Partisan school boards finally approve.

A House committee balks at eliminating the statute of limitations for certain sex crimes, plus questions about Diego Morales's overseas trip and more from the television studios at WFYI, it's Indiana Week in Review for the week ending April 4th, 2025.

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

Additional support is provided by the Indy Chamber, working to unite business and community to maintain a strong economy and quality of life.

This week, school board candidates would be forced to choose a political label for the ballot.

Under a bill narrowly approved by the House.

School board candidates would have to choose Republican, Democrat, independent or nonpartisan to go next to their name on the ballot.

Democratic Representative Kyle Miller, one of the 40 House members who voted against the bill, says it creates lazy candidates and lazy voters.

Because now, instead of candidates having to go put forth their own policies to do their own research, to tell the voters what they what they want to do on the school board.

All we're doing is saying, just put an R or a D behind your name, and we'll know what you stand for.

But Republican Representative J.D.

Prescott, one of 54 members who voted for the bill, says it's about transparency.

Party affiliation, that it's really just the starting point, not the ending point.

When you're looking at Republican or Democrat on the ballot, you still have to go through and evaluate the candidate themselves for who they are.

Under the bill.

Straight ticket voting would not apply to school board races.

What will the impact of this change be?

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

Democrat Elise Shrock, Republican Mike O'Brien, Jon Schwantes, host of Indiana Lawmakers.

And Niki Kelley, editor in chief of the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

I'm Indiana Public Broadcasting Statehouse bureau chief Brandon Smith.

Elise.

the Senate, has this up on their concurrence calendar to send to the governor, early next week, which we expect to happen.

What will the impact of this change be?

I get what Representative Miller is saying.

And he when he's saying it, you know, it makes lazy voters.

I think what he's really trying to say is choosing a D or an R is an oversimplification of what really happens in school board races, in which these issues are so granular at the school board level.

So, I think the worry is that national issues that we see seep down into, state and local races could, have an effect on these races.

And is that fair?

and also, it's a juxtaposition, to policy.

If you look at what happened at the state level, where the state superintendent of instruction was made nonpartisan by this same body a couple of years ago.

So we want to make the state superintendent of public instruction nonpartisan, but where we have all the control and then at the local level, we want to make people choose between a party.

I mean, I think there's just there's some conflict there.

I think at the heart of it, though, it makes folks have to choose between a party rather than look at the granular issues that are affecting their schools, which, in effect, affect their neighborhoods.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Even if you don't have kids, school board races matter in terms of the house, the price of your house in some cases, or certainly the property taxes you pay on them, at least for now.

We'll see what.

Happens.

330 today.

Yeah.

a lot of folks, I mean, we had school board members come to the state House and say, you pass this and I'm not going to run for school board again because I don't want to I don't want to get into that.

I don't want to do that.

We had Liz Brown, who I would say is one of the most political people in the building, say I ran for school board when I was starting out in my political career, and I wouldn't have wanted to put an R next to my name at that point in my life.

Do you think you're going to see a bunch of school board members go ‘I'm out?

That was the concern I had with it.

I mean, you know, ultimately if I were voting, I probably would voted against it, but I'm not.

So here I sit.

I don't think we made the secretary of education nonpartisan.

I think we align their politics with whoever the governor is, because that's ultimately who's accountable for this.

And in this environment, what's the impact going to be?

Not not huge, because at least right now, maybe ten years ago, because he's this there's this whole school issues around schools right now are pretty divided.

And partisan now there's a lot of legislation that goes through Education Committee every week that has, you know, comes out unanimously, comes on the floor unanimously.

But there are there are certain issues, and they're probably the ones that you're talking about in an election that right now are pretty divided.

And partisan.

That does mean I think this is great, but I don't think it means I think the impact is probably going to be muted.

A big part of what was driving this, clearly, from the testimony we heard at the state House, is people who lost races, particularly in suburban Indianapolis counties, who lost races because they felt like the voters didn't realize, well, I'm the conservative and I live in a conservative county or a conservative community, so they should have been voting for me.

