The phrase typical legislative session might be an oxymoron, but the General Assembly's just concluded 2026 session was by most any measure, even less typical than usual.

That's thanks in large part to an unprecedented mid-decade redistricting battle that upended the session calendar, thrust the state House into a national spotlight, and created bitter divides within the Republican Supermajorities in the House and Senate.

Hi, I'm Jon Schwantes, and on this week's show, we'll ask the caucus leaders to size up a short session that, despite its highly accelerated pace, was still plenty long on weighty proposals, dramatic debates and last minute surprises.

It's Indiana lawmakers, from the statehouse to your House.

Indiana Lawmakers is produced by Wfyi in association with Indiana Public Broadcasting stations, with additional support provided by ParrRichey.

I am pleased to welcome back House Speaker Todd Huston, a Fishers Republican.

House Minority Leader Phil GiaQuinta, a Fort Wayne Democrat.

Senate President Pro Tem Roderic Bray, a Martinsville Republican and Senate Minority Leader Shelli Yoder, a Bloomington Democrat.

I feel like you were only here that a short time ago at the beginning of the session.

But as I recall that day three of you were getting in cars to go to the Peach Bowl to cheer for IU back when we weren't even national champions.

It's like it's a lifetime ago.

How much has happened?

All right.

I'm a sucker for sports metaphors.

So you had me the other night with your post session analysis, Phil gioco.

You said lots of a few, a few singles.

You use a baseball analogy.

I just went from football to baseball.

Stay with me.

But a whole lot of strikeouts.

Elaborate on that.

Well, when I think back of.

And I've been, I've ever since we left, I've been still, you know, out there talking to voters, believe it or not.

And, the number one thing on their mind is, the utility costs and, frankly, the affordability issue, cost of living.

And when I talk about, singles versus home runs, you know, House Bill 1002 had some good things in there, no doubt.

But in my mind, didn't really go far enough to address what I think is a number one issue out there for for us, our constituents, which is the utility costs right now.

We propose House Democrats propose, I think, around a dozen amendments.

None of them that were accepted, but I do believe would have gone right to the heart of, either at capping rates, getting rid of the 7% sales tax.

We talked about that earlier, the same one that the data centers get to enjoy.

So there's a lot of things I think we've could have done a couple of good things in the House, Bill 10 or 2.

I supported it and voted for it.

But I do think we could have done a lot more.

He just.

He teed it up for you.

There is now a woman to golf teeing up, but yeah.

So 1002 it does have protections.

No shut offs during particular seasons, cold weather seasons for needy individuals who are on limited incomes.

And the new structure, benchmarks for setting rates.

Some people say it's going to help those in most in need, but not necessarily the perhaps the average voter, that's been filling his inbox or talking to him about his concerns.

I mean, should Hoosiers celebrate the passage of 1002?

Sure.

And I think we've all heard from, folks who are concerned about their utility bills.

And I think what, House Bill 2 to 2 does is it provides performance based rate making, making sure that we are getting the value for the, you know, reducing costs and getting the types of services that we need.

And I think it's a very important piece of legislation.

I think it's one that ratepayers are going to see the benefits of, from, from, from now and in the next few years.

And so we were excited to get it passed.

Bipartisan support, I think, is an important piece of legislation.

Charlie Yoder, you didn't use a baseball metaphor, but you did say you're quoted saying it didn't go far enough.

You would have seen the 1002.

I think what, what we saw is this bill, while it does provide some protections during our hottest months out of the year, it doesn't provide protections for the hottest days.

We would rather see it, leaning more towards talking about temperatures to protect Hoosiers versus just, days of the year.

But also, I think what we need to look at was 1002, was it does provide just a minuscule affordability relief for Hoosiers, but a much more hefty relief for utilities in terms of predictability of, performance rate, making.

And I think you can see that, you know, when, when you have Wall Street responding as soon as we passed 1002 with Blackstone, purchasing a $33 billion.

That's right.

These two things, I don't think that that is in the best interest of of Hoosiers.

And 1002 was more of a signal of looking at ways that, utility companies can predict what their income is going to be.

