Braun gives himself a B-plus.

Former Indy mayor jumps into Secretary of State race.

And as sales strikes a nerve.

From the television studios at WFYI Public Media.

It's Indiana Week in Review for the week ending March 6th, 2026.

Indiana Week in Review is produced by WFYI in association with Indiana Public Broadcasting stations.

Additional support is provided by ParrRichey.

Indiana Governor Mike Braun gives himself a B-plus for this year's legislative session, saying that his administration successfully tackled the issues of affordability and government efficiency.

Caroline Beck reports.

He says out of 58.

Bills that.

Were a priority for his office, 51 were passed.

Despite an early rocky start to this year's legislative session with a failed redistricting vote.

Braun presented a picture of success marked by a good working relationship with state lawmakers.

Very much open conversation.

Transparent.

We want to work together.

And if you look at these results, that's pretty impressive.

Braun also took time to support President Donald Trump's recent attacks against Iran.

I think so far, so good.

We'll see what happens.

But I think it was long overdue making a strong statement for the world's greatest sponsor of terrorism.

While Braun heralded the sessions work around affordability issues, Democrats say this year's bills still don't address Hoosiers everyday concerns.

Did the governor have a solid second session?

It's the first question for our Indiana Week in Review panel.

Democrat Lara Beck, Republican Whitley Yates.

Caroline Beck, government reporter at WFYI.

She and Oseye Boyd, editor in chief at Mirror Indy.

I'm Jill Sheridan, managing editor at WFYI.

So, Whitley, is this an accurate grade that the governor has given himself for this legislative session?

Well, you know, my nickname is win.

So I do think he has had successful wins in this very short session.

To have an agenda with 58 items on it is a lie, if we're going to be honest, in achieving 51 of the out of the 58 is about 88%.

So him giving himself a B-plus is not necessarily generous.

I think it is accurate.

And I looked at the types of bills that were produced.

And you have bills that cover a wide range of Hoosiers.

So whether it's kids bringing cell phones into schools or utility affordability, that's going to really help, our senior citizens that are on a fixed income.

I think that the bills really span all Hoosiers and going to impact all of them.

I mean, Lara, when we do see the list that she mentioned, you know, a lot of these are administrative bills, a lot of regulations, bills, a lot of, pretty broad bills that did have, support amongst lawmakers of Republican lawmakers.

do you think that he had a successful session with what his priorities were?

Well, I think actually, if you look at his number one priority going into that session was passing redistricting.

And that was a failure.

That did not work.

and he made it a key centerpiece of this is what I want done is what we're going to do.

And members of his own party bucked him, and pretty much told the president we are not going to, rig elections going forward.

The other part about that is, politically, you're seeing now some of the folks who were promising retribution for the failure of redistricting.

Some of that appears to be petering out as well.

So I think, you know, you can you can give yourself a B-plus on administrative actions.

But really, the lead story is you lost your signature piece of legislation, and that was redistricting.

I mean, Oseye, you know, that all play out in December, very high profile.

And then we had to deal with that throughout the rest of the regular session with redistricting having failed.

Do you think that soured things a bit for the governor?

I was surprised that it did not sour them more I thought there would be more of a fallout and more discord between, his party in the state House and himself and I didn't see that.

So to Whitley's point, I think he did give 51 things of, what, 58 things he wanted done.

so we still, if there is more fallout from redistricting, we shall see.

I felt like I said it would be more.

So I was a little, I want to say, disappointed, but just kind of surprised that there wasn't more tension after that because it did seem like it was going to be, a moment where we would see a lot of, discord between the two groups.

Yeah, they seemed to downplay it quite a bit as we got into, you know, the meat of the legislative session.

Caroline.

What were some of the, pieces of legislation that the governor thought were a win, that you really felt like he had prioritized.

Yeah.

He definitely pointed towards the affordability issue bills like the housing matters and the, utility cost bills, you know, he considered those to be a good win for everyday Hoosiers.

Democrats obviously are pushing back and saying, especially when it comes to the utilities bill, that it's really not going to do a lot for the everyday Hoosier.

