- OK, well, I see that it is 9.30. And so I think that we will get started with our pre-session town hall
- today. I am your moderator. My name is Sonia Lierkamp. And I'm vice president of the League of Women
- Voters for Brown County. If you've tuned in before for one of these, you may have seen me moderate a
- session or two of these discussions.
- And it feels good to be back here and being able to moderate these questions and have conversations
- with a couple of our representatives. We ask that anyone who is not actively involved in asking a question,
- if you would please mute your sound so that there's no background noise while other individuals are speaking.
- So please do that if you have a moment to check. When you have a question, all you need to do is to
- go into chat and address one question moderator and say, I have a question. You will be called upon
- in the order that your questions have been received. We will then begin in order received,
- following the legislators' remarks. In this particular session, we do want to make sure that you note
- that all of our state legislators representing Bartholomew, Brown, Johnson, and Monroe counties have
- been invited to attend the legislative updates.
- You can see on this slide a list of all of our senators and representatives. From there, we will get
- into a little bit about the process for having our discussion. First of all, this is for information.
- It is not a debate. We ask that everyone be civil and respectful.
- We will be asking you to participate in a bit of an informal poll during this town hall program. It
- will invite you to weigh in on some of the most important issues that you would like to hear about that
- you believe will be considered in this session of the legislature. Each legislator will then
- give his introductory summarization of expectations for the legislative session in his or her opening
- remarks. You will present issues for the legislature to consider. I'm sorry, I'm a little tongue tied
- this morning.
- As I mentioned before, send a private chat question to one question moderator. You'll be called upon
- in order your request is received. And if time permits, we will let you have some follow-up questions.
- The legislators may respond to each issue if they wish. Time will be moderated to facilitate participation
- of as many people as possible. This session is being recorded.
- by CATS, the Community Access Television. So let us go ahead and start out with having our legislators
- introduce themselves. I'd call upon, oh, here is the poll. If you could, this is a Zoom poll that's
- being presented on the nine issues that
- we think should encompass most of the priorities of most of the people involved in the conversation
- today. So if you could vote on your three top priorities and submit that, then we will be able to provide
- the results at a later point in time.
- give you a minute or two to do that. So far, 12 people have participated, 13 have participated. Okay,
- 18 of 28 folks on the call. Okay, thank you very much. I think we've actually got
- 30 on the call now. So we hope everyone will just take a moment to click the three most important items
- and submit those. And perhaps while you're finishing that up, we can go ahead and have our legislators
- start with their introductions. And Matt, today, I think I'll call on you first. OK, good morning, everyone.
- Thank you for participating in today's
- Hearing that, it looks like our priorities have popped up here. All right, so kind of not surprising
- in healthcare. Looks like it's the top one at 65%. I hope I'm not stealing all this thunder by kind
- of revealing this. Looks like housing's next at 39, and it looks like the environment at 35. So although
- it's fairly even, I mean, jobs workforce at 9%, maybe that's a little lower than expected, childcare
- preschools at 13.
- Um, voting is 57%. Excuse me. Voting and election security is 57%. Oh, you know what? Maybe I'm not
- seeing all of them at the school down here. Oh yeah. I missed a couple. Yeah. I don't listen there.
- Yeah. So these are, um, a lot of issues that obviously are on people's minds and that I think the legislature
- needs to address. The thing is I have no idea at this point what the super majority has to, um,
- has on its agenda. I mean, you can kind of guess a few things. So I guess first, let me say that this
- whole issue about whether we're going to have mid decade redistricting kind of suck the oxygen out of
- the air. I mean, it's been waiting since August trying to decide whether they would actually do it.
- If they would do it, would they try to actually eliminate both Democratic districts? If so, what would
- that map look like? I mean, all kinds of speculation and just trying to scratch your head, figure out
- what's going to happen. And so now with
- The announcement yesterday, it seems like that is not going to happen with the Senate saying they don't
- have the votes and they will not be coming back in December for this little mini session that was supposed
- to deal with quote time sensitive issues, which apparently redistricting was supposed to be one of those.
- So that's the good news. But you know, in the legislature, we have a I think it's a Yogi Berra quote
- we steal. It's like it's not over till it's over. Right. It's as long as the legislature is in session,
- something can happen.
- I think it's unlikely anything will happen on that topic. But I mean, the governor essentially put out
- a statement saying he thought they should have to come in and debate the issue. And so he hasn't given
- up. There was one report that the president was like, summoning people to his own office in the Senate
- Republican caucus to have a talking to. I don't know if that's accurate or not.
- But I don't think they've quite given up yet. But it seems to me like the Senate now for the third time
- has said, we just don't have the votes. And they've said we're not coming back in December. The House
- speaker has been, at this point, as far as I know, has been silent and not said anything. And so it's
- a little bit unclear what the position of the House would be. I can't imagine that they would actually
- come into session when the Senate's not going to in December. But you could imagine if they're going
- to play super hardball,
- And they feel they have to placate the president. I mean, the House could come in and attempt to pass
- some kind of map and send it over to the Senate. And the Senate would then have pressure to come in
- and actually handle that map. And so the question is, will the governor and the speaker of the House
- essentially gang up on the Senate?
- I can't imagine they would want to start that kind of war because then, you know, that's going to poison
- their relationship and there's going to be nothing else. I think they'll be able to, you know, to work
- on together because there'll be such hard feelings on that. So I think that's unlikely, but you never
- know. So when will we figure all that out? Well, Tuesday is the organization day, which in a year in
- which we don't have elections is largely a kind of a ceremonial thing, but it's the official first day
- of the regular session.
- established by statute. And the speaker said a couple weeks ago that he would be putting out a schedule,
- which normally happens on organization day for the entire session. And so I think if we get that schedule
- on Tuesday, that'll tell us a lot of what we need to know and also allow you to kind of figure out what
- are going to be the deadlines for bills to get out of the House and out of the Senate. And, you know, when the
- Legislature expects it's going to finish up its work by law. We have to be done by March 14th. Normally
- we finish about a week earlier. The majority likes to show that it's efficient and saving a little money.
- So usually it's like around March 7th. When they had announced that there's going to be this two week
- December session, they'd said we were going to get out no later than February 27th. They're basically
- going to shave two weeks off the back end. But, you know, that's probably going to change now. So on Tuesday,
- be on the lookout for the schedule to understand kind of what the rhythms of the legislature will be
- for the upcoming session. The other thing that's informative on organization day is traditionally the
- speaker of the house gives a speech in which he lays out the majority party's agenda and kind of their
- priorities for the upcoming session. And so that'll give us kind of some idea because I feel like I
- don't really recall coming into a session
- where I had such a little understanding of what might be considered there. Because there's lots of issues
- that could be addressed that need to be addressed. And yet I really haven't heard a whole lot coming
- out of the majority party as to as far as what they want to do. The only thing to me that seems fairly
- certain is I think they know they have to fix some of the bigger train wreck aspects of Senate Bill
- 1, which was that property tax bill, which is really causing all kinds of problems for local government.