I remain focused on so many bills this session.

Both of you, all of you were saying, you know, we got a first bite.

We.

This was a first step.

This is an issue.

And I could go down a long list.

We're going to come back.

We're going to address this again.

But we're we're taking a first stab at it.

Is this one of those bills?

I know the Iowa City under new leadership, one of your former, caucus colleagues, who's now in charge, they're having hearings, sort of a shot across the bow as I, as I view it to say, how do you, set these rates are.

And I want more transparency.

So clearly, headlines will be written, stories will be aired.

This isn't going anywhere.

Is this just the start, or is this solving the problem?

No, I think I think this is I'm not sure this is a start.

We've been working on utility costs for a long time.

This has been something that's really important to Hoosiers.

I think, the appointment of Andy Zay as chair of the HRC is a good move.

He's going to work a very strong way to try and put downward pressure on those rates and, be pretty analytical about the requests.

With regard to 1002, the one the only thing I'll say is, you know, it it is a it's changes the way that utilities can decide on their rates that we've been doing for more than a century.

And it puts two things that are extremely important to Hoosiers.

Top of mind affordability and reliability.

And the utilities have to get those two pieces right for them to get the full, ROI on their investments.

And so it's putting pressure where it needs to be put.

I'm optimistic that that's going to be have a positive impact for Hoosiers across the state.

You know, we also point to just in the last couple weeks, we've had a utility Indiana Michigan utility petition for a rate decrease, which is a fantastic story.

I you can't say it's necessarily a result of this piece of legislation, but, that probably was very relevant to it.

Plus the, things we've done over the last few years.

So we're seeing a really positive move in the right direction.

When we talked about 1002.

Let's go back, dial back to 1001, the priority bill, which also was about affordability in terms of housing, right, creating more of it in part by basically limiting what local government can do in terms of permitting, in terms of zoning.

And I know now there are a lot of opt out provisions.

Can Hoosiers celebrate that or are they all?

Is homeownership closer in their on their horizons than it was before the session.

Looking we should all be concerned that last year the average, first time home buyer in America was 40 years old.

We don't have we are we are short tens of thousands of homes in Indiana.

So the population that we have, we have to address it.

1001 it, you know, deals with with trying to remove about 20 to 40% of a home cost is, increase is because of local regulations.

We've tried to streamline that.

We also looked at what the state could do to streamline regulation.

So important, and I think an issue that we all have deep concerns about, particularly as we try and we continue to grow population in our state and make sure that young people have the American dream that we've all experienced.

You know, a lot of mayors, including a guy, you know, your mayor.

And Fischer's very vociferous in opposition to elements of this bill.

Again, feeling that they were hamstrung, local county government, in some of these measures, again, opt out.

What do you tell him now?

Well, look, I think at the end of the day, you know, bills, we say don't judges.

Where we start is where we can look at the final bill.

But look, at the end of the day, there should be tension in the system between state and local government.

And we're trying to both get to there are partners and we're trying to get to the best solution.

And we worked our way through it.

I've had terrific conversations with local government leaders.

But look, we're also putting responsible on them, like this housing issue they have, they've got to help us find more affordable housing.

They're planning and zoning processes determine that to a large degree.

And what we're trying to say is, look, you know, this is a very, very important issue.

The Hoosiers extraordinarily important issue, to young people.

And how do we make sure that we can keep more young people, here in Indiana with, with finding affordable homes and starting to build their American dream?

Phil Jackson, a lot of the members of your caucus, well, concerned about these local control issues, ended up voting for the bill.

Is that the right move for the state?

Well, we talked about singles.

I'd say this is more like a button single on this bill.

And, you know, when we were in the speakers, right.

It is getting more expensive.

And, the age I think the first time homebuyer is getting close to 40 years old.

We had a bill that was filed that would, provide low interest loans, to young folks that are looking to purchase their first home.

So, yeah, it it got, what?

Let the house and one of the Senate, they did their thing.

They kind of, tapped it up a little bit, and it it came back.

I didn't really think.

Frankly, it probably went far enough.

I think we could have done, a little bit more.