There were also concerns around the housing bill that there's, you know, too many opt out things in there now.

So is it really going to produce more housing?

It's kind of hard to say at this point, but I know he was also really, Governor Braun was also proud of the, matters around social media restrictions and making sure that Bill got passed and the things around cell phones in schools also being, tighter restrictions now.

So those kind of safeguard measures for children, I think he was really proud to see get across the line.

Again, it's a little uncertain if they're going to pass, you know, judicial review and see challenges in the courts going forward.

But for now, he's calling it a win.

So he's happy.

Whitley we did see a lot of the legislation that passed aligning with federal moves and sort of doing that procedurally.

Do you think that the governor, you know, wanted to prioritize those types of legislation?

Absolutely.

And honestly, if we're looking at how redistricting impacted being in line with the federal government and with the Trump administration is pivotal for the state of Indiana when it comes to the way in which we engage in the way in which we honestly receive funds.

And I think that after the redistricting fallout, which I wouldn't necessarily say was at the top of his agenda, but it was something that was imparted on him by the Trump administration.

And he did carry it out, which I would hope most governors would do.

it is important to note that it did not sully the progress of this administration and what he was going to do for Hoosiers here.

Thinking back to his state of the state, he mentioned the Chicago Bears like three times.

That bill, of course, we know did pass the stadium.

Yeah, Bill.

Yeah, that would seem like it was a priority from the start.

And now a win.

I think that's a good point.

I think what's interesting about that, though, is that was a nice pivot for them away from redistricting.

And it was also a way to I mean, redistricting was a goal, right.

And so when you take it on the chin with redistricting by your own party, and then you can all come back together to try and bring the Bears, to Northwest Indiana.

It also was an opportunity to, for some bipartisanship as well.

you've got mayor McDermott up there, and Hammond, who's just a visionary and who's really got some creative ideas about it.

So it was an opportunity to dunk on Illinois a little bit, an opportunity to try and turn the page from redistricting and then try and have some some semblance of a bipartisan win.

Well, that was the big bipartisan.

Yeah.

Now, former Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard is joining the increasingly crowded race for Indiana Secretary of State.

As Ben Thorp reports, the former Republican says he will run as an independent.

Ballard served as the Republican mayor of Indianapolis for two terms from 2008 to 2015.

But in his announcement video, Ballard says he will run as an independant, saying both parties are broken.

Ballard says he's especially concerned with the politics of the current Secretary of State, Republican Diego Morales.

The current leadership in that office has shown an eagerness to engage in partisan politics.

I thought my career in public service had ended.

But when you see something this broken and know you can fix it, you step forward.

Ballard says he's running primarily to protect the integrity of elections, Beau Bayh has announced his candidacy for Secretary of State as well, filing as a Democrat.

So, Lara, is this going to shake up the race for Secretary of State in Indiana?

I think it already is.

I think it was really one of the dominating headlines of this last week.

And, I try to stay off social media as much as possible, but based on what I could see, there was a sort of internal war breaking out among Republicans.

yeah, I definitely do.

And looking at somebody like Greg Ballard, who I'm actually really fond of, I think he's a really great guy.

And, I've always really enjoyed his company.

he has his he has a he has a sniffer for the political zeitgeist, that few have.

And when you look back to 2007, and he came out of nowhere, not well-funded, but he tapped into a voter energy and a voter anger.

You now look at where we are today.

People are tired of politics as usual.

And I think their response to this is just politics as usual.

People are tired of it.

you also have a hunger for independent third party candidates, and people want someone who is authentic.

And Greg Ballard is a pretty authentic person.

The challenge becomes for him and for his campaign, money.

You know, that's going to be, well funded campaigns he's going to be running against.

And it's also where do you take votes away from?

Do you take votes away from Republicans?

Do you take votes away from Democrats?

I personally think he'll play really well and, out outside of the Indianapolis media market.

but ultimately he will be running against, I'm assuming he's going to be running against Beau Bayh.

Who is a really good candidate.

Well-Funded as well.

Yes, exactly.

And, Diego Morales.