- attempting to raise the revenue they need, figuring out how to be able to actually, you know, let a
- bond and have the bond raiders decide they can actually pay for the, you know, pay the bond back. And
- so that's creating problems all across the state. So I think that there'll likely be some kind of fix
- on Senate Bill one. And that's really the only thing that that I'm certain will get taken up. And again,
- just these affordability issues. So I just I have
- No idea whether the majority party is kind of sensing the same, you know, desperation's maybe too strong
- of a word, but people are really struggling to try to figure out how to, you know, pay the bills and
- keep things going. And, you know, fundamental basic things that people need like childcare, healthcare,
- housing, you know, the government, state government should be stepping up and trying to do something
- on that. One thing that it could do,
- is it could adopt a supplemental budget. The revenues have been coming into the state ahead of the forecast
- that the current budget was based on. And so they could come in and they could attempt to allocate some
- more money to things like Medicaid where people are backed up on long wait lists, the childcare stuff,
- same thing. They could look at these areas where people are really waiting to get services and see what
- they could do to kind of move the wait list line along.
- That used to happen a lot of supplemental budget. There was a time maybe 20 years ago when it was pretty
- routine in a short session to have a supplemental budget, assuming there was extra revenue coming in.
- That hasn't happened for a long time. I doubt they will want to open up the budget. But I think that
- if they really wanted to help out struggling Hoosier families, they would do that. And they would try
- to get these programs better funded that they essentially capped off.
- in the last budget. They pretty much said, we don't care what the need is. We're just drawing the line
- here. And I think that they would do better if that's how they're going to operate it to move the line
- if they have more money so more people can get in. So that's kind of my general assessment of where
- things are as far as I know it. And we'll just see what happens on Tuesday. Matt, thank you very much
- for those opening comments. Shelly, now can we get your perspective of things?
- Well, thank you for inviting me to listen to what your priorities are and jumping on this call on a
- really gorgeous, warmer than usual fall day. And my remarks, as I was thinking this week about what
- I wanted to say and how I would frame it, where I was yesterday morning is very different than where
- I am this morning. I will say the news
- The phone call I received from President Bray was one that I was surprised, shocked, but it was a win
- for Hoosiers for sure. And the boost that it gave to Hoosiers across the state to know that your endless
- emails, your calls, does anybody fax anymore? I don't think so. But your text messages, the conversations
- that you've been having from
- individuals to advocacy groups to the mobilization that happened around the issue of redistricting mid
- decade our congressional maps extraordinary and to see a response that parallels what poll after poll
- after poll has said it really
- I think it was a boost in the arms, so to speak, to see that that happened. So thank you to everyone
- on this call who I know didn't just email once. You have been at it since August when we knew that we
- were in the crosshairs of the president and the fact that Indiana will go down. If we can hold our ground
- and keep this firewall up and stand up to the president,
- for trying to take over Indiana. We are leading in something in this country and something that's so
- positive. I think it's pretty exciting. Thank you to every single person who worked hard to make sure
- that that happened. Matt is right, we still have to remain vigilant and we still have to continue to
- watch. A lot of it is reading the tea leaves,
- I know that they're under an incredible amount of pressure. Pivoting to that, at the same time focusing
- on that, really discussing with the Senate Democratic Caucus what our priorities will be, this is helpful.
- We've all had listening sessions in our district. Yes, redistricting has sucked the air out of the room
- for the last four months.
- In tandem with that, we also heard from Hoosiers that affordability is buckling so many individuals
- and so many families in this state. So we are really focused on that. It was helpful to see the poll.
- And I'd like to ask questions. So when we do have an opportunity to hear from people, I see that 65%
- say healthcare. I'd like to know what, in that,
- realm of healthcare, and of course, affordability, accessibility, but maybe specifically, what would
- you like to see the state to do? One of the bills that we're working on, that I'm working on and started
- working on immediately after session last spring is a bill that creates transparency
- when people are thrown off of Medicaid, when they get these letters and they're incredibly confusing,
- and it almost feels that it's intentionally complicated, just to create some accountability and transparency
- from FSSA to clean up these documents and make it very clear, extending
- the amount of time that individuals have to produce their documentation. In this session that we're
- coming up on when everything has to be pretty much zero fiscal impact, trying to figure out what can
- we do that really will help address this. That's one area that we're working on with the Legislative
- Services Agency on coming up with some language to give protections to
- consume the customers on Medicaid. The other area that was high is housing. I will be having a bill,
- I'm working on a bill with some housing affordability leaders in this state to create some ways that
- we can address this, not just for renters. We are filing legislation,
- to address renter affordability, but also for homeowners, people who wanna buy a home and people who
- are at risk of losing their home. What are some things that we can do? And so I and the Senate Democratic
- Caucus are looking into different policies that we can file and really advance and push for in this
- next session that again, have zero fiscal impact.
- The other area is childcare. I know it wasn't up there on this list and would love to hear maybe from
- those on the call why it's not. There's a number of reasons why that is. I hear it a lot and especially
- when the state first put a freeze on the wait list, we have in Bloomington, I mean, in Monroe County alone,
- hundreds of families who are on the CCDF waitlist to receive a waiver for support to put their children
- in childcare, or I like to say early childhood learning centers, but you know, it's a mouthful, so for
- childcare. But when it comes to thinking about what we can do that has a zero fiscal impact, that's
- You know, it's difficult because I have been, I think I just attended in the last six months, my seventh
- childhood or early learning summit, whether that's a federal or statewide or locally and as early as
- last Monday, this past Monday.
- the Indiana Chamber of Commerce put one on and attended that and heard directly from the state. And
- I think the state is really pulling back. Their talking point was it is not the state's responsibility.
- And I just would love to hear some feedback on that because
- I think there's a shift in where people are. Young families are asking for an option. If they are having
- so many issues, they wouldn't be able to choose either a childcare benefit or a healthcare benefit,
- because they cannot afford both. And that is striking for families to be able to support themselves,
- that they would take the risk of dropping healthcare
- to be able to at least go and get a job and keep their job and have a childcare benefit. I think these
- are really important questions that the state absolutely needs to be having. And I don't agree. I think
- the state needs to be involved in this problem solving, just like we would never question that it isn't
- a public good for public education K through 12. And it is a public good, if you want to argue,
- the development of the brain zero through five, those years, and making sure that children in this state
- have access and a shot at having those years maximize when it comes to their learning potential because
- that's really where it happens. I've been working with several different stakeholders across the state trying to
- put trying to create a list of indicators for kindergarten readiness. We talk a lot about kindergarten
- readiness and DOE has a whole document on kindergarten readiness, but there isn't a one pager to say
- if your child is zero to one,
- here's what they should be doing in order to be ready for kindergarten. If your child is one to two,
- here are the things they need to do in order to be ready for kindergarten. Because if parents are having
- to ask their neighbor or their moms and dads or each other to care for their kids while they go to work
- because we don't have enough childcare access, at least empower parents to know what
- does my child need to be able to do before I go to kindergarten and find out, oh, my child isn't ready
- for kindergarten, which is when they are typically assessed. So I'm working on some legislation for
- that. And would love your feedback, because I know that with this group, it wasn't that high. And I
- would love to hear more from you all. And then, of course, the environment. Working on bringing back
- possibly a seat
- It's called CPACE and it's a financing option for commercial investment of energy efficiency and solar
- arrays, different ways to invest in your business, wouldn't be for resident, but for business and allow
- If we become a C-PACE state, then counties can adopt a C-PACE ordinance and provide some support to
- banks to make those investments possible for different commercial businesses in our state. The residential
- PACE, it's called our PACE, residential legislation has
- gotten a little sticky in some of the states. So I'm just focused on the commercial side of this to
- see if we can get that. The last time it was filed, it was filed by two Republicans, Senator Greg Walker
- and Senator Chris Garten in 2023. So trying to fix some of the little hurdles that that legislation
- encountered and see if we can get it across the finish line. Because again, it's zero fiscal impact,
- but would be a huge,
- a benefit to the environment for some of our biggest consumers of energy to think about renewables and
- energy efficiency. So with that, I'll be quiet. And I'm really excited to hear from all of you some
- maybe feedback on what area of health care or what about voting. We will be filing the Independent
- Redistricting Commission from our
- from our caucus for sure, since it's top of mind. We will be definitely advocating for that this next
- session. Seems like people have the appetite for it, hopefully. But with that, I will be quiet. Thank
- you for having me. Shelley, thank you so much for that. I particularly like that perhaps the
- Independent Redistricting will come back up since our league participated in that project a few years
- ago. Also, just a side comment. I'm surprised that you're surprised by the legislature's attitude towards
- preschool and kindergarten because Indiana has never required kindergarten.
