Usually sessions of the Indiana General Assembly provide answers.

The one that just ended, however, also created a bunch of questions.

Questions concerning everyday affordability, political polarization, and the power dynamic among federal, state, and local governments.

Some of these questions won't be answered for years, even decades, but that doesn't mean we can't start asking them.

I am Jon Schwantes, and that's precisely what we're doing on this week's show.

As we take a closer look at the 2026 session and this legacy of some of the state's most respected journalists.

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.

Joining me to talk about the just concluded session and how it will affect Hoosiers are four people who followed most every twist and turn.

Caroline Beck, government reporter for WFYI Public Media.

Kayla Dwyer, statehouse reporter for The Indianapolis Star Arika Herron, Indianapolis reporter for Axios Media.

And my long time public broadcasting colleague Niki Kelley, editor in chief of Indiana Capital Chronicle.

Thanks all for being here.

I hope you've got a little rest post session.

You know, you all make a living asking questions and you do it well.

So I'm curious now that the session is over and the dust is settling, what big question do you have about the session we just lived through?

I'll start with you and we'll go right down the line.

Caroline.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, for me, I mean, my my wheelhouse has really been education policy for a long time.

So which always tends to find its way into discussions at the very.

And you know, this session we saw some pretty big legislation coming around that's going to affect the district, you know, creating this whole new board that's going to very much drastically change how we govern schools in Indianapolis for IPS and charter schools.

There's still some, like, you know, nitty gritty details that need to be worked out with all of that, you know, who's going to even be on this board.

So all of those things are going to be coming down the line.

There's also been some questions too, around, you know, higher education as well.

We saw some moves happen that they want to eliminate low earning degrees in Indiana.

Now, last year we saw them try to eliminate the ones with low enrollment degrees.

So now we're going, you know, another step further in eliminating these degrees that the state really sees as, you know, just not helpful to students in Indiana.

So it'll be interesting to see what the impact to that will be.

And also just like, you know, what?

What's that going to do that the higher education landscape and how Hoosier kids feel about attending college in Indiana if they see all these actions happening to them.

So I'm I'm keeping an eye on that and seeing what will happen to that for sure.

Yeah.

Arika, I think my big question is just like what actually comes of any of this?

So many of the, you know, proposals, I think they, you talked about at the, at the start of session really changed a lot, got watered down, got pushed back, got delayed.

So will we see any of these actually, like, come to fruition and make a difference for Hoosiers, especially when you talk about things like affordability.

Let's keep going.

I think the biggest question for me is kind of we're still waiting to see the impact of and before we forget, the session started with the redistricting.

And so I'm still waiting to see the full impact of that redistricting, though, and how it plays out in upcoming, especially Senate Republican primaries.

Yeah.

So that one that I think we'll need a little time to tell.

And for those who might have missed, it might have been, snowbirds in the South.

Of course, the president and the governor had pushed for a mid decade redistricting plan, perhaps to give Republicans an advantage in the midterms on the congressional races and Republicans 21 out of the 40 in the of the 40 in the chamber said no.

But that but that will have some and then there are some who say that the profile during the session might have been a little lower, perhaps because of the defeat he was handed early on.

And many of those senators who are seeking reelection have primaries for the first time.

And there we're going to see a lot of probably national money flow.

And so that's what I'll be watching.

And it all goes back to the start of the session.

And Donald Trump had a chat with some of those folks recently.

We'll see how much, support and how much money he, pumps into those races.

And speaking of redistricting, I mean, that caused the rest of session to be shortened, right?

And deadlines were pushed up and everything was rushed through.

So that relates to my big question.

You know, I don't know about you guys, but I feel like I heard more often this session instances where lawmakers couldn't explain parts of their bills or couldn't answer questions about parts of their bills, just basically admitting they don't know what their bills do.

And, also admitting like, this might result in a lawsuit, you know, especially with the social media bill.

And you know, what, what companies does that impact?

And I so my big question is like, what, legal trouble is the state going to field from various bills?

