:09.592 --> 00:59:16.378
- receive a waiver and you wouldn't have to go into a facility, especially nursing facilities because

00:59:16.378 --> 00:59:23.368
- the care is so expensive. But when we heard that bill, I have received so many pieces of communication

00:59:23.368 --> 00:59:28.254
- from individuals in navigating that space of just the Medicaid waivers.

00:59:28.418 --> 00:59:37.261
- being put off, being on the waiver. We have a large wait list and individuals who could be served at

00:59:37.261 --> 00:59:46.455
- home, but because they can't get off the wait list, they're put into a full term nursing facility, which

00:59:46.455 --> 00:59:55.998
- is so much more expensive to the state of Indiana. So even in our Medicaid space for the aging and disabled,

00:59:55.998 --> 00:59:57.662
- it's right now not

00:59:58.370 --> 01:00:06.102
- Not healthy, I was gonna say disaster, but it too is frustrating. And what can we do? I think we continue

01:00:06.102 --> 01:00:13.543
- to file bills. I'm in the process of trying to figure out, you know, what are other states doing that

01:00:13.543 --> 01:00:20.837
- can be something that we can at least file and fight for in Indiana. Instead of always being on the

01:00:20.837 --> 01:00:25.214
- defensive, be on the offensive. And I think there was some,

01:00:25.666 --> 01:00:33.663
- wins in that space. Matt said that about utilities. We've talked about affordability, and for the first

01:00:33.663 --> 01:00:41.352
- time, finally, the Republicans are talking about affordability. But I think in this space, it would

01:00:41.352 --> 01:00:49.195
- be good to continue pushing it and be on the offensive and give us something that we can really fight

01:00:49.195 --> 01:00:54.654
- for. So I'm with you. And if you're not, everybody on this call should

01:00:54.850 --> 01:01:08.469
- see the good work that good trouble is making, which is. Shelly, you've muted yourself. I did. I didn't

01:01:08.469 --> 01:01:20.254
- even touch anything, but OK. It's a miracle. I think my computer is telling me, be quiet.

01:01:20.738 --> 01:01:27.865
- 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,

01:01:27.865 --> 01:01:35.131
- if you can follow what Good Trouble does, Good Trouble Coalition is Indiana's sort of a more progressive

01:01:35.131 --> 01:01:42.190
- wing. You know, you have your Indiana State Medical Association, which tends to be more conservative,

01:01:42.190 --> 01:01:47.518
- good group. I mean, I've worked with them, but Good Trouble Coalition is for

01:01:47.970 --> 01:01:55.699
- medical students and providers, health care providers in the state of Indiana who want to see

01:01:55.699 --> 01:02:03.920
- more progressive policy. And it's a good group to follow. I benefit, they are in good communication

01:02:03.920 --> 01:02:12.389
- with me on where they are with certain bills and they're very helpful in terms of education and policy

01:02:12.389 --> 01:02:15.102
- insight. Good trouble coalition.

01:02:18.370 --> 01:02:24.610
- Yeah, all those points that you raised, those are raised during a debate. The Republicans are well aware

01:02:24.610 --> 01:02:30.553
- of them. I mean, when that bill came through the House, I think we had 17 amendments offered on the

01:02:30.553 --> 01:02:36.496
- bill trying to address all these different impacts to make the point, try to hold them accountable,

01:02:36.496 --> 01:02:42.558
- make sure they understood what they were doing. But what you have to understand is the mindset of the

01:02:42.558 --> 01:02:45.886
- people in charge now. They have one single-minded goal.

01:02:46.050 --> 01:02:52.314
- And that is to reduce the cost of Medicaid. And they're going to do that by getting as many people off

01:02:52.314 --> 01:02:58.700
- of Medicaid as possible. Now, they know they can't just stand up and say that because people might think

01:02:58.700 --> 01:03:04.904
- that's a little cruel. So instead, they say, just as the federal government has, oh, we have all this

01:03:04.904 --> 01:03:10.560
- horrible waste, fraud, and abuse in our Medicaid program. And you know what? A lot of that's

01:03:10.560 --> 01:03:14.878
- from undocumented immigrants. They use a little less kind description.