- and they shoved so much money towards charter schools.
- that it seems intuitive to me that they're also gonna turn their back on preschool. I can always hope
- for better, but anyway, right now we just have one person in the queue. So all of you need to be putting
- on your thinking caps to be thinking of questions for Shelly and Matt. And the first person we have
- up is Marie Douglas. And Marie, I would ask you to unmute
- and ask your question, direct it first to Shelly. Thank you. How am I the only one?
- that has a question right now. But anyway, thank you so much. My name is Maria Douglas. I'm with Hoosier
- Asian American Power. And I just want to thank everyone for being here. And I was, yes, I'm sure your
- prepared statements were edited just a bit last evening. And I do want to congratulate all Hoosiers
- on the bipartisan stance that we will not let DC meddle in our state's business. And our legislatures
- do uphold laws and do what is right.
- So, but this important work of fighting against this mid cycle redistricting did take time, energy and
- resources away from very important issues as Senator Yoder mentioned. And I was pleased to see that
- about 50% of the people on the call are concerned about voting rights because none of these bills will
- be voted in our favor, the favor of
- the people if we're not voting, if we are disenfranchised from voting. And I do want to take time to
- mention that HAP along with Partners League of Women Voters State, Common Cause of Indiana and Exodus
- Refugee Immigration has filed formal litigation against the Indiana Secretary of State and the Indiana
- Election Division as of October 1 this year.
- So these lawsuit challenges or this lawsuit challenges two new Indiana laws that went into effect on
- the July 1st.
- of this year, House Enrolled Act 1264 and House Enrolled Act 1680. So I also want to publicly thank
- Monroe County Clerk Brown for holding space publicly and time on September 18th to discuss these matters
- and how they are affecting people in Monroe County.
- What do you think that we're hearing or that we will hear in terms of bills that might be heard that
- harm black, brown, Asian, and marginalized Hoosier communities? And how do you plan to protect voters'
- rights and stop the ridiculous narratives that Indiana has a problem with people voting who shouldn't
- be voting? And how do you plan to protect Hoosiers who are immigrants from other harmful bills?
- Thank you, Maria. Oh, sorry. No, go right ahead, Shelley. I'm sorry. Thank you, Maria. Excellent question.
- I don't know, because if you sat and listened to or read the bills that are filed and listened to debate
- on the floor, you would think that election fraud is just running rampant in Indiana. I mean, it is
- hours upon hours of these bills are filed.
- When you know, when you see the data, the occurrences are so small, but yet we spend a lot of time trying
- to make it harder and harder to get people to make it easy to vote.
- I think I want to say, realistically, we could file the bills. They won't get a hearing. But I think
- what we can do is build off of, since we have spent the last four months growing our base of people
- paying attention, how can we use this time to educate people
- on the importance of staying engaged and talking about these issues. So I don't know. I mean, I would
- love to have a really great answer to that. But I don't know how we change that line set in Indiana
- about voter fraud.
- I think we definitely, well, we need to do something, but I got distracted. I was thinking about your
- second question about what do we do with immigration in Indiana and what kinds of things are we going
- to be seeing? I mean, probably more of the same.
- and I anticipate it's going to get probably worse. We were able to hold off some even worse legislation
- last year and the AG has come after Senator Liz Brown who chairs judiciary on the Senate side because
- she held a bill that was about
- um, law enforcement, um, acting as ICE agents and, um, she has been raked over the coal. She now has
- a, an opponent, a primary opponent that is coming after her pretty hard. So she has really moved further
- to the right and she has promised not only to hear the bill, she's filing the bill. Um, so we will hear that.
- And now I know that she was also probably not happy about the announcement yesterday. And so I anticipate
- we're going to we will need to keep an eye on what she files because it could be very far right.
- very far Magda, because she has to prove herself, her bona fides, before the primary in May. So, I don't
- really, would love to hear your thoughts. Maybe we can work together in putting together a listening
- session with your group. Thank you.
- Yeah, Matt, before you start, Mr. and Mrs. Kubal, if you could mute your mic, please. Oh, sure, sorry.
- Thank you. Matt, can you take a shot at that one? Yeah, I mean, obviously in session, you do everything
- you can to speak out against the bill. You try to offer amendments that, you know, try to moderate or
- kind of blow up the bill. I mean, you do all that legislative kinds of things.
- when we had the, you know, they passed the legislation that says student IDs can no longer be used to
- prove who you are when you vote, clearly done to try to disenfranchise students. And I spent a lot of
- time in the House floor questioning the author of that bill point by point, line by line, making the
- point that there was no special treatment. Their argument was students are getting treated specially
- because they get to use their student ID. And I said, no.
- Let's just walk through the statute line by line. I said, there are like five basic things an ID has
- to have to qualify, you know, to use on voting day. And I said, it doesn't talk about, you know, what
- kind of ID it's on, just you have these five things. And I went through every one of them. I said, the
- student IDs have this, right? And then he said, well, it's special. We're treating them special.
- It's like, well, you know what? You treat veterans special over here. The veterans get to use their
- ID, right? And so you try to just point out the absurdity of it in the hopes that maybe the public will,
- kind of catch on and push back. But you know what, the reality of the situation is you have to have
- political power to adjust the outcomes. Right. And so by the time you get into the session
- with a supermajority, it's kind of too late. I mean, you fight, you push back, you hope that things
- will line up.
- I mean, there have been times where we've gotten the public engaged enough that they've kind of thought
- better of doing something and it got derailed. And so, you know, you can have some victories that way.
- But at the end of the day, there have to be more legislators who respect voting rights and actually
- want more people voting. And so that means that we have to do the hard work outside of the legislature
- to get people engaged and get people voting so that
- We have legislators down there who want to have nonpartisan redistricting, who want to have competitive
- districts, who don't want to disenfranchise people. And that's the bottom line. So that if you really
- want to affect change, we have to convince people they can do it. Now, the thing that I think has pushed
- back against that or caused that not to work here in Indiana is just a lot of people have given up.
- Now, I sense people are getting more energized now. I think there's more hope.
- I don't know how many times I've heard people just say like, ah, we're a red state. What are you going
- to do? We can never elect a governor. We're a red state. What are you going to do? And it's a self fulfilling
- prophecy because people just don't get engaged because they think it's hopeless. And, you know, we had
- a democratic governor for 16 years. We had a democratically controlled house for most of 20 years. It's
- not an impossible task, but people have to feel, um,
- They have to understand the power they have in voting and they have to care about voting enough that
- they want to power through the hurdles that are put up and actually vote. And obviously this is a hard
- thing. If you're a struggling family and you're working a bunch of jobs just to try to pay the bills
- and now to say, okay, take time out of your day and learn about the candidates or maybe even go knock
- on your neighbor's doors. You know, that's, that's a hard thing for people to make time for, but that's
- what it's going to come down to is we have to basically have a movement.