Another example that comes to mind is the, SB one, the Medicaid bill conforming us with the one big beautiful bill act, and Medicaid work requirements.

Advocates were pointing out there's a number of instances where we seem to conflict with what federal law wants us to do.

So, how is that going to get worked out either via a waiver or litigation or what?

So I think seeing, the consequences of how rushed this was will be really interesting.

Do you do you think that the reason that lawmakers can't always explain everything in the bill as they're drafted is because there's more boilerplate language that's cut and paste coming from other states, other organizations?

It's interesting, you know, when you travel throughout the country and you pick up the paper, turn on the news, you say, oh, I just saw that issue in Indianapolis, or vice versa.

And maybe that's a reflection of the growing influence that national politics.

We saw any number of issues, redistricting of course, being a biggie, but also National Guard policing powers.

And in the call up, when the governor can call up and how he can deploy or she can deploy these these folks, we saw it with everything from an issue I didn't even know we had, which is ranked choice voting.

But I guess we're going to be ahead of the game there.

CDL driver's licenses, truckers being able to speak English.

A lot of these these bills did seem to be grow up elsewhere.

Is that what we're saying?

Yeah.

Well, especially with the National Guard bill that you mentioned, you know, when they were discussing that in committee, when we were hearing explanations from the supporters of that bill, they were pointing to the Boston Marathon massacre and the reflection on that about how the National Guard was, reacting to that.

And that was, you know, in 2013.

So a lot of people were like, so why are we talking about this now, if that is what we found in 2013?

And so then that, you know, caused a lot of the Democrats to point out, well, look at the instances in Minneapolis when we're seeing, you know, troops on the streets, policing our own citizens, that's obviously going to make a lot of people uncomfortable.

So is this really a good policy in place for Indiana to to potentially, you know, have that effect on Hoosier citizens here?

So I know that caused a lot of concern.

And and they just didn't seem like a real explanation of why this is needed.

Now.

Similar Bill, with the administration, the federal administration's push for, enhanced legislation on immigration, which now says that if you're post-secondary institution, you essentially have to police students more closely or, you know, or if you're a local law enforcement official, you have to if Ice has a detention order, you better get out there and you better housed those individuals.

Is that going to come back to bite?

And I should say this bill also has some teeth, and that gives the attorney general, the state attorney general, more authority to police the new police folks, if you want to call universities, the new police.

Where does this lead, do you think, does this have lasting repercussions?

I think so, I think, it's a combination of all of these immigration bills.

We're going to see some definite lasting, you know, repercussions, especially when you talk about the higher ed landscape, because it's really we've already seen it curbed international student enrollment by quite a bit over the last year.

So if we're, you know, continuing to push these sorts of policies that either make it harder for international students to come to our schools in our state or just make them, more afraid of what the outcome might be for them.

I think we'll see that continue to decline.

You know, we actually published a story today about whether or not this is going to force public institutions to raise their tuition because they're not being able to rely on the international out-of-state tuition, you know, that they would have gotten from these students otherwise.

And will they have to, you know, raise tuition for in-state students now to to make up the difference?

So I think we we definitely will see lasting impacts.

And if those, you know, if we tried to I would sat down the other day and tried to group these things into broad categories because 100 plus bills, you know, they're all over the board.

This was quite a disparate collection.

But certainly there are those that I mentioned reflected national politics and clearly were influenced by the white House and others and what's happening in other states.

Another one, the buzz word this session affordability.

I mean, if I heard affordability once, I heard of a thousand times, it was, the motivation ostensibly for all the priority bills coming out, I guess both supermajority caucuses, certainly the House bills, as a as they sought to combat, housing costs as they sought to combat utility, rising utility bills, governmental costs.

Their answer was a consolidation, perhaps, of governmental units and commissions and boards that aren't necessarily needed.

Well, Hoosiers feel any benefit, financially from this session, do you think, Niki?

I mean, there's certainly no guarantee.