01:03:15.970 --> 01:03:21.876
- So that's the premise of the bill, and that's how they're pushing it, because they're not taking what

01:03:21.876 --> 01:03:27.725
- the approach they should be. They should be saying, asking themselves, why do we have so many people

01:03:27.725 --> 01:03:33.631
- in our state that don't have health care, that don't have insurance, that can't afford it? Why are so

01:03:33.631 --> 01:03:39.538
- many people coming on to Medicaid? What is wrong with our system? How do we overhaul this whole thing

01:03:39.538 --> 01:03:45.502
- to make it work better? And in the meantime, how do we find the resources to actually serve the people

01:03:45.698 --> 01:03:51.974
- that need this. And it's frustrating because it's just a bunch of political soundbites. All of these

01:03:51.974 --> 01:03:58.249
- new requirements that will be designed to create bureaucratic trap doors so they can dump people off

01:03:58.249 --> 01:04:04.773
- the program, that system will actually cost taxpayers more than the existing system. And that was proven

01:04:04.773 --> 01:04:10.987
- before when they put in all these work requirements. But it's good politics to go out and say, hey,

01:04:10.987 --> 01:04:13.534
- you got to work to get your health care.

01:04:13.698 --> 01:04:18.957
- You're probably in a crappy job you don't like because at least it has health care and you can't go

01:04:18.957 --> 01:04:24.479
- do what you really want because then maybe the other employer doesn't offer health care. So those people

01:04:24.479 --> 01:04:29.948
- should have to get out and work too. Right. And it ignores the facts and disabilities and all the other

01:04:29.948 --> 01:04:35.260
- kinds of things. And so this is this is not a bug in the system. This is how the system is designed.

01:04:35.260 --> 01:04:40.518
- They want lots of people off this program. They're going to use these requirements. That's why they

01:04:40.518 --> 01:04:42.622
- went even beyond the federal government

01:04:42.978 --> 01:04:49.129
- to require this constant documentation and reporting. And it's all going to be designed to trick bag

01:04:49.129 --> 01:04:55.341
- people and get them off the program. So the question is, how quickly will the train wreck be apparent

01:04:55.341 --> 01:05:01.554
- to everyone in the state? When will enough people be negatively impacted by this, where they begin to

01:05:01.554 --> 01:05:07.948
- ask the question, who did this? And what are you going to do to fix it? And then at that point, we might

01:05:07.948 --> 01:05:12.638
- get to actual some real solutions. But right now, it's just a single-minded,

01:05:13.026 --> 01:05:19.725
- drive to get the cost of this program way down, and there's no concern about how many people get kicked

01:05:19.725 --> 01:05:26.296
- off. That's the whole goal, is to kick as many people off as possible. Thanks. I think Ethan may have

01:05:26.296 --> 01:05:32.866
- a follow-up, but we also have a question. I want to get to as many people as we can who haven't asked

01:05:32.866 --> 01:05:39.308
- questions. I think Stephanie Carmer has a question. Stephanie, can you unmute yourself and ask your

01:05:39.308 --> 01:05:42.142
- question? Yes. I wanted to get your opinion

01:05:42.338 --> 01:05:53.323
- between SB1 and SB285, what do you think this administration's goals actually are for Hoosiers? What

01:05:53.323 --> 01:06:04.525
- is the goal with the combo of these two bills? What are they trying to achieve? 285, again, is the one

01:06:04.525 --> 01:06:12.030
- where they're gonna jail or arrest homeless people. Well, thank you.