- in which a broad array of people are involved across the state in attempting to elect people. And Senator
- Brown is the classic example. You know, she obviously recognized that immigration bill was over the
- top and as Todd were key to craziness and she didn't hear it. And then he like sick the right wing maggot
- dogs on her. And now because she's in a super lopsided Republican district, the only election that matters
- is the primary.
- So the people who are going to pass judgment on her are the most active, extreme Republicans. And so
- for her self-preservation now, she's got to go way to the right. And she's going to now probably pass
- a bill that last year she thought was bad because she has a primary opponent. And so this goes back
- to the way the districts are drawn. And if we could just get into nonpartisan redistricting, which is
- a whole nother big movement, which take a lot of work. But if we had, if we had objectively drawn districts,
- We wouldn't have a situation where the most extremes of whatever party dominates that district is going
- to call the shots. Thank you, Matt. We have one person in the queue again.
- I encourage everybody again to please be thinking about the questions. We have so little opportunity
- to really talk directly with our representatives and the ones that show up really care to hear what
- you're thinking about. Please line up with some more topics for these individuals to address for you.
- The next individual in the queue is Kathy Roundtree.
- Kathy, if you would unmute and direct your question first to Matt. Hi. Thank you so much for being here.
- And I just want to recognize the impact that your voices have. I think when you and Shelley and others
- speak out publicly around issues, that does bring those issues to people's attention.
- feel that, well, you don't have the votes, and the bill might not go through. But at the same time,
- you elevate those issues and make us aware. So thank you so much. And this kind of comes back to health
- care. I have a comment and a question. And the comment is, anything that you can do, either of you,
- to point out the added cost that
- Indiana's added rules to Medicaid are putting on the system, work requirements, continually re-enrolling
- in Medicaid. It just adds so much cost to the system itself, which is what the opponents are complaining
- about. So anything you can do to bring that to light would be great. And then my question is, what threats
- do you see this year or additional threats perhaps coming up
- on women's health issues, reproductive health, access to birth control, and things of that nature.
- Thank you. Well, on your direct question, I haven't heard of anything at this point. It seems like a
- lot of legislation in that area seems to just kind of come out of nowhere. You're not really expecting
- it. And so I have not heard any rumblings of something in that particular area.
- And in the House, we have kind of a fairly extreme set of culture warriors who really love to fight
- out these issues. And I wouldn't be surprised if some bills are introduced. The question is whether
- the leadership will want to actually move those bills and have that fight. My impression is that the
- Republicans, seeing the results of the elections back East and President Trump's current approval rating,
- I think they know they're kind of slipping into a hole.
- I believe they just wanna get in and get out. And I think that their general policy goal for this session
- is let's not do anything that's gonna rile up people. Let's just try to hope no one notices us, get
- through this thing and get out. And then we can go out and use all the structural advantages we've created
- for ourselves in Indiana to try to win these elections again. So I think they're probably gonna wanna
- shy away from more controversial things.
- if possible. And I think that might have been what happened in redistricting. I mean, those senators
- are looking at the polls and things. And you could tell that really across the political spectrum,
- you know, most people thought redistricting in the middle of the decade was not the right thing to do.
- And I think they took notice of that. On the Medicaid work requirements, you know, the Republicans know
- it's more expensive. They know it doesn't save money. And they also know that people on Medicaid
- are either disabled and can't work or they're already working their butts off and they just don't have
- access and they're working their butts off for really horrible wages. And so they and they can't afford
- to even, you know, go on the Affordable Care Act marketplace. They know this stuff. Right. The bottom
- line is they don't like funding these programs. They just decided that Medicaid's gotten too big. They
- want to at least freeze it, if not shrink it. And that's their whole policy goal. And they could care
- less about the people behind the numbers.
- And so that's the reality and the work stuff. I mean, that for people who don't, you know, pay attention
- to the Medicaid program or can't even differentiate it between Medicare and HIP 2.0 and all this other
- stuff. When they hear that one set of legislators want to make sure that, you know, if the taxpayers
- are paying to help you get insurance, you should at least be working. If you're able to work, you should
- at least do it. Right. That is a very simple message.
- that most people say, yeah, that's common sense. If you're gonna ask for help from the taxpayers or
- the healthcare, you should at least be trying to help yourself and work, right? That's a very simple
- political message, right? Then the Democrats, we gotta come in, we're the nuanced people, right? Okay,
- let's look at the data. Look at all the percentage of people on Medicaid who actually have, you know,
- chronic conditions, debilitating conditions, they can't work. Let's look at all the people on Medicaid
- who are actually senior citizens, you know, in the nursing home who are like,
- in their retirement years, okay? That's not a work thing. Let's look at the people on Medicaid who are
- already working their butts off, several jobs, but we're paying them horrible wages, right? Now we gotta
- have this big, long discussion about who's on Medicaid, how does the program work, and then get into
- the issue of here's why it's so it's more expensive to have all this bureaucracy. But you know, the
- truth is the reason why the Republicans want the work requirement as other than the fact that it's a
- nice sound bite for politics
- but it's a way to kick people off the program, because they know they're going to screw up the paperwork.
- They know that even if they're following all the rules, they're going to get trick bagged by getting
- this form filed at this time in this place, and then they can kick them off and save some money. It's
- really that cynical. And this is the thing that frustrates me. Oftentimes you'll hear people say, this
- is another thing that we need to change. It's like, oh, there's no difference between the political
- parties. It's all the same. And I guess this is going to be my partisan comment for the day.
- particularly when it comes to budget issues. The Republicans tend to look at just the bottom line numbers,
- right? And they essentially say, how do we get to the bottom line numbers we've decided we have to have?
- And they will do what they need to do to get to those bottom line numbers. The Democrats look at it
- and they think to themselves, what can we do to provide the services that are needed to as many people
- as possible? We may not have the resources to help everyone who needs help, but we should be maximizing
- what the state is able to do. And then we go about trying to craft a budget that will reach that goal
- of maximizing the help that people need. And it's just two very fundamentally different ways of approaching
- the problem. And so until the voters kind of better understand that difference and basically express
- their preference for one over the other, we're gonna get more of the same. Thank you, Matt.
- Shelly, would you like to respond to Kathy's question? Sure. Hi, Kathy. Thank you. I met with the ACLU,
- and they were under the impression early that Representative Lucas was interested in filing his access
- to birth control for rural communities throughout Indiana, which was such a surprise.
- caught us all by surprise last session, but then it got amended in committee to be totally wackadoo
- and was awful and ended up dying. That bill died. He had communicated that he was interested in filing
- that bill again, as he originally filed it. However, he also expressed
- maybe going in a different direction over the last month, things really changed for him. I don't know
- if you've noticed. They're not sure he's going to file that bill again because he's just gotten a little
- bit more further to the right since the murder of Charlie Kirk.