Yeah.

I do respect what local, governments are trying to do, but I also think there could have been more to help young folks that are trying to buy their first home.

There are a lot of opt out provisions now for people like Fishers and Carmel and other Westfield other communities.

That said, cried foul.

You know, this isn't this isn't fair.

Yeah, well, there are in fact, some of those opt out provisions were taken out of the bill altogether, frankly.

And so but you still have some things that are important there, like a limitation of impact fees.

But the real value is the conversation that we've had on this issue is the speaker said, you know, local government and they're planning and zoning have a lot to do with the supply of housing.

They have a lot to do with the cost of housing.

I've heard it, said that the local regulation is as much as 20 to 25% of the cost of a home, and that obviously impacts the supply.

And so what they need to understand is that that tension, the between the state and the local government is something that's always there, and we just need to continue the conversation so they understand that, they're part of the, the issue here.

And, so I think it was a productive conversation and a bill that did move us forward.

And, Sheila Yoder, you want to weigh in on the housing?

Do before the dogs came into this, conversation, into the session, laser focus on housing affordability and House Bill 1001.

Here's where it fell flat.

Three things that we need when it comes to housing affordability one, we need a first buyer plan to help people actually buy those homes.

No one has no such thing.

Two we actually need to see a plan for start up homes.

There's nothing in 1001 that provides that.

And number three, we need to make architectural renderings.

Just a plan.

Anything you're talking about to two facilitate startup or startup plans.

And three, we need to guarantee and at least have some measure of certainty that the any kind of savings are passed on to the purchaser in this bill not existing.

So while we were focused on affordability, 1001 is actually going to talk about bite at the apple.

I mean, Hoosiers have been hungry for a long time, and we just nibbled around the corners.

And 1001 is a reflection of that.

I think the interesting thing to Shelli's point, though, is when we can talk about Bloomington for an example of a place in which, you know, there's been no housing growth, there's been, you know, like we we have a wonderful community, a place that I think most of us I mean, I think many of us went to school there, you know, local communities have got to step up.

I mean, you know, there's vibrancy in young people.

There's vibrancy and creating the opportunity to have the community I grew up in, in fishers was, you know, largely built upon, you know, young people.

And they're starting their first homes, you know, where it where those communities in our state, who's going to step up to fill that void.

And that's what is.

Senator Bray noted that, you know, this created the conversation.

I think people were shocked to hear the first time homebuyer in America was 40 years old.

And, you know, we need more housing shock.

And I think the conversation around this has been incredibly important.

Yeah.

If I could weigh in, if I can get it, then we'll get you.

I mean, thank you so much.

No, I know we're going to, but but so what?

We've been, what Senator Yoder saying, I guess, does make sense on a certain level.

But, you know, we've been working on housing for a while, frankly, bills coming out of the House 1005 over a couple of years where they try and provide money for infrastructure to make the housing cheaper, which I think is a smart move.

But outside of that, we have to be really careful of adding more government to make housing less expensive, because all we ultimately do at the end of the day is make it more complicated and thus make it more expensive and then choke off the supply.

So I think what, what ten no one is trying to do in this conversation, I think is going in a good direction is let's be aware that the regulations that we impose, some of them are really important, like storm drainage and things of that nature are really important that we get right.

But every piece of regulation that goes into a requirement to build a house makes it more expensive.

And we just have to be aware of that.

And that's where the conversation needs to be had.

We've got so much to cover besides housing, but I you have to defend God's country.

I do, I didn't mean to say, oh, I love Bloomington to hurt a lot of construction down there.

I just can't afford any of it.

That's the problem.

That's, And Bloomington is, you know, part of a larger ecosystem when it comes to housing.

And we are a bit landlocked.

We were trying to find ways and, really appreciate the work that our mayor is doing to to make that possible.

But, you know, partnering with other communities, looking at, what South Bend is doing and finding a way forward when it comes to housing, right in Bloomington.

But you know, what we've been able to do in terms of, increasing student housing has been extraordinary in the last couple of decades.

And, we're we're definitely moving in the right direction.

But no one sort of fell flat for the state.