I mean, on one hand, you got to give lawmakers, I guess, credit for recognizing that Hoosiers are struggling and that the economy, whether it be your electric bill, your gas bill, your, you know, your rent is problematic and wanting to try to do something.

I do think they started out with sort of, especially in the housing bill with sort of going much more aggressive and slowly had to pull that back.

The one thing that locals were saying, hey, you're tying our hands.

We have no more zoning controller for this.

And now most of the locals can opt out of those things, but let's say they don't opt out.

There was still nothing in that bill that would require or make sure that developers and builders pass those savings on, like just because it's cheaper for them to build the house, you know?

Are they still going to sell the house for the same amount of money?

And that to me is kind of a big mess.

And utilities was another one, as I mentioned, and the desire was to make sure we all had, stable bills or if not lower bills.

And there are a lot of things going on with the Utility Regulatory Commission and new line up and hearings that are taking place.

But one of the bills would have specifically changed the the rate making process and have more performance based, like how good is your service when we you come to us and ask for more money?

Dear, dear, you know electric company.

We saw some of the advocates say this bill is great.

If you're low income, it'll keep your your electricity from being shut off.

But if you're the average Hoosier, you're going to see it it again, I guess a version of the same question.

Is there anything tangible significant that came out of this that that Hoosier consumers will actually feel?

It does feel like the low hanging fruit that can affect mostly low end computers, which is great, you know.

But even when you talk about budget billing, you're still going to have to reconcile those bills later on in the year.

So in the whole year, you're still at budget.

Oh, we're not in the bill that's written in, I think, section provisions subsection.

My bad.

What is it called?

What is the I don't want to give you when you open your bill next to that amount, you know.

Okay.

Well either way you still have to pay.

You'll have to pay up by the end of the year.

Right.

So, you know, it helps you with the reconciling.

I think you can still call it the reconciliation payments.

So you're off the high performance based rate making.

I mean, I think it's one of those things that sounds good.

And probably will result in some in future.

Like right now, the I, the they can go request new rates any time they want, right.

So, this limits them to every three years and says like you have to meet certain benchmarks.

So that probably will result in fewer shifts for the consumer.

But of course, what will those shifts be?

Will they overcompensate by making the shifts themselves larger since they have to do it less often?

You know, that's to be seen.

On the other hand, you know, Governor Braun is appointing more, consumer advocate types to the IAC.

So maybe they will come down harder on, on the these utilities.

And they've already announced hearings that are a essentially a I say it's a shot across the bow to any utility that wasn't paying attention and didn't realize that there will be new, redoubled attention to every rate increase.

And it's about time, because Republicans have controlled this government, either through the legislature or the governor for, you know, decades now.

And they had let that pendulum swing too far in the favor of the utilities.

So now the only question is how much further is it going to swing back?

It's going to be interesting to see, you know, as I go through this exercise of trying to categorize another one would be protection of vulnerable, communities or populations.

We saw it with the constitutional amendment, which voters will get to decide on with bail reform.

You know, currently, unless you're charged with treason or murder, you can get out on bail.

It's in the state constitution.

If voters now, based on what was came out of the legislature, this session and in a prior, session, they'll have a chance to say, let's let's make sure that we keep dangerous people behind bars.

One of you mentioned earlier the, you know, cell phone ban, expanding that in schools, protect our kids, or enhanced protections surrounding social media.

Particularly, among users under 16.

I mean, I, I heard debates, you know, on Snapchat apply or not that I certainly my parents forget my parents generation.

I never would have thought I would have heard, that that came up as Indiana struggles.

Is there much media there on and those bills?

Yeah.

Yeah, I think I mean, I think definitely the one that's going to probably be seen the first seeing the most impact for parents and students immediately is that cell phone ban bill in schools, which is, you know, essentially the bell to bell ban where kids will not be able to access or they're supposed to not to be able to access their phones during the school day unless they have some they can use it for unless they have like a mediation program or yes, yes, yes health or other, you know, exception.