So Whitley we did see a little bit of backlash on the social media and some Republicans, you know, coming up for Ballard and saying, you know, that he doesn't live here and asking about residents questions.

Do you feel that divide in the party?

Well, as his message said, is he a part of the party is independent of the party.

So this is true.

any time you set yourself apart, I think that once you've been a part of a party and you've been an elected official in the party, and then you decide to break away, there is going to be that level of tension.

I also think that we have to look at this Circumspectly he was the mayor of Indianapolis, one of the most liberal places in the state of Indiana, and he has resonance here in Indianapolis as someone who's traveled 92 counties and understand the pulse and the beat in different areas.

I'm not quite sure if he has those relationships established and if they would like to align with that level of leadership.

That's neither here nor there.

What I will say is, any time you see someone who decides to break away from a party to be independent, it is definitely a pause for cause and people will pay a lot of attention to it.

What do you think it says Caroline as he jumps into this race, you know, with, issues of election security and with issues of, you know, our elections being top of mind that he really wants to, you know, weigh in.

Yeah, yeah.

I think it really shows that, you know, this question around election security really hasn't gone away since, you know, we really first heard it from President Trump when he challenged the 2020 election.

And so, you know, I think, you know, we saw it even this year in the legislative session, we saw an effort to try to reduce the number of early voting days in Indiana that ultimately didn't get all the way through.

But it's so the conversation is still there, and the Republican caucus still sees this as a priority issue of wanting to secure Indiana's elections.

It is interesting, though, too, because we heard from like, Speaker Todd Huston, when President Trump, you know, said publicly that he thinks the federal government should be taking over elections.

But Huston was like, we like how we run our elections here.

And so there is a little bit of push and pull with, you know, how the National Republican Caucus is feeling and then how Indiana's caucus is feeling.

So it is interesting to see that this is, you know, becoming a biggest race issue right now.

but yeah, it'll be interesting to see how far the Republican caucus wants to actually push the the topic of election security.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well Oseye what do you think as far as you know, more independents are more people announcing that they will be with, with an independent party and moving away from the establishment here in the state?

Yeah, I think that's really interesting.

Especially when I saw the news, I had to pause myself.

First of all, I was like, oh, Greg Ballard, where have you been?

back in politics.

You're throwing your hat back in the ring here for the Secretary of State?

no less.

So that just makes me think two people are really unhappy with, Diego Morales.

and also, as we're growing with, we see what independent Indiana said.

There's 41% of Hoosiers identify as independent.

And, to your point about Ballard recognizing the zeitgeist that we're in.

So that is that seems to be a growing contingent of people deciding we're not with either party because they're not making they're not doing what we want.

We're not pleased with either one.

So we are now moving to independent route.

And I think that is something that we've tried for a very long time to have a third party, independent.

And it's not really gone anywhere, but we could see some, some actual change, some actual movement.

Now with someone like Ballard who does surprise people, he became the mayor of Indianapolis, which, to your point, liberal of Indian Indiana.

Yes, but still, he was Republican, and we've not had one since.

Yeah, I was there that night.

And he beat Peterson.

He beat Bart Peterson.

But he raised taxes.

You have to remember.

Well, no, he was relitigate it.

But I worked for Mayor Peterson, his first term, so.

But I was going to say is what we also say is, you know, back to your point of Indianapolis being really liberal back in 2007, when he won, Peterson had been the first Democratic mayor in like 20 some 30 years, coming in in 1999.

So, you know, it was, he was a very popular mayor at the time.

But Mayor Ballard was able to really capitalize on that anger and really galvanize people around it.

and it will be very interested to see if he can recreate that magic here.

But he has really good, strong people behind him.

I also think it says something about the modern Republican Party in Indiana that the mayor, the former mayor of Indianapolis, who was a pretty well-liked figure, has to run as an independent.

because everyone has lined up against, I lined up with Diego Morales.

That also goes back to movements designs because when, he won, it was Tea Party time.

Right?

It was the start, the Tea Party two party time.

So it also just kind of goes back to where things ebb and flow and exactly and how people are feeling about the economy, about, property taxes, about what's going on.