01:06:12.226 --> 01:06:21.877
- a great question. I think it wasn't on Senate Bill 1, but you're connecting these dots. I connected

01:06:21.877 --> 01:06:31.914
- these dots on the bill that we talked about earlier, 1343. Because in 1343, there is this language that

01:06:31.914 --> 01:06:41.662
- they put in there that growing the military police force in our National Guard, that language was so

01:06:42.082 --> 01:06:50.489
- striking and disturbing that it got a lot of attention. But also in this bill was language in pulling

01:06:50.489 --> 01:06:58.896
- back on support from the Military Family Relief Fund. It put up greater barriers to be able to access

01:06:58.896 --> 01:07:07.550
- it. And now that bill passed and the language was that a military family could not access. We're talking

01:07:07.550 --> 01:07:10.270
- small. It's a lifetime check for

01:07:10.402 --> 01:07:19.831
- Military families who have some issues with needing support, needing to cover your necessities,

01:07:19.831 --> 01:07:29.653
- it's $2,500. And it's out there for every military family can access its lifetime. One $2,500 grant

01:07:29.653 --> 01:07:39.966
- of support. I'm sorry, it's $2,500. But they increase that, that you cannot even prove that you need it.

01:07:40.354 --> 01:07:47.374
- those who are eligible cannot make more than two times the federal poverty level, which is about $31,000

01:07:47.374 --> 01:07:54.328
- a year. And then you have to prove, you have to make your case in front of administration that you will

01:07:54.328 --> 01:08:01.014
- use the $2,500 to cover your bare necessities, that it is absolutely needed. Well, if you're making

01:08:01.014 --> 01:08:08.168
- $31,000, anything is gonna be absolutely needed for $2,500. But we argued that, and I made this connection

01:08:08.168 --> 01:08:10.174
- with 285 because we know that

01:08:10.274 --> 01:08:19.418
- It can be some nights, 44% are veterans who are experiencing homelessness. And so we are putting up

01:08:19.418 --> 01:08:28.837
- these barriers to actually access needs to help our veterans. And yet we're criminalizing homelessness

01:08:28.837 --> 01:08:38.073
- without a real path forward in helping local communities. One of the really bothersome pieces of 285

01:08:38.073 --> 01:08:39.902
- was this day limit.

01:08:40.386 --> 01:08:48.751
- And communities like Bloomington were actively trying to create partnerships with law enforcement and

01:08:48.751 --> 01:08:57.197
- the homeless community, homeless individuals. And the arbitrary cap of days, we were hearing from both

01:08:57.197 --> 01:09:05.726
- law enforcement and from local municipalities that have programs that it was just not enough time. They

01:09:05.726 --> 01:09:09.662
- needed more time. And that did not get changed.

01:09:10.178 --> 01:09:19.388
- you're correct. We have vulnerable individuals who need access to healthcare, who need access to nutritious

01:09:19.388 --> 01:09:28.257
- food, and SB1 is just sort of unraveling any kind of safety net that's there that, as Ethan was sharing

01:09:28.257 --> 01:09:32.862
- earlier, is going to have a greater impact across our

01:09:33.602 --> 01:09:41.841
- local communities that are already feeling the pinch of what we did last year with Senate Enrolled Act

01:09:41.841 --> 01:09:50.080
- 1. So it's a terrible recipe for disaster. And I'm glad that you're connecting these dots because they

01:09:50.080 --> 01:09:58.238
- need to be connected. And I don't see how this makes Indiana stronger. If we're going to truly create

01:09:58.238 --> 01:10:01.438
- programs to help our homeless Hoosiers,

01:10:02.242 --> 01:10:10.245
- It is not Senate Bill 285. If we truly want a healthy citizenry, it isn't Senate Bill 1. So we've got

01:10:10.245 --> 01:10:18.719
- a lot of work to do, and I appreciate folks being on this call and asking these really important questions.