But they voted for someone who's pretending not to be a liberal.

is this going to are some of those races where we, we've seen particularly conservative candidates not always win?

Are they going to start to win?

I would have said shame on those individuals who were crying foul because maybe they just ran lousy campaigns.

Keep in mind that nothing in the former and current statute, which was in place at the last election, would have prevented them from walking around with a billboard that said, I'm the most conservative candidate you'll ever find on planet Earth.

And in some cases, they did.

And I'm a Republican and I and they they could raise the money.

They could air spots nonstop if they could.

By the time that said, whatever they wanted to say, there was no prohibition on calling yourself or running with a party affiliation.

but now, of course, it's a different landscape.

It's it's, it is, I suppose, a sign of the times that now the issues that get attention and education are partisan issues.

And it's sad because I think we all remember, well, I certainly do.

Well, I know you don't.

Your memories are.

Always be careful when you say we all.

Remember.

Yes.

We had an earlier discussion about remember the hotel keys?

and I guess I'm the only one who does remember them, but, I mean, when when elementary school education and school board decision making was about things about, you know, physical structures and, and playground equipment and, whether to honor teachers in certain manner or certain programs after school programs for children and what is, kind of a quaint way to look at things.

Now, I missed that, and I presume a lot of people do, because I don't think kids ultimately are well served by these, sort of the using education and school board races as a proxy for other disputes, that in many cases don't really get right down to it, have that much to do with how what the kids are learning or not learning.

This, you know, was mentioned in the piece straight ticket voting will not apply to school board races because you could have multiple people in the same party running.

Because we're not doing a primary.

Because we're not doing a primary, which is what the senator.

But in terms of you asking what the impact, I think it's going to be huge.

And you know why?

Even though they're not doing a primary, they're applying the two party, the two primary rule to who can run.

That means hundreds of thousands of Hoosiers are not going to be able to run, at least as an argument.

Right.

Because maybe they didn't vote in the last two specific ones.

Or maybe they voted R once, D once the back to an R or whatever.

Because I think.

That's going to kick out.

It isn't just.

The hands of the.

County chair.

Chairs.

And, and I think I have to go back and read the language of the bill, but my memory is that it wasn't a version of the two primary.

Well, it's just the last two primaries you voted in.

I think it's the last two primaries, period.

Like if you didn't vote at all.

And in one.

Of the last, I don't know if they changed it.

That's not the current.

Okay.

But, You waived.

Yeah, it you can get it.

But also, no matter what, it's going to kick out any federal worker, any a lot of workers who receive federal dollars through contracts or grants, they're not allowed to run for partisan office again.

I guess they know it would still count as a partisan office, but you can run because yeah, yeah, even if they said independent or nonpartisan.

Yeah.

All right.

Time now for viewer feedback.

Each week we post an unscientific online poll question.

And this week's question is should school board candidates be forced to choose a political label on the ballot, a yes or be no?

Last week we asked you whether Todd Young is conservative enough for Indiana voters.

We had more voters than usual.

They were pretty split.

A yes was 53%.

No, it's 47%.

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

Some would argue Todd Young's doing a good job based on those results.

Advocates have been pushing for years to eliminate the statute of limitations for certain sex crimes, and a bill to do that cleared the Senate this year.

But a House committee gutted the measure this week, the Senate advanced a bill to lift the time limit for all cases of rape and child molestation.

Carissa Siekmann has been pushing for the bill for years.

She says she was raped as a teenager, as was her younger sister.

And Siekmann says Indiana has one of the highest rates of sexual assault against high school girls in the country.

We must ask ourselves why are neighboring states providing more justice for their citizens?

Why are they.

Valuing their survivors more than Indiana currently is.

A house committee largely deleted the bill.

Instead, the measure now lengthens a statute of limitations extension in current law.

Right now, if DNA evidence, a recording, or a confession is discovered after the statute of limitations has expired, the case can move forward within five years of that new evidence.

The legislation extends that to ten years.

Republican Senator Scott Alexander, the bill's author, calls it a small step forward.

It was really good for the committee to to hear what they heard today, and maybe that'll change things.

Alexander says he'll continue to push for the original policy change.