- they're not sure if he's going to file that bill. So I don't know if he's filing that bill again. The
- other thing that I've heard is maybe some legislation on banning the exceptions in our current, near
- total abortion ban currently, but taking those exceptions away. And it,
- The possibility came out of, through this conversation about rigging the congressional maps, it would
- be used as a bargaining chip, either to keep power, move power to those who needed a win. So I don't
- know what's going to happen there, but it's definitely something to keep an eye out for those.
- Other than that, I haven't heard. I know that we have bills to help new moms. The Senate Democratic
- caucus is working on a mom-to-bus bill. We filed it last session. We're filing it again. And mainly
- in ensuring that our Medicaid moms, we increased access
- to a full year of access to care. However, many of these moms are not getting any return calls. Like
- they reach out to start their care and then there are all of these hurdles being put out in front of
- them. So maybe in the end, their 12 months of eligibility end up being like two months of eligibility
- because they actually can't access the care. So our caucus,
- We got that studied over the interim and the bill will be filed again and I'm really proud of that Senator
- Jackson's bill. She's new to the Senate and to the caucus, the Democratic caucus. That bill will be
- seen again. I know you specifically asked about access to women's healthcare and I wanted to respond
- with those three things I'm hearing.
- Thank you very much, Shelley, for your input on Cathy's questions. There's no one in the queue right
- now. So I hope you guys are putting on your thinking caps. I'm going to propose a question that the
- leagues kind of put together when we were preparing for this forum. Indiana college going rate.
- for high school graduates is down to 51.7%, the lowest rate in recent history. What, if anything, can
- or should the General Assembly do to address this trend? And I address that question first to Shelly.
- Well, we can stop
- I mean, at a basic level, it has been sort of a war on higher education, a demeaning of higher education,
- a devaluing of higher education, not even talking and speaking to what's happening in my backyard at
- Indiana University, some of the concerns there. But overall, the conversation I serve on education and
- the conversation has been, we need less
- losers going to four-year schools and sort of feeding them into more apprenticeships and skills, which
- are great, but it isn't a matter of finding where a student wants to go and providing those opportunities.
- It is more of, we need to create
- a workforce that they're sending less students to college and more students directly into the workplace.
- And that priority and that value and devaluing of higher education has had a real impact. And thank
- goodness, I've had some good conversations around this area with my fellow Senate Democratic leaders
- in education
- Republican, excuse me, Republican colleagues, and they are sensing it too. They are equally as concerned
- that we have shifted so much and maybe need to course correct because I'm just going to say they said,
- we absolutely need those investments in research. We absolutely need to have Indiana be leading the
- way in our country.
- We have great universities and maybe we've gone too far. That was a plus and I appreciated hearing that.
- How we get there, I don't know because I think the train has left the station, so to speak, in what
- we're hearing nationally. But here's what I'm going to say. It is amazing. I think much of this is social
- media and the
- of access to information. So much of where we are in Indiana is determined by sort of the national trends.
- And that's, you know, good and bad, but we definitely see sort of a national trend of the demonization
- of higher education. And we, you know, it's a huge concern and we see that
- really from the governor's office, first and foremost. So how do we change it? I think we continue to
- speak out. I appreciate Matt and I have been tackling it at the grassroots level in changing this. But
- I think it just is going to take all of us
- doing our part. I know it seems exhausting. The last four months, we've all been working really hard
- with stopping the rigging of our maps. But it can't just stop there. We have to use that same kind of
- intensity in other areas. And education and access to education is one of them. Thank you, Shelly. Matt,
- would you like to address that question, please? Yeah.
- It's kind of this trend, you gotta wonder if the pendulum is gonna come back. And so the first thing
- is you just have this national kind of Trump administration decision to attack universities.
- And so they've, you know, now in the Republican base, when you mention a university to them, in their
- mind is not the place that does the research that cures their family members' cancer. They're the woke
- place that indoctrinates our children and turns them against our values that we spent
- you know, 18 years trying to inculcate them in our values. And these guys are working against us. And
- that has been, you know, that idea has been the flames that have been stoked on the federal level. And,
- you know, one thing I've noticed over the years is the Republicans are very good at having a coordinated
- messaging from top to bottom. So when Congress and the president start doing stuff, you see the governor
- and other people, the legislative level begin to mimic all that.
- first thing is you just have that issue of the demonization of the university. Now, there was a time
- when the presidents of those universities would stand up and push back. They would come to the legislature
- and they would explain what is actually happening in your institution and why the policies are not good
- for the state. But we now have people running our institutions in Indiana who just want to be compliant
- and I guess collect their salaries and call it a day.
- And if you want to kind of see firsthand what's happening at our own university, there's a documentary
- that's been done called Freedoms Under Assault. And there's a free screening today at the Buskirk Chumley
- Theater at two o'clock. And you can attend that and see kind of through this documentary what's been
- happening at IU and just attacks on academic freedom and all that. So you've got that piece there, which
- is undermining support for higher education with those kind of cultural attacks, if you want to call it that.
- Then you have the other thing where the legislature just has been spinning its wheels for decades, trying
- to figure out what are the policies that will cause us to have a better educated workforce and people
- who really have the skills that are needed to succeed in a career. And what has happened is people become
- completely fixated on kind of occupational trades side of things. And so there really is the attitude
- of why should you send a kid to college for four years, probably go into debt, pay all this money, and
- then they get out and they can't even get a decent job because they got a degree in something that,
- you know, it's like not important, you know, and instead of like a hard science kind of degree or something. And
- They say, why should they do that when, you know what, if they just go to trade school and a few months
- get a certificate in welding, they can go out and make a hundred thousand bucks a year. They can like
- be driving a cross-country truck, make a lot of money every year, right? Now they're ignoring the fact
- that the studies show that people with college degrees over the course of their lifetime actually have
- higher earning power than other people. So they kind of ignore that, but everything now that the legislature
- is doing is completely focused in on workforce.
- And they've got this, the latest thing they put all their chips on, we'll see their chips on, we'll
- see if it actually pans out, is the idea of apprenticeships. You know, one of the Chamber of Commerce's
- flew a bunch of people over to Switzerland and they looked around at their apprentice system, they decided
- this is the ultimate solution. And so they want to now transition to a situation where you have a student
- who basically when they get into like the ninth grade, they just start working half time in the occupation
- they've chosen. And so if they want to be a banker, this is the first big internship areas in the banks.
- The banking association is investing in this internship program or this apprenticeship program. And
- so they want a situation where you just go to school for half a day and then you work at the bank for
- half a day. And then when you graduate from high school, you've already had, you know, four years of
- experience working in the bank. So now you can get hired at the bank. Right. And then that's going to
- be your career.
- Who needs college? You've done your apprenticeship and they want to roll this out to all the different
- trades and occupations that are out there. And there's a lot of problems with that that I don't think
- they fully considered, but that's kind of where they're going. And so college in that kind of current
- strategy for education is just way down the level. And so like everything else, it comes back to trying
- to educate the voters
- parents, people who are going to help kids make these decisions to understand, you know, the value of
- a college education. And then the last thing I'll just say is it also is frustrating to me is that people
- refuse to recognize that no matter what degree you might earn in college, you are, you're getting a
- broader, your horizons are being broadening. You're learning more about lots of things and
- Hopefully when you get through the system, you will have developed some critical thinking skills, how
- to be analytical, how to work in teams and do things to other people that you would pick up a lot of
- skills that could work in any occupation, any workplace. And I think that's completely discounted. And,
- you know, just the fact that we're going to churn out people who can be better citizens because they're
- more critical thinkers, they have a broader array of knowledge. That's just completely gotten lost in
- the discussion.