01:10:18.719 --> 01:10:26.957
- Matt, would you like to comment? Yeah, it can be difficult to psychoanalyze what drives the Republicans,

01:10:26.957 --> 01:10:30.174
- but I think the core of their philosophy

01:10:30.914 --> 01:10:36.817
- is that government should be as small as possible and government can't do anything right. It always

01:10:36.817 --> 01:10:42.898
- does everything in a wasteful way. And so they're not fans of these assistance programs and they don't

01:10:42.898 --> 01:10:49.215
- look to the government as an instrumentality through which the people can solve the problems that confront

01:10:49.215 --> 01:10:55.236
- them. It's just not really in their DNA. And so on 285, you know, a bill like that, I mean, you might

01:10:55.236 --> 01:11:00.254
- take a look at it and, you know, from the other viewpoint and say, what does it take

01:11:00.930 --> 01:11:06.526
- to scale up the services that are needed to address the underlying problems that are causing people

01:11:06.526 --> 01:11:12.122
- to be unhoused in the first place. But instead, they always want to treat the symptom and never the

01:11:12.122 --> 01:11:17.998
- cause of the disease. So in this case, what's the symptom? Oh, I don't like being confronted by homeless

01:11:17.998 --> 01:11:24.042
- people when I walk around downtown Indianapolis. So what's my solution? I need to get them off the streets.

01:11:24.042 --> 01:11:29.638
- How do I do that? I basically have a zero tolerance approach. And I basically say, if you don't get

01:11:29.638 --> 01:11:30.366
- out of here,

01:11:30.626 --> 01:11:36.815
- We're just going to arrest you. Now, that bill last year didn't get through. It got through this year

01:11:36.815 --> 01:11:42.943
- in the House. You know, we beat them up pretty hard on it and they they they've put in like three or

01:11:42.943 --> 01:11:49.132
- four different things which they think are off ramps that can avoid actually getting arrested and put

01:11:49.132 --> 01:11:55.624
- in the jail. The police officer supposed to think about whether an involuntary commitment might be better.

01:11:55.624 --> 01:12:00.478
- There can be diversion programs and said jail. You know, there's just all these

01:12:00.738 --> 01:12:07.545
- off ramps they put in there to try to basically shut up the people are complaining about how you really

01:12:07.545 --> 01:12:14.287
- shouldn't just be jailing the unhoused. The ultimate problem is the programs don't exist. So when that

01:12:14.287 --> 01:12:21.094
- bill came to the floor of the house on second reading, I offered an amendment that said the bill cannot

01:12:21.094 --> 01:12:27.966
- become effective until the state has three regional substance use disorder and mental health residential

01:12:27.966 --> 01:12:29.406
- treatment facilities.

01:12:29.666 --> 01:12:36.184
- that have the capacity to treat the population of the unhoused as it's counted every year. And I told

01:12:36.184 --> 01:12:42.702
- them that, you know, you are going to end up in jail and the sheriffs really oppose that bill. And we

01:12:42.702 --> 01:12:49.220
- told them that you're just going to fill up the jails, make them overcrowded. They're already kind of

01:12:49.220 --> 01:12:53.374
- overcrowded now. And the sheriffs have been telling us for years

01:12:54.946 --> 01:13:01.073
- that they are basically the mental health treatment facility in most of these communities and they don't

01:13:01.073 --> 01:13:06.967
- have the ability to do it. And it frustrates them that they kind of have to deal with the people who

01:13:06.967 --> 01:13:12.920
- really need mental health services and they're just stuck in a jail where they can't get them. And so

01:13:12.920 --> 01:13:19.105
- on one hand, they kind of knew that it looked bad. So at least they tried to put in all these theoretical

01:13:19.105 --> 01:13:23.774
- off ramps to avoid the misdemeanor part of the bill. But at the end of the day,

01:13:24.098 --> 01:13:32.859
- They just want the problem to be out of sight. They are not really looking to solve the problem.

01:13:32.859 --> 01:13:41.982
- To them, the solution is just getting it out of sight. I think that's what was going on there. Thank

01:13:41.982 --> 01:13:51.014
- you for your response. Sorry. Thank you. We're nearing the end of our Q&A time. Ethan, did you have

01:13:51.014 --> 01:13:53.182
- a very quick follow-up?