Right.

So I have to ask is it a grift as well.

Right.

Do you run as a Republican.

That's nontraditional because this is what you need to do to separate yourself from Bart Peterson.

And now do you run as an independent because now you don't want any of the repercussions of whatever you think the Republican Party is doing.

Is it a grift or is it genuine?

We have yet to see, I don't think calling, I wouldn't say.

Or does it mean he's grift?

I would say it's a grift, I was political, but I had a. Lot of signatures.

Political and is politically advantageous on the November ballot.

Now it's time for our viewer feedback.

Every week we pose an unscientific online poll question.

This week's question Will Greg Ballard's entry into the Secretary of State race have a big impact in November?

Vote yes or no?

The last question posed to viewers will moves to tighten welfare eligibility, help save Indiana money, 22% saying yes and 72% 78% answering no.

If you would like to take part in the poll, go to WFYI.org/IWIR and look for the poll.

The Indiana Treasurer of State is raising concerns over the utility company AES Indiana will be purchased by an investment group Zak Cassel reports.

The group of domestic and international investors includes BlackRock and the Qatar Investment Authority.

State Treasurer Daniel Elliott says he's gathering information about the proposed deal.

He worries the sale will hurt central Indiana residents, who pay AES for electricity.

The reason they're coming here is because Indiana is a digital crossroads, and they want to be able to take on the AI race and use this on the AI race.

Elliott has previously criticized BlackRock for investing decisions and says other groups have a history of financial mismanagement.

He wants a full, transparent review by federal regulators before he would support a deal.

So, Caroline, now we're hearing a little bit more from the state treasurer about this group.

What have you.

Brought?

Yeah.

So Daniel Elliott, you know, he just published an op ed yesterday in the Indy Star talking about, you know, his biggest, I'd say, reason or what he's saying is that, you know, there's just a lot of unknowns around this deal.

And BlackRock is a group that he's pointed to before of having concerns.

in 2024 he put them on a watch list saying they should not be involved in Indiana's pension system.

And I think he is mostly just worried that this is going to result in higher utility rates for, customers, and it's going to ultimately affect Hoosiers.

You know, bills.

And so there's just too much no unknown right now for him, I think, to feel comfortable in this deal.

And it's interesting too, because he as a Republican, is also, sharing a lot of same concerns we're hearing from Democrats, too.

who are saying, yeah, this seems like a, unsure situation.

Right now.

And we want to know how this is ultimately going to impact ratepayers.

So yeah, there's just too many unknowns and people are concerned.

Well, yeah, we did hear, you know, from Democrats and we have heard, you know, all session long as well about the affordability issue of utilities.

And people are upset.

People are upset with AES right now.

They're paying a lot.

They are on the hot seat.

And they've been on the hot seat for a while.

And I really appreciate our state treasurer coming out as an elected official and, or pointing to a point in our election, I can't remember the appointed.

anyway, it doesn't matter.

really, really, really have in the backs of Hoosiers.

I really appreciate him having concerns because I think, most people have these same concerns.

One of the things I wondered about is if this becomes a if you become a private company, utility company, what happens to Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission?

What kind of oversight will they now have over this?

well, and I know the governor said that he was really worried about, bringing rates down, but is that a short term thing?

What happens in the long term?

What happens when when, people out of the country, who don't live in Indiana, run our run our power grid?

Mike, what kind of concerns should we have?

So there's a lot of unknowns, a lot of unanswered things.

And I do think we have the right to ask these questions and know and know what's going on.

What could the future hold for us?

Is this going to be a risk for the state?

You know, one of the five largest utility groups in the state, having this type of acquisition?

Oh, I think absolutely.

And I think it's very smart politically, for, for the, for the state treasurer to do this.

It's also a good policy.

I don't know exactly what as treasurer, he can't do.

my understanding and I would need to check this, but I think some of the reasons why he targeted BlackRock before was because of some of the ESG, related related.

Not they're not their business practices.

It was more along the, along that.

But, yeah, I mean, I think it it's interesting to see in this moment of populism and the concern about affordability.