Mike O'Brien I'll know none of us are attorneys around the table.

But why?

And this is one of those very legal issues.

But why do you think House lawmakers are so resistant to this?

Because I think it's a balance.

And I think you've got to balance between what's the right time to go back first and all the complexities that come with that memory loss witnesses, you know, it's complicated for prosecutors.

you know, and the reason I think a lot of lawmakers are resistant to this is because one of the one of the most thorough, bipartisan reforms that has passed the legislature in two decades was the multiyear process of reforming the code.

And they considered those, you know, and those were the factors.

They took an account.

What is the right?

Because it's got to be you have to balance it.

And so there's debate on where the line is.

but there went through that's one this and enhancements and you know, other things.

They're really resistant.

So open that up because it was so well done.

The house in particular has been.

Let it out to.

To to monkeying around with that in part because of the influence of Greg Steuerwald was a big part of.

That.

Ed DeLaney and Wendy McNamara, the chair of that committee, has really tried to hold the line on.

Let's not do enhancements unless we really think it'll be impactful or things like that.

or.

They couldn't contemplate it like they did fentanyl this week.

I wrote that ten years ago.

I you never old never could have contemplated that this was going be a problem.

Right.

Where and, you know, but still it feels feels awkward to say no to this.

Right.

And, you know, I'm not an attorney.

True.

I do work with survivors.

And I think what I'm curious about is the approach and, this is something that I don't just see at the legislature.

This is something that I'm seeing with the way that survivors of workplace abuses, even in just the political sphere, are experienced, experiencing where, historically, the onus for where these types of decisions are made and centered is on what could be a hypothetical for the other person.

And it is not survivor centered.

And survivors have to continuously bleed out and tell traumatic stories, retraumatize themselves over and over telling graphic details in these committees, even to see a bill barely see anything in the press and and tell their stories to the media.

When we have some of the highest rates of sexual assault of teenage girls in high school, Indiana has one of the highest rates.

1 in 5 women are assaulted in Indiana, 1 in 12 men, 1 in 2 LGBTQIa people are assaulted in Indiana.

This is kind of a it's a crisis.

And so it is a balance.

And we have to center our response appropriately.

The thing that strikes me about this particular debate, there was I think it was Senator Alexander, who had a bill a few years ago that would have basically for all sex crimes up and down the code, gotten rid of the sexual limitations.

Nobody in the Senate side, nobody in the House side was ready to go along with that.

And so he's over time narrowed it to these.

It's these two crimes.

And there are some cases of rape that have no statute of limitations.

Same for child molestation.

And it's if you do it with a deadly weapon, if you cause serious bodily inju it feels kind of difficult to tell a survivor.

Well, your rapist didn't use a gun five years.

Your rapist used a gun forever.

Is that.

Make this particular debate a little harder to say.

We're just a done.

And I think lawmakers have kind of caused that that issue on themselves.

I mean, I completely get the due process concerns with breaking, like having no.

Statute.

Statute of limitations for any.

I mean, that's just not it's not fair because people die.

How does a prosecutor, how does someone remember where they were 20 years ago on X date?

You know, I mean, those are real concerns.

And so I think having no statute of limitations is it is goes a little too far.

But they've opened the door with some rapes, treating some rapes differently than other rapes.

And so that is problematic for them.

Something that was struck me in talking to Senator Alexander after this committee hearing was, you know, he's been working on this for a few years, and this is a big step, getting the House committee to not just hear the bill, but also to at least, well, I mean, they did something.

They did they did make this small, what he called a small step, doubled it.

I mean, that's 100%.

Yeah, but only by ten years.

If it if the if the new evidence is, uncovered.

But the thing that struck me was Representative Joanna King, who's one of the members of the committee, came out to talk with some of the survivors who testified afterwards.

And and I was waiting there to to talk to, to, one of the survivors, one of the advocates and Representative King was talking with them, and they were telling her about this.

Some of the things they talked about in the testimony, which is some people cannot come forward right away.

They they are physically unable to because of the trauma they've suffered, and that it can take a decade or more to finally be in a place where you mentally feel ready to do that.