01:13:54.114 --> 01:14:00.663
- Hopefully quick, yes. And I also want to say in comment to Stephanie's question, Indiana also ranks,

01:14:00.663 --> 01:14:07.277
- I believe, ninth in terms of the prison population that goes to private prisons. So maybe that's part

01:14:07.277 --> 01:14:13.761
- of the dots we should be connecting as well. But my follow up is regarding the, again, the Medicaid

01:14:13.761 --> 01:14:20.375
- issues. I wanted to ask Matt and Shelley, if either of you are familiar with Connecticut's transition

01:14:20.375 --> 01:14:23.358
- away from managed care entities back in 2012,

01:14:23.714 --> 01:14:32.361
- to administrative service organizations and the associated costs, savings from that, as well as increased

01:14:32.361 --> 01:14:40.600
- enrollment in Medicaid in Connecticut. I'm not familiar with the Connecticut program, but I can tell

01:14:40.600 --> 01:14:49.165
- you we've also had many, many, many long discussions about managed care. I am not a fan of managed care.

01:14:49.165 --> 01:14:52.510
- And again, I think that the powers to be

01:14:52.866 --> 01:14:59.210
- have tried managed care because they think it's a way to cap their costs. They can do some kind of capitation

01:14:59.210 --> 01:15:05.150
- fee or something and have more predictable costs. But I think it's interesting because I'm pretty sure

01:15:05.150 --> 01:15:11.148
- that Mitch Rove, the Secretary of the Family Social Services Administration, had criticized the Holcomb

01:15:11.148 --> 01:15:17.031
- administration for offloading that Pathways program, the Medicaid for the aged, to a bunch of managed

01:15:17.031 --> 01:15:20.318
- care organizations. And I think he might have fired one.

01:15:21.090 --> 01:15:28.805
- There might be an opening here to do something differently on the managed care front. He did fire one.

01:15:28.805 --> 01:15:36.370
- It was the only Indiana based one. It was the only nonprofit one, but just saying. Agreed. I'll take

01:15:36.370 --> 01:15:43.860
- a look, Ethan. Great, thank you. And just to clarify on that as well. And also, Matt, thank you for

01:15:43.860 --> 01:15:50.302
- that SB 285 amendment that was followed quite closely by those that were watching it.

01:15:50.562 --> 01:15:57.827
- For Indiana, we would be expected to save between $490 to $870 million annually by going this direction.

01:15:57.827 --> 01:16:04.746
- I brought this up in testimony against SB1 in the State House and the Ways and Means Committee. And

01:16:04.746 --> 01:16:12.149
- there are other people like me in medicine that are trying to push this more. So if this is a conversation

01:16:12.149 --> 01:16:19.137
- you're open to having down the road, I think be on the lookout for a message from us. We're about to

01:16:19.137 --> 01:16:20.382
- have open a poll.

01:16:20.610 --> 01:16:28.309
- on zoom where we're going to ask you to select your top we take about a minute everyone who's on this

01:16:28.309 --> 01:16:35.933
- and select your top three i believe items that you'd like to see the legislature addressed and we're

01:16:35.933 --> 01:16:43.859
- going to kind of pull this together really quickly and give some feedback to matt and shelly so go ahead

01:16:43.859 --> 01:16:49.822
- and do that it should be popping up on your screen if it hasn't already select

01:16:49.922 --> 01:16:58.037
- three of those items that you would like to see addressed and we'll try to get results as we get Matt

01:16:58.037 --> 01:17:06.073
- and Shelly to make their final, their closing remarks. We have 14, so 14 items. Just scroll down, be

01:17:06.073 --> 01:17:08.062
- sure you see everything.

01:17:23.586 --> 01:17:31.832
- such a challenging thing. There are so many topics to address and everyone is complex and needs to be

01:17:31.832 --> 01:17:40.401
- addressed in some detail and with some complexities. So we could go all day, but people have other things

01:17:40.401 --> 01:17:41.694
- to do probably.

01:17:57.602 --> 01:18:03.742
- that we have 70% of people participating, I'm going to stop the poll and share the results.

01:18:23.106 --> 01:18:33.967
- It looks like the top ones were healthcare, Medicaid got 57%, 32% for housing affordability and zoning,

01:18:33.967 --> 01:18:45.037
- and then 29% on data centers, on education, and homeless support for people with experience, homelessness

01:18:45.037 --> 01:18:51.198
- and childcare funding. And then 25% for natural resources.