- Thank you very much, both of you, for responding to that particular question. I believe that Sherry
- Frank may have an environmental question that she would like to ask of each of you. Sherry, would you
- like to unmute and ask your question and direct it first to Matt?
- Hi, sorry. It took me a while to unmute. I was just wondering what you see on coming up, if anything,
- attention to the environment. You read so much about coal ash, protecting forests, reducing chemicals,
- how horrible plastic is. There are so many issues
- That have a lasting impact just wondered if you guys have any priorities in those areas. Well,
- my environmental priorities have mostly been focused on the energy area because I was on the environmental
- affairs committee until.
- I don't know, it's probably been six or seven years now. And then we had some other members get elected
- who had a very strong interest in the environment. And so I kind of shifted my interest into energy
- and utilities, which, of course, with climate change and a lot of the impacts of coal, there are significant
- impacts on the environment. And so I'm the ranking Democratic member of the House Energy and Utilities
- Committee. And believe me, I spent a lot of time just talking to people about renewable energy and
- you know, what are what's the best strategy for utilities, both for what's best for the environment
- and what is going to make energy more affordable. Right. Those are the kinds of things I've been pushing.
- And so I I really feel like at this point in time, a lot of the environmental issues all run through
- the energy sector, you know, one, because climate change is such a looming disaster out there that's
- not really getting addressed the way it needs to be. And then you have
- just all of the kind of external costs of coal. You know, coal ash ponds, you've mentioned that. Now,
- the thing about the legislature is just absolutely maddening that there is zero interest in the current
- majority party in any environmental issue. When they do something on the environment, it's never good,
- right? It's like it's, you know, letting wetlands get paved over more easily or something like that.
- I mean, we had a little bit.
- of action, very kind of moderate stuff on PFAS. So we've had a few things here or there, but we have
- an interim study committee on the environment. And I think it's met once out of 10 years and had some
- issues assigned to it. So as far as the legislature is concerned, the majority, there aren't
- any environmental issues even worth talking about in the summer between sessions to decide whether you
- might need some legislation.
- That's a very difficult, frustrating thing. The other thing which I should probably mention again, which
- I think I've talked about before during these sessions is in the House, we have this rule called the
- bill pending rule. And what that says is that if I introduce a bill and the bill gets assigned to a
- committee and then that committee chair decides that the bill is not worthy of being heard, basically
- just puts it in the trash can,
- You cannot offer an amendment on the House floor that has the same subject matter as the bill that's
- stuck in committee, that's pending in committee. That's why they call it the bill pending rule. And
- they use that a lot of times to block you from doing stuff. And so what I've concluded is that when
- you're in the minority, most of the time, it makes sense not to introduce a bill, but to kind of have
- you know, look for the bills moving through the process and see if you have an opportunity to offer
- an amendment on the floor of the House on second reading, because you can force the you can force the
- debate and you can force people to have to vote and be on the record. And then maybe you can do something
- with that to, you know, get the public to understand, you know, who's actually serious about
- these environmental issues. And so a lot of what I do is work with people on the Environmental Affairs
- Committee who are kind of seeing those issues.
- Um, coming along and then see if there's opportunities that we can push for things, you know, like renewable
- energy and, you know, less toxics and on the coal ash thing and, and all of that. And so it's, uh, it's
- a difficult, um, situation because I don't know why they don't have more immediacy about clean air and
- clean water, but it's, it's difficult. Thank you, Matt. Um, Shelley, would you like to address that question?
- I would just say the legislation that you are interested in, I dropped my email in the chat, please
- send your ideas and desires my way. Okay, thank you, Shelly. We do have some, Maria has another question
- that she would like to pose. So Maria, would you unmute and direct your question first to Shelly Yoder?
- Thank you. Everyone on this call, I'm just going to keep asking questions if you don't, because I got
- a lot. But anyway, this is Maria as a Monroe County resident, not Maria with her half hat on necessarily.
- So I've heard that a bill may be reintroduced or snuck in somewhere that criminalizes being unhoused.
- What are we hearing about that? What do we know about that? Thank you. Shelly, would you? Yeah. Haven't
- heard anything, wouldn't be surprised, kind of preparing that it will be filed again. We worked hard
- on the Senate to kill it last year. And if it gets refiled, we'll have to work even harder.
- Those election years, sometimes you can see some pretty wild things. So people can whip up their base.
- However, with the trends that we saw last week, I think some people are rethinking maybe some of these
- really extreme policies are not popular. And you're seeing it in other states. I think after what we
- saw yesterday, maybe
- You know, one thing they have is money to poll. So maybe they have their own polling numbers to show
- that they need to temper some of these really extreme pieces of legislation. But I would imagine we'll
- see it. I have heard that the governor is trying to put together some
- executive Warner or policy direction. I've not seen anything. I've not heard that from him. I only heard
- it from folks. So maybe you start directing some of your ideas and thoughts and feedback to the governor.
- Thank you, Shelly. Matt, would you like to address that question? Yeah, I haven't heard of anything
- yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if something else comes up. I mean,
- That bill was kind of interesting because I think there was a lot of public pushback immediately on
- it. People like, really, you're going to arrest people that are just trying to survive. And, you know,
- so the bill kept getting adjusted and they kept adding in more and more requirements like, well, you
- have to be given so many warnings before you would be arrested. And they have to be offered to be driven
- to some shelter. But the shelter has to be within so many miles. And they were it kind of got more convoluted
- as it went along. And people were pointing out, it's like, hey,
- You know, the services aren't there. We don't have the shelters that are needed. You know,
- I mean, Bloomington, there are a lot of organizations that are working very hard to try to help the
- unhoused, but you get in the rest of Indiana and there's not much going on. And so I think that maybe
- that's ultimately what kind of caused the bill to grind out is they kept saying, oh, this is not a punitive
- arrest people. This is just a tool to get people into services that they need that will cause them to
- become housed.
- at some point. And then as it was pointed out, well, what are you going to do in all the places where
- there are no services? Right. Of course, then that triggers the next thing. It's like, all right, government
- needs to step up. The state needs to put more resources into programs for the unhoused and actually
- address a lot of the underlying issues, which are things like substance use disorder and mental health
- challenges. And, you know, they have not been willing to make those kinds of big investments, at least
- up to this point. And so I think that's what caused that bill to maybe
- kind of just collapse under its own weight. So I wouldn't be surprised if there's another attempt to
- try to figure out how to address some of those issues and try something again. So we'll just have to
- see. Although, like I said, it's a short session, there's less time. And I do think they would like
- to avoid controversy in this session, if at all possible. Thank you very much, Matt. I believe Sherry
- Frank has another question to ask.
- Hi, I just wanted to ask where you think we're going with public education versus taking money for non-public
- education. What you see happening there, that's just a huge frustration, as I'm sure you know. Thanks.
- And we'll direct that question first to Matt, please.
- Yeah, I share that frustration and really the last session where they essentially made it a universal
- program. And so now even the wealthiest multimillionaire families in Indiana will get tax dollars to
- send their kid off to a private school at a time when our public schools don't have the funding that
- they need. I mean, it's extremely frustrating, but the Republicans are completely invested in that program.
- They're convinced it's the right thing to do.