And that was something that I think, and watching her, my perception was that Representative King was kind of learning this and going, okay, we need to think about that.

We need to to to try to address that idea.

Is this very small step forward, a bigger step in the larger push to to make this policy change?

Look, there's no good answer here.

You're talking about people who were victims and we all our hearts go out to them.

And it's a tragedy.

The best outcome would be, hey, let's do let's not have crime to have to worry about how to prosecute it.

But it is, I think, my word it's a balancing act.

our heart go out, hearts go out to the victims.

Certainly.

but, I mean, our system.

Let's think of the, the sort of the the meme, of of Lady Justice with blindfold, where you can't take, your heart and your sentiment out of the justice system.

Certainly.

But our system is built upon the notion of deciding things with the head and not the heart.

and when you talk about crimes that may have occurred, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago, how does one forget alibi witness?

Your point?

Well taken.

Where?

I don't even know who I what I was doing.

So how am I going to find whether it was Uncle Joe or Aunt Sally that I was watching the game with that night?

It's.

It's it's tough.

There's no good answer.

But, I think the what maybe comes out of this is by doubling from five years to ten years.

in those cases, you're right, it's not all cases.

But in those cases where DNA evidence or some other sort of evidence comes forward, which is a game changer, DNA evidence was not, you talked about fentanyl, was not around when these statute of limitations were first imposed.

Their DNA was was the stuff of fiction.

I mean, I was looking back and I covered when they put in the the time extension for the discovery of new evidence, 2015.

So yeah, I mean, that's again, it's a trying to address, which makes.

Sense for a lot of reasons, because look how many, people have been prosecuted because they fell through the cracks the first time, but not because of somebody coming forward with an allegation in a timely or not not so timely manner.

It's basically they showed up in a screen for the DNA.

They've also come a long way and not far enough yet on stigma.

I mean, there is underreporting that happens.

And even ten years ago, the amount of underreporting.

So what do we tell people who are ready to finally come forward?

To your point, who you know.

You miss the window.

Yeah.

But if you address the stigma, I'm not arguing the point.

Again, these are the victims who our hearts go out to them.

But if you address the stigma, maybe that then addresses the issue of having to wait 20 years before you are mentally and physically able to address that.

Complicated, important.

Work.

Yeah, well, according to State Affairs, Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales this week continued to refuse to answer questions about the funding for his recent ten day trip to India.

A press release from Morales's office said he attended a tech conference in India to strengthen Indiana's economic ties with one of the world's fastest growing economies.

The Republican official also visited American officials in New Delhi and Hyderabad, but Morales won't say who paid for the trip, only saying it was privately funded.

Democrats accuse Republicans of rubber stamping what they call corruption in Morales' office, governor Mike Braun last week told state affairs and the Indianapolis Business Journal that the trip was outside Morales's responsibilities, and in a Niki Kelley.

How much?

This is not an isolated incident.

We have questions about Diego Morales buying a luxury vehicle for his office.

The cost of $90,000, no bid contracts, which he is absolutely allowed to do, but giving them to folks who are giving his campaign a lot of money.

To be allowed to do him soon as there is a bill on.

That.

how much longer can this kind of stuff go on with Diego Morales?

I don't know, I mean, the list is incredibly long at this point between, you know, catering meals for his staff, giving a bunch of bonuses that make up for salary, the no bid contracts, hiring his brother in law.

Now this.

You know, and this isn't even the first international trip we know.

We went to Hungary last year, and I remember getting tips from his own employees who who were like, he's not here.

And no one, they won't tell anyone where he is.

And then it finally surfaced, surfaced online that he was speaking at Hungary super PAC.

So, I mean, to me, the issue is this if you were there and you were speaking as the Indiana Secretary of State, which he was then it's a state trip, and you should have to explain why it's related to your job.

If not, it's a campaign contribution.

And that would be illegal during a budget session.

Now, governor, governors of the past have gone on economic development trips like these, and traditionally they were paid for for the last decade plus by the Indiana Economic Development Foundation portion, which traditionally did not tell you all of the people who were giving money to it.

You knew some of them.