All right, well, still on affordability.

Before we get on to the other umpteen things on my list, the budget was not open.

You guys were adamant.

You were not going to open the budget.

That's not a budget session.

And yet there was a lot of concern about childcare costs.

And in fact, there was, flexibility rendered, which allows the tapping of funds for, vouchers for childcare.

Major move on your part, you know, as far as you're concerned.

Well, again, I mean, it's let's hope they well, I'm able to hope they tap into those funds.

I mean, we could have gone, big time and eliminate, the waitlist.

We there are, which is what you had advocating.

You want to get there?

Childcare centers are closing all over the state.

I keep hearing how we've been, you've been working on these things for, you know, ten and 20 years.

And so we're at the, a lot of these issues.

And, and we're at the point now we're on so many of them that, I frankly think we're at almost, frankly, at a crisis situation with the cost of living and that includes childcare.

And these are it's just not Democrats talking about this.

It's the Chamber of Commerce.

It's business.

Folks that are saying, you know, you've got to do something about, affordability when it comes to childcare, because it is a huge impact to, to, jobs and businesses.

And I think that they're trying to do, you know, going from, I think the, the one bill that had to take this from, about 100 employees, up to 500, that would be eligible.

I just think that, look, we it while it was a short session, grant you, we could have been more aggressive when it comes to these things that are really impacting Hoosiers.

And that was about spurring employers and incentivizing them to do it.

Is this one of those where this is the first step or not?

The first step, but it's a it's a step.

You've already dealt with regulation.

You've already dealt with certain types of things.

But this is not a done issue yet.

It is not a done issue at all.

I mean, it really is an issue that I think we're all hearing a lot about.

It's a pain point for Hoosiers.

But again, we have to be careful.

I've said many times, I don't think I don't think anyone wants the state to be in the childcare business.

And if the explanation or the solution is let's have more state money to go to childcare services.

So that is cheaper for people.

That is the wrong direction to move.

Again, what we've done over the last number of years is add safety and quality to it, which are very laudable goals.

But the result in doing that is more government and it makes it more expensive.

And it chokes off the supply.

So we have to make sure that we rightsize that which we've been working on over the last few years.

Senator Charbonneau in particular, has been working pretty hard in that space.

This year.

We did a few things by, by expanding some of the tax credits to a larger employers and, and, increasing some of the reimbursement that folks get.

So, yeah, no home runs there, but moving in a good direction.

All right.

I think real quick because I want to thing really quick here because I mean like we can talk about affordability.

Who calls affordability crisis government.

Government flooded $7 trillion in the system that created affordability crisis drove up inflation.

You're talking about Covid in the federal.

Right.

And then but then second of all, like, you know, then we then we want to layer regulations on all these things and then we wonder why we lose supply.

And so, I mean, I don't think there's a philosophical difference which feels like we're trying to solve a government created problem with government solutions.

I think what we'd much rather do is figure, how do you you deregulate the marketplace, let there be more, childcare centers and more childcare available, and that will drive down costs far greater than any government program will drive down.

Well, I just want to add one thing we would never say.

We don't think the state should be involved in building bridges and building roads.

We absolutely wouldn't.

And infrastructure is just as important in terms of child care.

When we talk about child care, there needs to be a serious conversation about that as a piece of infrastructure, because you can't build a family off of maybe or flexibility when it comes to can we afford childcare?

An employer can't open the doors based on flexibility, or maybe or possibly we need certainty.

You guys are doing it at state.

You did a lot of bills, and we're not going to be able to talk about looking at a forecast, though.

If you continue to go down the road of child care to, to, to to state funded, I mean, in a couple of years, you're at hundreds of millions of dollars, which we just simply can't afford.

And, and, to say that the infrastructure of child care is the same thing as a bridge or road, I think is is not.

And employers have to have responsibility that.

Yes.

I mean, and that's what you're trying to get.

All right.

So if affordability was one, as I try to put these in broad headings, another one was protection of vulnerable populations.

And by that and whether it's cryptocurrencies kiosks for the help that might be targeting seniors, it's about social media restrictions.

For those under 16.