01:18:51.394 --> 01:19:07.258
- summarize that for anybody who needs that additional detailed information. Stop sharing now.

01:19:07.258 --> 01:19:21.246
- Very interesting. Big tie for third place there. So I think we're about ready for

01:19:21.410 --> 01:19:28.802
- legislators to conclude. Can you maybe each take about five minutes or so and maybe look to the future

01:19:28.802 --> 01:19:36.338
- a little bit as to rather than being depressed about what just happened. I'll go first real quick Steve.

01:19:36.338 --> 01:19:43.586
- I want to thank everybody. You know I was looking at health care number one, housing number two, and

01:19:43.586 --> 01:19:47.390
- for me it was child care. There were a lot of in the

01:19:47.682 --> 01:19:57.433
- high 20s, but child care is a tough one because as somebody who, I'm not going to deny it, had some

01:19:57.433 --> 01:20:07.379
- long cries and frustrations and felt like I was just white-knuckling it with three kids and trying to

01:20:07.379 --> 01:20:12.254
- figure out child care and how grateful I was that

01:20:12.866 --> 01:20:20.327
- when they transitioned into public school, it was just like, we made it. That's how I felt. And it's

01:20:20.327 --> 01:20:27.862
- kind of like when you're sick. When you're not sick, it's hard to really remember how bad it was when

01:20:27.862 --> 01:20:35.693
- you're sick. And when you have kids and you're going through this, it's hard to care about it when you're

01:20:35.693 --> 01:20:42.046
- not, and you just let it go. But when you're in it, it is all consuming, which is why

01:20:42.274 --> 01:20:50.175
- as a state, we really need to, it doesn't get the attention because not every person is worried about

01:20:50.175 --> 01:20:57.922
- childcare. It's kind of like access to abortion services, quite honestly. If it doesn't impact you,

01:20:57.922 --> 01:21:06.055
- your passion isn't there. So I just wanna give a little shout out to childcare because it's so important

01:21:06.055 --> 01:21:11.710
- and serves such a critical foundational piece to an individual's overall

01:21:11.810 --> 01:21:19.324
- trajectory of success in being able to access high quality childcare in those early years. I look forward

01:21:19.324 --> 01:21:26.697
- to the interim and really getting down. I am going to look at the way Vermont is approaching childcare.

01:21:26.697 --> 01:21:33.857
- Their employers have said, yes, we know we want to be part of the solution, but we don't want to get

01:21:33.857 --> 01:21:41.726
- into the business of childcare, which is the approach that Indiana has taken. Indiana said, we're going to let

01:21:42.242 --> 01:21:49.112
- Employers take care of this and will offer a tax credit to those employers who offer childcare. And

01:21:49.112 --> 01:21:56.600
- so it requires our employers to get into the business of childcare. What Vermont is doing is those employers

01:21:56.600 --> 01:22:02.302
- said, We would rather pay a small tax and pool our money and give it to the state.

01:22:02.626 --> 01:22:09.286
- to manage, you know, have our public school systems expand their pre-K, expand their childcare centers

01:22:09.286 --> 01:22:15.946
- because we trust those areas. So I'm gonna look at Vermont. Thank you, Ethan. I'll look at Connecticut

01:22:15.946 --> 01:22:22.477
- and to see how, what they're doing in the space of managed care and how they're unraveling what they

01:22:22.477 --> 01:22:29.137
- thought was a good direction and how they're undoing that and saving the state money. And I also wanna

01:22:29.137 --> 01:22:30.366
- make sure that we,

01:22:30.754 --> 01:22:39.778
- Do continue to do what we can in housing. I filed a bill this session and it was based off of what Kentucky

01:22:39.778 --> 01:22:48.300
- 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

01:22:48.300 --> 01:22:56.739
- catchy phrase, but. Some of that language was in 1001, but it got taken out. But what I filed in the

01:22:56.739 --> 01:22:58.494
- Senate side was our.