And so that I think could, you know, actually do a lot of good for the state and for a lot of schools and kids attention.

Certainly.

But then, yeah, there is the big question of will the social media ban, which is supposed to, you know, curtail what?

Those who are under 16 can actually see on social media every day.

It's it's going to be a big question of if that's going to face legal problems.

It probably will, because pretty much every other state that's tried to do this is facing legal battles with that.

So that one is a little, you know, uncertain if there's real meat there on the bone.

But, it is certainly, you know, telling that the lawmakers really want to crack down on technology use for kids, what kids are subjected to every day when it comes to technology.

So, yeah, and that's one of those classic cases of the devil is in the details because it's how do you define, the potential boogeyman that is, dangerous social media.

It's $1 billion revenue.

It's exempts those that are direct messaging, perhaps, and in a way that makes my you know, I'm still I'm this close to getting my Myspace account, and I'm and I'm so I'm thank goodness I'm.

I don't have to worry about sifting through that legislation.

Snapchat.

Well, yeah.

We don't know some of the questions actually on the floor that there's the bill authored it now and there.

And there is this you pointed out earlier this willingness to wade into, you know, a potential quagmire of litigation, which in the past, I heard lawmakers, when they're debating things, often say, let's wait until we see what the courts say on this.

Let's wait for the Supreme Court.

We don't want to waste our effort.

Now, there seems much greater capacity or propensity to tackle some of these issues.

Is it is there some fundamental change in the air here, or is it just a desire that, you know, a lot of these were ripped from the headlines, Bill.

So we had this tragic, murder of, fishers, 17 year old fishers, resident, spurred a lot of this.

Her parents were very active and that seemed to really propel legislation that might not have crossed the finish line this session.

Is that why we're seeing sort of litigation be damned?

Let's just do something.

I think that's a little bit of it.

I don't think the social media language would have gone forward.

You know, they looked like they were ready to kill that kind of in the first half of session.

Until, you know what happened, the tragedy of Haley Buzbee, really, you know, brought that back.

But I think it's always the last few years, at least.

It's always been the case that, you know, they're going to shy away from legislation that might bring, you know, legal challenges unless it's for the right issue.

You know, we've been other, you know, bills get challenged every year in the courts and we've seen them I think, over the last few years really say like bring it on.

Basically for if it's an issue that's important enough to them, if it, you know, is one of their kind of hallmark issues and they're willing to just go forward with it.

So I don't know that that is particularly new this year.

No sea change here as far as you can tell.

I mean, I see a sea change from when I first started reporting, you know, here at the legislature in the late 1990s versus now.

I mean, back then, all anyone had to say was the word lawsuit.

And, you know, they would kind of back away.

But also, I do think the lawmakers have become sort of desensitized to it.

Right?

Like they get sued like constantly over every bill now.

So now the ACLU saying we'll take you to court doesn't scare them anymore, you know, and there does seem to be a lot of these issues, a willingness we will take a step.

Now, this isn't the recognition.

It's not perfect.

It's not a done deal.

We saw some bills where the effective date was pushed back.

So, with some of the consolidations or eliminations of boards and commissions.

So they basically saying we'll go ahead and pass this, we'll get it signed.

But it's also up for debate again next session.

And we saw several bills, like that.

Again, just this hedging a bet seems to be in vogue right now.

Yeah.

And I think it's also a chance to then like also just, send a message about an issue like, see, we still do care about government efficiency and we're going to we're doing it.

We're just, you know, pushing it off a little bit.

So, you know, once you once you go down the path of some of these bills, you don't want to then like be called out for doing absolutely nothing, even though it's actually kind of doing nothing.

But at least you can go and campaign as a lot of these folks are.

It's an election year.

Thank you.

Either primaries or the November general saying we dealt with affordability.

We dealt with your utility bills.

We dealt with your house.

We cut down on the bureaucracy.

We're saving you money.

Yeah.

All these things.

Yeah.