It's no cell phones in school to keep people focused and away from the distractions.

These are all sorts of a theme which, ran throughout new kind of alert.

Early warnings for young people who might be in harm's way, might be have been abducted or, running afoul of of their might they might be at risk of harm.

Again, singles on that or whether there's some real serious as we probably as we're coming to the end of the show, maybe I think this is probably something that we're all going to agree upon, which is good.

And, you know, for when commuter schools passed a public safety referendum a year or two ago, and they've been seeing great results when it comes to cell phone bans, things like that.

So, this is becoming, big distraction in our schools.

I was really happy to see that we took some steps, forward with regards to cell phone usage, things like that.

So, and there already was a ban.

Just this broadens the ban.

You got to keep it out and locked away in a locker.

You can't.

Right.

Powered off it.

Yep.

Exactly.

And, educators that testified and I think, just I think we all agree that, look, this is a distraction.

Things have to be dealt with, and I'm glad we made.

How about the social media ban again?

Another one that's first of I mean, that every state struggling with how to protect young people from social media, our first effort to put our toe in the water, this piece of legislation wasn't necessarily perfect, but, I think it's important to try and make sure that we're, thinking about social media and the impact it has on kids, from depression to competition to bullying and all the other kind of negative or nefarious results it has on children.

And so we tried to make sure that, we, we you got to respect parental rights to choose what's right for their kids.

But having but having some parental consent is a good step in the right direction here.

And so I think you will see us and every other state in the nation continue to work on this issue as we recognize the problems that come along with social media.

And our and a lot of litigation is going to befall the state.

But I think, you know, if we're dipping our toe in the water, too many Hoosiers are feeling underwater.

And when we come at the close of any session, you know, the question is, how many bills did you pass?

But I think that's the wrong question.

I think we should be asking, were we able to lower Hoosiers bills?

And that's what they want, from us.

And I know that we dipped our toe in the water, but there is so much work yet to do to improve the lives of Hoosiers in Indiana.

And along the lines of protecting from the social media.

You're going to love this one.

You're going to love this segue in terms of protecting vulnerable populations.

The bail reform, the state constitutional amendment, it'll go to voters, in November.

But that was a priority for for many of you, certainly on this side of the couch.

Well, I will be the Senate's lead on that the last couple years.

Right.

But this is essentially it used to be if unless you were charged with murder or treason, you had to be received bail.

Now, there's a provision built in, to try to let judges have more latitude for keep people who are a proven risk.

Significant change for protecting Hoosiers.

Significant change.

Yeah.

We'll see.

I think it'll pass in November.

We'll see.

The voters will decide.

But, it does help with public safety because let's let's the judge, if they determine that a person is there's no condition where they can allow them out pending trial and the public be safe, then they can keep them behind bars.

And, you know, there's lots of due process built in there requires a hearing and a ruling of a judge.

So, we we feel like it's a very good move.

One other broad category, and we're I see, I told you we were going to get to a lot of bills that I thought more than usual reflected national and even international politics and issues.

I'm talking about immigration bill, which had been didn't make it last year.

It's back now in terms of local cooperation and even university cooperation with Ice detention and so forth.

National guard call ups, redistricting, the granddaddy of them all the mid, decade, the commercial driver's license legislation, which, doxing, you even dealt with banning, ranked choice voting even though Indiana, as far as I know, isn't dealing with ranked choice voting, but it is an issue nationally.

It did strike you feel disappointed that this is, in some ways more responsive to what's beyond the state of Indiana borders than we've seen in the past?

Yeah.

I mean, I suppose so, you know, look, when it comes to the immigration issue, you know, we heard from, again, local government sheriffs said, look, this is, not the best way to go about doing this.

We're going to potentially see overcrowding in our jails.

It's going to cost us more money.

We're not the ones that, have to deal with this.

We're not the experts here when it comes to, the, the with the issue of mental health.

And it's the one thing that I think that something to sort of sums up, a lot of what we do in the legislature, what we don't do, which is get to the heart of and to the, the main, issue that causes these problems.

And frankly, with this, with, immigrants mental health.