- In fact, in the House, it's interesting because we've had some pretty strong debates about that. And
- when we really start beating them up, pointing out things like, well, these hundreds of millions of
- dollars that you're redirecting to these wealthiest families, that buys the state nothing because those
- wealthy families are already sending their kids to the private school. You're just subsidizing a wealthy
- family and you're not getting anything in return for it.
- And by the way, there are a lot of families where even if you give them that money, they can't afford
- the tuition at those high priced schools. So, you know, you're really just helping out the wealthiest
- people. And at the same time, you could be funding early childhood learning. Right. And actually helping
- people and making a change and changing people's lives. But when we really attack them, it's interesting
- because oftentimes, you know, the speaker of the house normally is kind of like the
- traffic cop of the legislature, just calls on people, recognizes them, rules on, you know, objections
- about rules or whatever. And whenever we really beat him up on this voucher program, he will often come
- down off the rostrum to join the debate. And he will really defend the program greatly. And you know,
- their attitude is like, hey, rich people pay taxes too, they should get something out of it as well.
- Not just all these lower income people. It's kind of the attitude.
- Thank you, Matt. Shelly, would you like to weigh in on that question? Well, the direction isn't good.
- We could have avoided this altogether. In a year where we had a dire fiscal forecast and had to make
- some severe cuts, we could have used that as a reason that we're going to pump the brakes. But we didn't.
- We actually took money away from CCDF vouchers
- took money away from On My Way Pre-K and said, we're going to fund Indiana's richest families. I mean,
- that was a statement and it was not a good one. So yeah, the direction when it comes to funding private
- education, it's not good. And if there was ever, I mean, this topic, wherever you go,
- It is not something that Hoosiers want. I mean, you could see it on their faces. They can't even believe
- that we're doing it. It's either that or the fact that we, back in 2019, created a sales tax exemption
- for data centers that has a price tag of, I was like,
- I think it was over maybe in the billions long-term for the state. So that's not good either. So I think
- there are lots of little ways that we can address this. How do we better support our public education
- system and how can we create more support for early childhood learning opportunities? I think those areas,
- universal choice vouchers and the tax exemption loss of sales tax from data centers could be places
- to start. Okay. Thank you, Shelley. I have another question, and after you answer this question, we
- may be heading into your concluding remarks. The question is Senate Enrolled Act 1, which took effect
- this year as
- projected to cost cities, towns, school districts, and townships up to 1.8 billion over the next three
- years. Is there any prospect of relief for local governments? I'll direct that first to Shelly. Yeah.
- Thank you. Definitely, I'm hearing that we will be addressing there. Oops, we stepped in it.
- move from last session with Senate Bill 1 or Senate Enrolled Act 1. They know it. They felt like they
- had to do something for the governor, made all these promises, and then put into place a plan that was
- completely unpopular across the board. It had bipartisan hate.
- So I would say, no, one of the things that we thought that we would be addressing when we came back
- into special session and then early regular session and now just regular session in January is fixing
- this complete mess up that has occurred with Senate Enrolled Act 1. But they have not said how. And
- that part has been really unclear. So they've been hearing from mayors across Indiana
- Uh, and they're really listening to the Republican mayors across Indiana and they're unhappy. Well,
- hopefully they will do something. Okay. Thank you. Uh, Matt, your response. Yeah, I expect they'll probably
- address the most immediate kind of biggest problems, like maybe the.
- They've structured things now, so it's hard for communities to bond for the projects that they need
- to fund. So I think there'll probably be some kind of addressing of that. So I think they'll be looking
- to just do the most immediate things that they need to do to get themselves past the next election.
- And then I think in the long session, they'll probably be forced to take a look at the longer term detriments
- of the bill.
- and things that take effect a little bit later down the road. So I think short term fixes this session.
- And if the pressure continues on them, perhaps longer term changes in the long session. Thank you very
- much. We do have a couple of people in the queue now. Amy Oliver would like to ask a question. So Amy,
- if you would unmute and ask your question directing it first to Matt.
- This is Amy Oliver. And actually, Sonny, you just asked my SEA one question. But as another question,
- I guess, looking forward, what are the priorities from the House Democratic Caucus and the Senate Democratic
- Caucus as you're moving into session? What are your top five? I think that was for Matt. Yeah, I think
- it's one word. It's affordability.
- I think our number one priorities are these, you know, some of the things in the poll. So, you know,
- early childhood learning, being able to afford childcare, housing, how do we help people afford housing
- better? And, you know, just all these costs, energy costs, and
- So the legislature may not be able to do something about the bigger inflation trends and the overall
- rising of costs. I mean, we can't really counteract horrible tariff policies from the president who's
- actually taxing every consumer in America and driving their costs up. We don't have the ability to undo
- that. But I think the state government has a responsibility.
- wherever it can help reduce the costs, if it can help make childcare more affordable, if it can find
- a way to make housing more affordable, if it can find a way to lower energy costs. I think those are
- things you can do there that cumulatively could provide relief or at least make it a little less burdensome
- on these working families. And so I think that's what you're gonna see from the House Democrats is just
- really kind of laser focus on these affordability issues.
- Thank you, Matt. Shelly. Yeah, I opened with this. Amy, thank you for your question. Affordability and
- the economy, utility costs, housing affordability, child care affordability, health care affordability,
- and voting. It's not really about affordability, but has a high price. Thank you, Shelly. We have one
- more in the queue. Julie Hardesty, would you like to unmute and ask your question, directing it first
- to Shelly?
- Hi, yes, thank you very much. This is Julie Hardesty. My question is regarding environmental concerns
- and legislation around energy. How is the state inserting itself to encourage or block data centers
- in the state? Data centers for large technology companies are like, my understanding is they're really
- big energy stocks and they can impact water resources. And there seem to be some pretty significant
- environmental concerns.
- I also think I saw that there was an attempt by Google recently to build a data center in Indiana, and
- that actually was blocked or didn't work somehow, and they ended up deciding not to. But are there other
- data centers in place now in the state, and is that impacting the environment around those data centers
- or raising utility bills already? Thank you. All right, I'll jump in on that. So there are probably
- dozens of proposed data centers.
- Part of the problem is a lot of these AI companies or the big tech companies, they might have three
- or four or five potential places they want to put a data center and they're coming into each state just
- like people trying to locate a manufacturing plant or something and they try to get incentives and things.
- You may not, a lot of people have surmised that really they're not as many data centers gonna get built
- as it appears to look like because it is true they use a tremendous amount of energy. So in the last
- session, we had a big long debate about who's gonna bear the burden of those costs of a data center
- when it comes in and they need power. So for example, there's a data center proposed for Morgan County.
- It is forecast to use as much power as the entire city of Indianapolis.
- That means that somebody is going to have to build a lot of power plants and the question is, who's
- going to pay for that? Now, ostensibly, the answer in the bill we passed last session was that the data
- centers would have to pay for at least 80 percent of that. It said 75, I got them pushed up to 80, which
- matched a settlement agreement has been there. But the more disturbing thing is there is a loophole
- in the bill. It created two fast tracks to get power plants approved, essentially.
- and recognizing these data centers were going to need a lot of power and maybe kind of quickly. So they
- wanted to shorten up the normal lengthy process of getting what's called a certificate of public need
- or whatever. And they created two paths, one for if a data center is causing the sudden need for 5%
- or more energy generation, then you would have this fast track process. And in that process, at least
- there's a discussion about who's going to pay for it. And the theory is that mostly it's going to be
- paid for by the data center.