In terms of the consolidations, one thing that surprised me, frankly, I didn't see going into it, in part because it's been a front burner issue on some by some people since 2007, when the so-called Kernan Sheppard report came out about the consolidation or elimination of certain aspects of township government.

In fact, if you want to go back to Governor Paul McNutt in 1936, I think he was advocating much the same.

So it's sort of just always bumped along this session.

It wasn't anybody's priority.

And yet we might have legislation that eliminates what, as many as 300 of the thousand or so townships.

Yes.

Yeah, they did do actual, you know, some more work on that effort.

And they did come to some, you know, middle ground agreement where, you know, before they were just wanting to look at townships based off of their size or their location.

And now there's actual language put in to the final bill that, you know, says actually performance wise, like how are they actually doing as township people?

And governing, you know, where they live.

So I think that is an interesting approach that they, again, seem to be going to a more middle ground, maybe more watered down, means there won't be as many eliminated, perhaps, as there would have been otherwise.

Yeah.

So that will be interesting.

And this is another one.

Again, it's going to save perhaps some money somewhere.

But you look at local government, whether it's township, whether it's county, whether it's city, they're still reeling from the reforms of last session, the property tax reform, where essentially the General Assembly said, all right, we're going to cut it.

And we're giving you, dear locals, the authority to recover those those costs, meaning the taxpayer might end up with the same out of pocket, a burden in the end.

We haven't seen a whole lot of that yet, but it's all going to come to a head, I guess, in this upcoming budget session, would you think?

Yeah, I think, you know, because it's not tenable the way it is is that that's what's the sense I have.

We've heard that from a lot of locals, and we heard, you know, people worried about that last year.

And then we did see some folks coming, you know, to various, to testify in various bills this year, talking about the impact of that already and the cuts that we've seen.

But yeah, you haven't had I mean, again, it's an election year for a lot of folks.

You haven't seen a lot of locals want to take up the issue of actually increasing taxes.

You know, that's never popular.

That's how the legislature see, people didn't want to come at no agenda.

But, you know, it's going to come to a point where it's like you also have to provide services.

So trying to navigate, you know, those two those two things is getting tough for local.

And it was actually compounded the session.

Was it not because of the well they tweak some things from that bill.

You might have missed it because it was in a massive 400 page Department of Local Government Finance bill.

So, you know, you have to but they did move out some dates on some of the changes or of that familiar to move out the date.

Yeah, that's where people were showing up and exactly, you know, officials are showing up saying we can't survive this.

So do you have other bills where it might hurt them more like the alignment of state law, tax law with the big beautiful bill in terms of overtime, in terms of, these type with that, by bringing that in alignment, wasn't there potential for some locals to be hit a little?

A big state?

I mean, I'm sure there's of that's local here.

Locals can breathe a little easier on that one, you know, and as we as we talk about dates being moved out and sort of the, the, the factors we can't determine, two classic examples are that the General Assembly cleared the way for a casino in, northeast Indiana.

They added, citizen referenda in the three counties that apparently will vie for this, but no guarantee that has happens.

I mean, I assume the appetite is there for another casino, but again, no certainty.

Surprised with anything on the gaming front?

They said no to online gaming for casino, said no to, online gaming for the Hoosier Lottery.

These are other things that had been in the hopper.

But casinos, an expansion seems to have, had enough support to to carry the day.

I guess you don't want to do too much gaming in one session, right?

Based on some troubles we've had in the past.

But, Well, it's not terribly surprising that this happened this session just because the state gaming Commission did study this.

And, as prompted by lawmakers last session, they came up with Indianapolis and Fort Wayne as, most lucrative spots for a new casino.

I guess that was a little surprise.

Indianapolis wasn't even in the running.

Really?

That was that was booted out pretty quickly.

And that's ostensibly because of the horse racing industry of the tracks.

And Anderson and Shelbyville said that they would have been hurt more.

For instance, than and I guess in Northeast Indiana, you're you're drawing into the Michigan Ohio consumer as opposed to cannibalizing Indiana.