And we don't do enough to help, to, to help in the mental health space, which I think would really go a long way with solving homeless issue.

But it's just not that issue.

It's so many other issues that we deal with.

We passed these bills that we can go home and say we did something, when in fact we really don't get to the root causes of the problem.

And Shelli Yoder, you you don't want to see universities in the game of policing these issues.

Is is that a fair assessment?

Policing I mean, it what Senate Bill 76 does?

There just has to be unintentional.

Cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

And and 21st, the House, the state attorney general has new powers to investigate and levy that penalty and in a space where, as a state, we've always supported that our colleges and universities are places, spaces of opportunities.

And when you have employers from around the world coming to, engineering schools to, recruit the best and the brightest from Purdue or the best and the brightest from the school of business that I you.

And there is this chilling effect of, what Senate Bill 76 is going to do that's only going to impede opportunity.

But we're also doing that with K-through-12 and our pre-K centers.

If they're affiliated with a school, our teachers, our school nurses, our school librarians are not people who should be invoking fear in students, but rather creating spaces where everyone can feel that that is an environment of learning and it's not going to do anything to address our attendance issues, which we talked about last year and this year, where we're throwing up a huge hurdle when it comes to Senate Bill 76 ton Huston on the issues brought more broadly of of sort of the national response and so many of these guard call ups, redistricting, etc., etc.. Time well spent.

Yes.

And I mean, I, I didn't realize cooperating with federal authorities was was a chilling thing.

I thought it was just what we were supposed to do.

And, you know, I thought the National Guard bill, well, got a lot of attention.

And on the House side, because it came into the floor the week after Minneapolis, I think relatively, thoughtful and calm discussion on the Senate side and then passes without a whole lot of fanfare.

You know, look, the national, issues are always going to show up in the state House, in one way or the other.

Whether the bill actually deals with it or not.

I think, you know, this was year was no different than any other.

And, we, you know, we work together through a bunch of different bills to make Indiana a better place.

And, and you know, I would just note, I mean, I'm very proud of the fact I think we all should be the in the is, you know, faster growing state economically in the Midwest, fastest growing state population wise in the Midwest, whatever.

We're doing seems to be working.

People are voting with their feet and they're making their investments here.

Senators may be the last word.

I mean, we talk about national politics affecting local the redistricting debate certainly created a lot of unusual aspects of the session.

Two weeks, in December meant everybody had to move up by two weeks.

Whether or not the that the sort of frenetic pace was good or bad is is left for another day.

But, long term effects of the division within your own caucus and ultimately the defeat of of the bill that Donald Trump and the governor wanted.

Well, so, first of all, the redistricting, you know, it moved us up into two weeks in December, but it really didn't shorten the session.

It was still that number of weeks.

And we had committees with the House and the Senate had committees that heard and did business that, that, those two weeks.

So we didn't really lose any time there, just a little bit shifted a little bit.

But as far as lasting and and down to about 20s.

So, you know, I don't I don't know that there is I mean, we have there's lots of issues in the state House, we deal with we deal with all of them.

People have disagreements all the time, and then elections have consequences.

So, you know, there'll be a may primary, and then we'll sort that out in November as well.

But I don't know that I'm smart enough to tell you what that impact might be.

All right.

We got to leave it there.

You hear me out?

I'm going to be huffing and puffing.

Hit the showers again.

My guests have been House Speaker Todd Huston of Fishers, house Minority Leader Phil Jackson of Fort Wayne, Senate President Pro Tem Roderic Bray of Martinsville, and Senate Minority Leader Shelli Yoder of Bloomington.

Still not sure what to make of this year's legislative session?

Don't worry.

On the next, Indiana, Lawmakers well hear from some of the state's most respected reporters and commentators.

Well, that's it for this week.

I'm Jon Schwantes, and on behalf of everyone involved in the program, WFYI Public Media and Indiana's other public broadcasting stations, I thank you for joining us.

And I invite you to visit WFYI.org for more statehouse news until next week, take care.

Indiana Lawmakers is produced by Wfyi in association with Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations, with additional support provided by ParrRichey.