Statehouse Journalists Discuss The Session

>>> Well as they say, all good things must come to an end.

Hi on this week's show we'll take a final look back at the general assembly's eventful and consequential 2023 session.

We'll conclude with journalists who chronicled every twist and turn.

Indiana Lawmakers from the state house to your house.

For this our final show of the 2023 season, I'm pleased to welcome back to the table several familiar faces or for those listening on radio familiar voices.

Bransondon Smith, state house reporter and the host of Indiana Week In Review, Niki Kelly editor in chief and long time panelist on the same television show.

Caitlin Lang senior investigative reporter for state affairs and Erica Herron.

Thank you for being here.

I know you were taken away from your rest and recovery.

Thank you for carving out some time.

You are familiar faces and voices and we had the same exact panel maybe sitting different locations at the table a year ago at the end of the 2022 session but there's a twist, a plot twist, three of you have new employers and all employers not only new to you, new to the -- >> State of Indiana.

>> At least yes, they didn't exist.

So the state house press corp is growing.

Congratulations number one.

Probably good news for democracy.

But you're the one constant.

What do you notice as a difference?

>> That's the biggest thing.

We have a traditio at the state house, at the end of session the press corp gets together in the basement where our offices are and we have a toast to the session and then we take a selfie.

I noted the night of there were more people in that selfie this year than there have been at the state house in a long time from the press corp and it's great to see because as you watch the session, you know, the big obvious bills everybody watches, but when the state house press corp is so shrunk you feel like you're missing things, but with so many people you know that oh, yeah, maybe somebody else is covering that committee and I'm interested in what's going on even though I'm not writing a story that day but another person is watching.

It's good for democracy, good for the citizens of Indiana.

>> The notion of reporters missing things and not being everywhere at once.

I wonder how much is that democracy aspect of this because during the lean times, I won't say necessarily all legislators had gotten out of the habit of talking to reporters but it was easy to Dodge journalists with pesky questions.

That's harder to do.

Do you notice a difference Niki in the way the general assembly is proceeding in terms of accountability, this notion that there are people watching?

>> I think generally we have seen in the nation the last couple years, you know, reticent to talk to reporters, the whole fake news stuff.

So far so good.

I think they are getting used to having more eyes, more people asking lots of questions.

And that will take a little getting used to at least for us.

They have seen us around the building and know us at our old jobs.

So we have got a built-in source and rapport with most of them but having to get used to our new outlets and positions and understand there are a few more people keeping an eye on things.

>> When the selfie stick gives away to somebody so big you have to have a designated photographer.

I'll shoot that for you.

Caitlin, again, you guys have been around a while even though in many cases just weeks in your current position but together you have had close to 50 sessions that you have covered.

What stands out about this one?

I think you have had six now notches in the belt.

>> Yeah.

I think for the most part it was a very typical standard session.

I felt things ran smoothly throughout.

No big surprises until the last day of session when Lawmakers decided that they wanted to rewrite the budget again and sort of change the school funding situation, give more money to school funding in order to compensate for, you know, the large amount of money they were dedicating to vouchers which in turn meant less money for public traditional schools.

>> Slowed the process.

Or brought it to maybe a screeching halt temporarily as the senate was saying the school runs show some of our constituents are not going to benefit in this bounty.

>> It meant we got a new budget I think at 9:00 p.m. at night when they were hoping to wrap up that night.

I think that was robably the biggest difference this year was just a chaotic end to what was otherwise a very straightforward session.

>> Erica what was your take-away on this one?

>> The last day was crazy and unlike most last days that we had seen there, although not quite as crazy as the year they ran out of time which was my first session.

>> They had a couple extra that day.

Not irony but they had extra time.

>> They could come back.

>> Is it always that desire to say we got out early.

>> I think they were not expecting that to happen.

That was last minute.

The government was ready to be out of town, planning to leave.

What stood out to me or what was interesting that is different than previous ones is even though most of session ran straightforward, they tackled a lot of big topics this year.

I feel like in years past there's been one major issue or topic they're tackling and it felt like there were several this year and that was different.

>> I think they passed what 252 bills out of about 1,154.

You're the baseball status.

And democrats were touting the fact they got I think maybe a small percentage, 10% I think.

>> More than usual.

>> Yeah.

More than usual.

Should citizens be pleased with the volume or does it really not have anything to do with volume so much?

>> No.

It's a long session.

So there are always more bills than the short session.

But remember that the last few years we hadn't had a normal long session for a little while because going back really 2019 was the last one.

>> Some would say we have never had a normal.

>> 2021 the last one was the first session amidst the Covid-19 pandemic and so everything was very weird.

I mean the house was in a different building and everything spread out and they put limits on the number of bills everybody could author because they knew the process was so disruptive and in the short sessions there are always those limits on bills.

This was the first session in like four, five years where we got back to a more normal legislative process.

And so I think that was partly why you see 252 bills pass.

But again it's also I agree with Erica you talk about beyond just the budget which is typical typical, you have the public health bill, the mental health Bill, a remake of high school coming out of the house, health care cost bills.

I mean a lot of really big issues.

>> Social issues.

>> All the social issues.

Things building up for a long time, finally coming to a head all at once.

>> In the case for public health that's been around for 100, that's had plenty of time to build up.

We talked about the surprises like the 11th hour and things predicted and the best way to predict things aside from the budget obviously which is the one obligation that the general assembly has to do in budget years is the priority bills, you can usually say what's number one or 1001 or depends whether you're in the senate or the house and figure well, those have a pretty good shot and in fact, they did, but not always to the manner they were funded and I'm referring -- I'll pick up where Brandon just mentioned mental health.