01:22:58.690 --> 01:23:09.187
- religious institutions are the second largest property owner in the country. First is government, then

01:23:09.187 --> 01:23:19.989
- it's churches. What my bill said is, if a religious institution wants to get into the space of affordable

01:23:19.989 --> 01:23:26.206
- housing and partner and workforce housing, they can do that.

01:23:26.594 --> 01:23:34.573
- but those savings have to be passed on to those either starter homes or if there's going to be a different

01:23:34.573 --> 01:23:42.105
- kind of zoning on their religious institution property. Well, how that was different, what was filed

01:23:42.105 --> 01:23:49.562
- in the house was it didn't require that those investments from religious institutions be affordable

01:23:49.562 --> 01:23:55.230
- or go to workforce housing or be a path for first time owners or be starter

01:23:55.330 --> 01:24:03.944
- or be about addressing the housing crisis with people who need access to housing. But the bill I filed

01:24:03.944 --> 01:24:12.559
- did, it required that. My bill didn't get a hearing and the language in the House got brought out, got

01:24:12.559 --> 01:24:21.257
- taken out of the bill. But there has to be more that we need to do in the space of housing because 1001

01:24:21.257 --> 01:24:22.846
- and 285 seem to be

01:24:22.978 --> 01:24:30.831
- also a contradiction with one another. So I thank everyone. We've got a lot of work to do. We're also

01:24:30.831 --> 01:24:38.837
- in a time of the election and I encourage everyone to get involved and stay involved and stay connected

01:24:38.837 --> 01:24:46.613
- to Representative Pierce and myself. I'll put my email in the chat so you can reach out to me. Thank

01:24:46.613 --> 01:24:47.614
- you so much.

01:24:51.938 --> 01:24:57.934
- So on a positive note, you know, looking forward to the next session, I have had some discussions with

01:24:57.934 --> 01:25:03.871
- Republicans. I serve on the courts and criminal code. So we tend to we work together on criminal code

01:25:03.871 --> 01:25:09.750
- reform, which was pretty successful, got rid of mandatory minimum drug sentences and really tried to

01:25:09.750 --> 01:25:15.571
- redirect the system away from mass incarceration into actually kind of effective programs that will

01:25:15.571 --> 01:25:19.646
- actually help people be productive citizens, not just warehouse them.

01:25:21.346 --> 01:25:26.949
- And so we've been able to get some significant stuff done in the past. They have suggested to me that

01:25:26.949 --> 01:25:32.882
- they want the next session to be the session where we finally create the infrastructure to have residential

01:25:32.882 --> 01:25:38.376
- treatment facilities so we can actually get people where they need to be to get the help they need.

01:25:38.376 --> 01:25:44.034
- And so I have a little bit of hope there. I'm kind of cynical because what happens is even if you have

01:25:44.034 --> 01:25:49.857
- people that are kind of in the subject matter area like courts and criminal code, it's got to get through

01:25:49.857 --> 01:25:50.846
- the money people.

01:25:50.946 --> 01:25:56.443
- And they're just like a whole separate universe under themselves. And if you can't convince them to

01:25:56.443 --> 01:26:01.995
- put the money in, you just don't get the money. And so I'm hoping it's just not the same old nothing

01:26:01.995 --> 01:26:07.767
- happens kind of thing. But at least there is some interest in the other side of the aisle. So I'm hoping

01:26:07.767 --> 01:26:13.374
- that maybe we can get that done. I would just say that overall, I mean, I know people are frustrated.

01:26:13.374 --> 01:26:15.518
- I mean, it's really frustrating to see

01:26:16.258 --> 01:26:23.322
- You know, the real challenges that people are facing not getting addressed at the same time, a lot of

01:26:23.322 --> 01:26:30.525
- crazy bad policies, agenda items that just don't seem to connect to reality. And so this is things that

01:26:30.525 --> 01:26:38.075
- cause people to want to kind of give up. Quite frankly, this the frustration almost grows into hopelessness.