- but they created a second track where if just your energy is gonna go up 5% generally, you can go through
- process and the data centers are out. And so I had an amendment on the House floor that closed that
- loophole, raised the amount that the data centers would have to pay for this generation. And I was amazed
- because the Republican chair of the utilities committee accepted my amendment and went into the bill.
- The utilities lost their minds in the hallway and they convinced the Senate to
- basically take most of that amendment out. And so what have we seen? It looks like one of the Northern
- Indiana power companies has come in and they're utilizing that loophole to get the power without having
- the data centers have to pay. So I think that's gonna be another discussion that gets raised in this
- session, if I can find a vehicle to do it. It's like, we need to really close that loophole, which the
- House at least tried to close up, but the Senate opened up again.
- Thank you, Matt. Shelly, did you have anything you wanted to say on that? Well, Julie, I liked how you
- said you said the state doing anything to protect Hoosiers. No, the state isn't. But citizens are,
- for sure. It's been remarkable to see the pushback from these data centers coming in to the communities.
- And I would just say,
- I appreciate this is where it can get complicated. Our laborers and the trades, our unions, brothers
- and sisters, they really do want these jobs because they come in with these promises of this is going
- to bring so many good paying jobs. So being, you know,
- standing up with union labor and our working families, I can appreciate their desire to have
- these opportunities in Indiana. However, I think it's really important that the citizens that we organize
- to make sure that we're asking the right questions, the environmental questions, very important. But
- also what kind of labor are we talking? Show us the receipts. I wanna see, you know, in building these,
- data centers and not just in the outcome of the jobs that are being promised after they build them,
- but the building of the actual data centers. Will the jobs be filled by people from Indiana? Will they
- have the protections on the jobs? Will these be union jobs? I think if we're going to go down this path,
- the state should be requiring some protections for Hoosiers. If they're promising all of these,
- great things in terms of the jobs and building them, and then in the jobs once they're here, show us
- the receipts and put in some protections for actual working families in Indiana so that we know we're
- not being sold a bill of goods, which I think is what we're realizing, what other states are saying
- is happening. Thank you for those comments to both of you.
- would like to have each of you have an opportunity to give some closing remarks at this point in time.
- Shelly, would you like to start? I'm really glad that we did this pre-session. Thank you. It gives me
- a better idea of where each of you are. Right now, we are in the process of requesting our bills and
- filing the bills and just to put the realistic
- spin on it, we're only given the ability to file five bills. So that really makes you think twice. Now,
- if you are ranking minority member, the Senate does allow you an additional bill. So that helps. But
- generally speaking, we've got five bills that we're working with. And so this has been really helpful,
- like how to focus my energy and how to stay connected and communicating with you.
- It's also good to know that when we talk about what are you hearing, it literally is hearsay. Just keep
- that in mind. I mean, you hear things, but if somebody wants to have a conversation with you, like a
- colleague across the aisle wants to talk to you about something that they're thinking about. But when
- we work with the LSA, which is the nonpartisan body that helps us write these
- pieces of legislation, it's confidential. They can't say, oh, you know what, so-and-so is working on
- this or so-and-so is working on that. Let me show you this PD. I know that's not helpful, but it is
- the truth that much of this is just you have to really be listening with what's not being said and with
- what's being said and guess what people are thinking. Keep that in mind and then things can change.
- Not only do I have a limit on my bills,
- But so do my Republican colleagues. They are limited. So they'll be thinking about really what's the
- message that they want to send and what are their constituents asking them to file. And that's where
- you come in because, I mean, not only can we attract, what is it, 19 potential legislators to this call,
- which I wish that we would have more so we could have a,
- robust conversation. I think we can also attract those people to this call. Those districts, we could
- have participation and grow the participation in these calls. So in the counties that we're including,
- I really want to grow and expand the outreach and have the participation in these calls be increased.
- Because I think it will just improve
- the quality of the discussion, because I would actually benefit from hearing from where my Republican
- colleagues are on some of these issues. And Matt Pierce, I love you so much. You're right about everything.
- And you said something like, this is my one partisan comment on me. No, when it's just the two of us,
- it's all partisan. I mean, it feels...
- It's a struggle. I want more participation. I would love to hear and have a more robust discussion.
- But I appreciate so much the fact that we have this. So thank you. And I look forward to hearing from
- folks. I put my email in the chat.
- Thanks for all your work that everyone has done. Thank you so much, Shelley. Matt, would you like to
- have some closing remarks? Yeah, I totally agree that if we had some Republican legislators participating
- in forums like this, you'd have a better dialogue back and forth. I think constituents could kind of
- figure out better what each side is thinking. And, you know, it's a disappointment that, you know, we
- don't have the participation of
- both parties in this kind of thing, I wish it would happen. Because, you know, part of the fun of being
- a legislator, in my opinion, is getting challenged. It's like, you know, Shelley and I teach in the
- classroom. One of the biggest myths is that, like, professors are indoctrinated. We actually, like,
- love it when a student actually asks a challenging question, because that means they're actually awake
- and paying attention. It's a miracle, right?
- I think that getting challenged, being forced to defend your ideas, that makes this system better. And
- we just unfortunately don't have that. And so I just want to say generally, I know that people are extremely
- frustrated. And you can kind of tell them the questions like, well, what are they going to do about
- all these pressing environmental questions? What are they going to do about addressing the challenges
- of everyday families? What do you think is going to happen here? Are these bad bills going to happen?
- what do you legislators, our representatives gonna do about it? And I'm sure that our answers are not
- very satisfying. And it's because we are using every tool we have at our disposal as much as we can
- to try to bend the outcomes of these things. But the truth is we have limited tools because at this
- moment in time, we have not as much political power as the other side. And so,
- You know, I teach a class in policymaking and I ask the students like, so what's the difference between
- politics and policy? Right. And and the answer is, at least from the political scientists, is that,
- you know, politics is attempting to get the power and keeping the power so you can then affect the policies,
- you can direct the policies. And so for all of those people out there who are just frustrated that they feel like
- you know, not enough is getting done to address their issues. The answer is you have to redouble your
- efforts and get involved to get more political power that then allows you to shape the policy agenda.
- And I know a lot of you have been working a long time and in the trenches and doing it, but we have
- to get more people involved. We have to make this more into a movement and less about electing one person
- over another. And so I think that, you know, when you have that frustration,
- try to see if you can channel it into more involvement, getting more people involved all around the
- state and see if we can have a strong message from the electorate in the upcoming election about what
- they want to see their legislature doing. And I think that's what will ultimately get us to a better
- place in the legislature.
- Thank you both so very much for taking the time from your busy, busy schedules and from trying to not
- beat your head against a wall most of the time to come and talk to us. I can't tell you how much it
- means to me personally. And I know for those who are able to participate and even those who can't be
- here today, they know you're doing this and appreciate it very much. This is our first session for the 2020
- make sure everyone to watch for the upcoming updates. And let's all encourage our representatives to
- get involved, to participate, that this needs to be a conversation. And just want to thank
- both of our legislators who did take the time to attend, for all of you who joined us, for CATS recording
- and allowing us to post this session, and our team members and sponsors, the League of Bloomington Monroe
- County and Brown County and Johnson County, as well as the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce,
- the NAACP branch of Monroe County,
- and the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Columbus. We can't do any of this without our sponsors.
- So thank you again. I hope you all have a beautiful weekend and that you and Shelley get some rest after
- having these long, hard conversations. Thank you.