To me, it's a real sign that people are seeing it on the ground of the Republicans, and they're not running away from it.

You know, Congressman Carson was one of the first to immediately come out and question question this transaction and call it into question.

but policy wise, I'd be very interested to find out what he could do.

And I would really encourage him, if he's going to continue it, to make it more of a broader bipartisan effort, because I think, again, this is something that people can really get behind because of all of the issues with AES.

And frankly, having private equity, responsible for when we have a power outage and.

And, you know, he is a Republican, you know, do you think we'll hear more from the party about this deal or is this going to be done?

Lawmakers as well could have considered this during the session.

And did not.

I think that utility costs are a major, major topic in the state of Indiana.

Governor Braun has been talking about it and made steps and produce bills on it.

they've revamped is what I like to call the IURC.

We've got new, fresh energy with former State Senator Zay running it now.

And so you've seen this push.

But I do want to state that what we're seeing in Indiana when it comes to utility is what everyone is seeing around the nation.

So there is a problem.

And I'm not saying that we don't have a problem here.

I'm just saying other states are also feeling this issue.

And what I wonder, I did write about this in October about this BlackRock, and then purchasing it because in all honesty, you want to keep the lights on in the bill low.

And how we're going to be able to do that is important.

But I do believe the IURC will have domain over their rates.

And then being able to raise the rates, stopping the acquisition, I don't know if that's in the best interest of free market capitalism.

but what I will say is seeing how it impacts Hoosiers is important in making sure that the utility costs don't go high and people are not left in the dark is important.

Well, U.S.

and Israeli militaries are pledging to continue strikes on Iran.

Aubrey Wright has more on how the war could affect Hoosiers and their wallets.

Hoosiers should expect gas prices to go up as fighting in the Persian Gulf continues.

Hussein Banai is an associate professor of international studies at Indiana University, Banai says the fallout in Indiana will be economic.

Obviously, the price of oil is going to shoot up, and that means the rise in prices across the board, because transportation costs will go up.

So people are going to feel the price hike not only at the pump, but also in supermarkets.

NPR reports.

Stock markets are down and any price hikes will increase.

Inflation.

So Oseye, do we expect that there will be impacts other impacts.

Oh yeah definitely.

We've seen gas go up already what.

$3,49.

I think I got saved $0.10 the other day, so.

$3.39.

but I was reading the shipping.

We already have tariffs in place.

groceries we know are going to be impacted.

cereal boxes.

Cereal can be impacted.

Diesel truck drivers who rely on diesel all the and of course though that is how we get our goods through shipping.

So we will definitely.

And it's bonkers is the longer it goes on, the the more we will feel it.

And we're already feeling we're already being squeezed in so many areas when it comes to affordability.

so this is just one more area now that who's going to be impacted and feel a pinch in their wallets.

Caroline will we see more of this trickle down effect.

I know we are hearing of the markets.

Yes.

Yeah.

Our Bloomington reporting partners just reported today that farmers are being concerned about fertilizing prices because of the shipping constraints around Iran right now.

They're, you know, cracking down on all sorts of things, getting to them, including the fertilizer.

So we could be seeing impacts coming to crops, you know, in a month's time, just as farmers are beginning to start planting things right now.

So yeah, it's it's could have like a long lasting impact besides just the immediate right now.

And Whitley really quickly, I mean, just as we, you know, enter into another conflict, with, out a resolution from Congress, what should Hoosiers be thinking about?

We need to be thinking about putting America first and what that means and how we do that should be indicative of our moves, not only here, but also abroad.

that's Indiana Week in Review of this week.

Our panel has been Democrat Lara Beck, Republican Whitley Yates, Caroline Beck government reporter at WFYI.

And Oseye Boyd, editor in chief at Mirror Indy.

You can find Indiana Week in Reviews, podcast and episodes@WFYI.org/IWIR or on the PBS app.

The views expressed are solely those of the panelists.

Indiana Week in Review is produced by WFYI in association with Indiana Public Broadcasting stations.

Additional support is provided by ParrRichey.