You didn't know all of them.

So there's he could do the same.

He could.

But that's that's my point.

So group paid for my thing.

That doesn't mean we know who funds X Group, right?

It does.

He needs to start answering some of these questions about things like this.

Yeah, I think you need to over disclose this stuff for this reason.

You don't I mean, there's little things that can kind of start piling up on you politically.

and there's no reason not to.

I mean, the, the, the political downside of not answering is it's usually, far worse than just the avoidance.

Yeah.

which, which in a lot of cases, politically, we see examples of all over the place on both parties, you know, of the, of the non-answer being worse is way worse than the answer.

And then you answer the question, everybody moves on.

Yeah, right.

It's like, if this is all happening out in the open, then what's happening in the shadows.

What's really what's in India.

And.

You know, and this is all, you know, Kush cars, kush, you know, treatment at a time when Hoosiers are wondering if their kids are going to get their ERP, if they're going to have Medicaid, if they are, you know, going to have Social Security.

It's it's it's not good.

This brings me to our next story, which is Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith is defending his office's budget after he asked state lawmakers for a $3 million funding boost before the recent Senate Appropriations Committee for Faith-Based initiatives.

In a statement this week, Beckwith detailed budget cuts he's made within his office, including choosing not to renew contracts for professional development training programs, a graphic design service, and social media and image hosting services.

The reductions total about $164,000 of savings.

Beckwith also purchased a new vehicle for the office, an $88,000 SUV that he says was necessary because the old vehicle had mechanical issues and a larger vehicle was needed to accommodate Beckwith staff.

Meanwhile, he wants $3 million for faith based initiatives, telling lawmakers the money could go towards helping address mental health supports and homelessness and crime reduction programs.

In an interview with the Indiana Citizen, Beckwith sidestepped questions about whether he'd use the money to fund so-called conversion therapy.

John, in the context of the budget discussion that Indiana's currently having, does the fact that he purchased this vehicle actually make it less likely that he'll get the funding request he asked for?

Probably.

So.

I mean, the flippant answer is probably let's hope that this new SUV, in addition to all its other nice, options that have been added on, has very precise rearview cameras and all kinds of sensors about lane changes, because the optics here are clearly, a problem for the for some folks in that office.

And let's hope that maybe technology can compensate for the lack of optics.

I mean, this this might be okay in in a year that everybody's flush with cash, but in a year where you have agencies, what was it, a 5% across the board.

And for.

Most agencies.

Most agencies, in terms of answer to the governor.

Is this all about to that's problem is it's all about timing.

Like, yeah, this would be fine if 3 million more dollars for faith based niches might be fine in a normal budget year, but in this budget year.

No, not in this budget year.

And let's be let's level set on the term faith based initiatives.

White Christian nationalism initiative, because Indiana has lots of different faith practices and non faith practices.

the issues that he wants to solve through this, there are many, many bills, housing bills, and other issues that have been addressed through legislation from, you know, different parties.

Saying that you want this amount of money to push your agenda is not only fiscally responsible, irresponsible, it is irresponsible from a policy side of things.

Hoosiers want someone who is going to lead with integrity and who is going to lead, you know, not in this way is the nicest way I can say very.

Quickly, unlikely that he gets that funding request.

I think it'll be a part of it.

when you build your glass house on those, or you're going to look there, look, it'll look at everything, right?

Maybe next to you just, you know, and.

Maybe just.

A political drive by.

So Mitch got hit for this.

Pence got hit for this.

Diego got hit for it.

It's it's an easy it's an easy thing.

But it's even the reaction is even worse when you're preaching burn the building down.

Yeah.

And it's on the legislature to not get televangelists into allowing this type of expenditure.

Right.

That's Indiana Week In Review for this week.

Our panel is Democrat Elise Schrock, Republican Mike O'Brien, Jon Schwantes of Indiana Lawmakers and Niki Kelly of the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

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

I'm Brandon Smith of Indiana Public Broadcasting.

Join us next time because a lot can happen in an Indiana week.

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 the Indy Chamber, working to unite business and community to maintain a strong economy and quality of life.