01:26:38.075 --> 01:26:44.862
- And I guess that's the message that I want to tell people is this will never change unless we get

01:26:45.058 --> 01:26:50.461
- people activated in Indiana, half the people don't vote. They've checked out. And the irony is the people

01:26:50.461 --> 01:26:56.017
- who have checked out are the people who are struggling the most and could benefit the most from a government

01:26:56.017 --> 01:27:01.268
- that actually wanted to address these real challenges. And so, you know, for people who constantly ask

01:27:01.268 --> 01:27:06.518
- me, what are we going to do? What can we do? How can we stop this? How can we reverse this trend? What

01:27:06.518 --> 01:27:11.921
- can we do? The answer is we have a window now. The legislature is done. There'll be some study committees

01:27:11.921 --> 01:27:14.878
- probably in the fall, maybe a few meetings in the summer.

01:27:15.010 --> 01:27:21.933
- on some topics, but this is the window now for the voters to decide who's gonna run the state, who's

01:27:21.933 --> 01:27:29.268
- gonna be running the legislature. And if half the people stay home and are not interested, you're probably

01:27:29.268 --> 01:27:36.123
- gonna get the same result you've always gotten. And so my message is, be politically involved, work

01:27:36.123 --> 01:27:40.990
- for the candidates you think are gonna best support your policy goals,

01:27:41.250 --> 01:27:47.451
- And get your friends and family engaged. Make sure they're registered to vote. You know, make sure they

01:27:47.451 --> 01:27:53.413
- understand what the choices are and get them to the polls when it comes time to do that. And that's

01:27:53.413 --> 01:27:59.495
- the only way this is going to change. And even if you end up having, you know, even if you don't take

01:27:59.495 --> 01:28:06.590
- over the state house in one shot, which, you know, might be a little bit unrealistic. But if the Republicans say, wow,

01:28:06.818 --> 01:28:13.158
- a lot more people were voting and they weren't voting for me. And even though I won, there's like something

01:28:13.158 --> 01:28:19.028
- going on out there. I might want to modify my approach to some things here because there's going to

01:28:19.028 --> 01:28:25.192
- be another election two years later. And all that can work together to push the legislature in the right

01:28:25.192 --> 01:28:31.062
- direction. And so that's just my number one message is be politically involved, channel your energy

01:28:31.062 --> 01:28:35.934
- into figuring out how you can get people into elective office that are going to be

01:28:36.194 --> 01:28:43.162
- addressing your needs and your challenges and the policies that you want to see enacted. And thanks,

01:28:43.162 --> 01:28:50.062
- everyone, for being in these forums through the session and trying to follow all the craziness that

01:28:50.062 --> 01:28:57.168
- was coming at us at Warp Speed. Thank you. Thank you so much. So final legislative update for the 2026

01:28:57.168 --> 01:29:03.998
- session signing that happened a week ago, eight days ago. So we're on to the new year. Check vote.

01:29:04.194 --> 01:29:14.548
- The League of Women Voters Online Voter Guide Vote 411 for more information and join us for future candidate

01:29:14.548 --> 01:29:24.047
- forums and so on. In the fall, we'll have a preview of the 2027 legislative session. You can follow

01:29:24.047 --> 01:29:28.606
- the work of the General Assembly at iga.in.gov.

01:29:29.250 --> 01:29:37.036
- and thank you to our legislators, especially Matt and Shelly who joined us today. Thank you to all of

01:29:37.036 --> 01:29:44.974
- you who are on the meeting. Thank you to Community Access Television Services, team members that pulled

01:29:44.974 --> 01:29:52.607
- this together today, and to our sponsors, LWV Bloomington Row County, LWV Brown County, LWV Johnson

01:29:52.607 --> 01:29:58.942
- County, also the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce, Limestone Post Magazine,

01:29:59.522 --> 01:30:07.377
- the NAACP branch for Monroe County and Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Columbus, Indiana. Thank

01:30:07.377 --> 01:30:10.046
- you and we'll see you in the fall.