Is that that's the thinking.

Yeah.

And also, I mean, there might also be a little bit of Indianapolis has enough, but at any rate, so, I, I think the, the, the issue about the local referendum stuff, though, that was kind of surprising that that was very much last minute.

Yeah, I was shocked because I've covered gaming in this, you know, and every single gaming expansion has required a referendum.

And this went through the whole process.

And every time anyone asked why isn't there a referendum in this?

It was basically like, well, that'll slow us down.

And we might have a Native AmArikan tribe start one before we can like it.

It became this like competition thing and then thankfully, I'll give Governor Brown credit on this.

You know, the last couple days of session, he let it known that he would veto that bill if it didn't have a referendum.

There was no reason to treat northeast Indiana different than every other county in this state that has gaming, and let their citizens have a say, which I think was better for public policy.

You got to wonder what kind of pressure was going on behind the scenes to not have a local referendum.

Oh, I would imagine when you look at gaming, I always say, that's the balloon.

You press it here, it has to pop out somewhere else because it's it's not a zero sum game.

I mean, if you help brick and mortar casinos, then are you hurting those who derive most of their revenue online?

It's our, you know, the horse industry at at bay because of changes on a lot a lot of money at stake.

There any surprises on that front as far as, you can you you've you, I mean, I really don't think I could add much to what else they've just said, but, yeah, it was.

I mean, the fact about Indianapolis being left out, I think was a big, you know, question mark for a lot of folks that we're paying attention, that they pay attention.

Indianapolis, not the way it's like taking over, potentially taking over law enforcement in this is finally something for the rest of us.

Indianapolis is can play sports.

Don't worry.

Well, let's let's give another wildcard then.

That by definition is sort of will pass it and maybe they'll build it and they'll come or maybe they won't.

And that's the bears.

Bears.

Now the Chicago Bears would beat the Hammond.

The bears, I guess.

So do we have a stadium commission set up now in northwest Indiana?

Not surprisingly, there's, excitement.

There's also concern that we don't want to put this on the backs of taxpayers.

I mean, a lot of the familiar arguments.

Is this more than a bargaining chip for the bears to get what they want in Illinois?

Do you think?

It's so hard to say.

I mean, everyone seems to think so.

I mean, it's certainly, you know, this has been a conversation that's been happening for decades, and this is the furthest it's ever gotten.

So, you know, the lawmakers seem to think that the bears are very serious.

They think that they're being, you know, honest brokers in this negotiation remains to be seen.

I mean, Illinois could still make a better offer that, you know, could tempt them away.

So I don't I don't know, I mean, it does feel more real than it has in the past.

So we'll just have to see.

But this whole idea of, like, you know, the two stadiums that they're looking at, you know, Hammond is closer to downtown Chicago than the suburban one they're looking at.

A lot of teams don't play in the city, you know that they're team name is derived from or even the same state.

So I, I don't I think that, you know, moving across state lines is not necessarily the big issue that everyone is trying to make it out to be people who want to see it.

And if we don't get that, we could go after the Bengals.

You know, I mean, if Ohio County loses the Rising Sun casino, we'll just go after the bank.

We'll go after everybody.

Baseball teams, they don't need to.

We can get one.

We're going to stir the pot here.

We have trouble.

We could talk for hours.

But thankfully you've been here to share some wonderful insights and help us all decipher what didn't didn't happen, over the past few months here at the state House.

I thank you for that again.

My guests have been Caroline Beck of FYI Public Media, Kayla Dwyer of the Indianapolis Star, Arika Herron of Axios Indianapolis, and Nikki Kelly of Indiana Capital Chronicle.

It's been said that elections have consequences.

True enough, but legislative actions can also have consequences for elections.

We'll look at upcoming races on the next Indiana lawmakers.

Well, that's it for this week.

I'm Jon Schwantes on behalf of everyone involved in the program, I thank you for joining us.

Until next week.

Take care.

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