Public health.

These sorts of issues that had study committees, task forces with, you know, voluminous data about why we're lagging in certain areas and yet, for instance, in one case, the budget was I think 50% of what had been recommended maybe two-thirds of what the governor in his scaled back request was, I mean, so when you check the box, are priority bills fulfilled and when are they not?

>> Yeah.

I mean, I do think there's been for instance on the mental health side I think they were pushing about $130 million a year, they got $50 million a year.

That's $50 million more than we're doing and so that is a big investment.

It wasn't quite as far.

But I think that's sort of the art of the compromise, same thing with governor Holcomb's public health thing is that the original ask was I think $350 million over the two years.

He's looking at maybe $225 million I think.

But also that's a cyclical system.

All these counties have to opt in.

They have to implement their programs.

So I'm not sure they'll use all that in the first two years and he can come back and get -- and someone else in two years can ask for more.

>> It's not just a sheer dollars and cents issues it's about state control and big brother.

>> That's the thing that got me about those two numbers.

>> It seemed like there was agreement at the end that this is all we're willing to do for public health because we want to see if this works.

But with mental health everyone to a person said we wish we could do more but this is where we're going to be for now.

Going from $50 million a year to $130 million a year would have changed a decimal point in the reserves that Indiana expects to have at the end of the budget.

I understood the public health argument and why they settled at that number.

I didn't understand why you would say $50 million a year for mental health funding, oh, boy, we wish we could do more.

>> I think what's interesting about that discussion is the senator was talking to one of my colleagues and said that -- >> He was a big proponent of some of these.

>> Yeah.

Yeah.

He was leading the mental health push and he obviously wanted it fully funded.

He argued that it was actually bad that Lawmakers got the extra unexpected $1.5 billion when the revenue forecast was updated because it meant he would be less likely to get some sort of fee passed because who wants to raise taxes when you have an additional $1.5 billion but nobody wanted to use -- >> Talk of a cell phone surcharge to fund a suicide prevention line.

>> Or cigarette tax.

>> Or raising cigarette tax.

>> Right.

But nobody -- they didn't want to implement a new theme when they have $1.5 billion extra but they didn't want to use that money to up the mental health spending.

>> Good problem to have, the $1.5 billion on April 19th.

Literally in the final weeks of session.

That probably created maybe an argument over schools that we just talked about with private vouchers and so forth that might not have been there.

The senate had zero in its budget.

The house had, you know, basically what we ended up with.

And I don't think there would have been as much willingness on the part of the senate had that budget forecast.

So was this notion that again it was a curve ball that maybe had some complicating factors, it wasn't all good to get extra money?

>> I think that's right.

And I think the senator said something like that about how it's a problem because you're going to have more people asking for money.

The senate did not want to do the voucher expansion, well they didn't want to do it all all but I don't think anyone expected them to go to the level the house asked for.

It felt like the house was shooting for the moon and would fall among the stars.

Became harder for the senate to say no when they had $1.5 billion extra and you had to come up with a different argument other than we can't afford it because we could.

>> Now essentially universal voucher program may be the most generous in the country, family of four, $220,000, we heard that figure over and over and over.

>> Yeah.

But the bigger thing, I mean, yes, we heard that over and over.

It's the pathways that -- >> Because you don't have to start now in a failing public school or any public school.

>> The biggest pathway that had restricted whether you could get - vouchers was you had a child in that household, had to spend at least a year in a public school.

That meant once you spent that year your siblings could get vouchers but that was the biggest restriction on who was eligible for vouchers.

With the pathways gone, too, that's what balloons the program.

>> 90% of students who will benefit would have been going to private schools anyway.

It's just -- do you think there's a potential for -- maybe I'll ask you.

Get ready for this next question.

What's the biggest possibility for buyer's remorse?

This one strikes me as one and we saw that with the senate because proponents say it's only 9% of students as if it's -- really this isn't anything to worry about.

But I think if proponents like Robert banning who was the father, the architect of this back a decade or 12 years ago, he would like to see 100% private and it could be theoretically.

>> A statistic that the school choice applicants gave is there's only about 3.5% of the state that doesn't qualify now.

So we're universal.

I don't think they'll do buyer's remorse.

Over the last decade they are still onboard.

I mean, I think they're getting what they wanted which is they don't particularly care about, you know, comparing performance in them or whether you improve or not.

They don't care about that.

It's all about the choice in and of itself and as long as that choice exists republicans are happy with it.

>> And they going to be having charter schools in certain counties, heavily populated county where most of the schools are, they're going to benefit from any referendum votes that go in the favor of those schools in the future.

Lots of things happening on the school front, union busting in terms of what topics have to be negotiated as part or at least discussed as part of collective bargaining, CLAZ class size, safety.

And then we had the so called culture war issues where school librarians now may be more susceptible to civil litigation or prosecution than they would have if they carry on their shelves books or materials seen as obscene or harmful.

I mean it is 50% or so of the budget.

What am I forgetting on the school front that is the take-away for -- I mean, is -- are we done with schools now?

>> Never.

>> Never.

>> Next budget session, it was 400% threshold of free lunch.

That's how we got -- do we go 500%.

>> I think they'll take it off.

>> Yeah.

Yeah.

>> It's truly universal.

>> There's always lots of education bills.

I don't think that's surprising.

I think we still might see more discussion on partisan school board races.

I don't think that issue is going away in future years.

I think the other sort of interesting thing about this year, we had more transgender related bills this year than before and obviously those impact schools like the one that passed this year that required students to notify parents if their child wanted to use a different pronoun.

So I think, you know, those transgender related issues aren't going away either and those impact schools.

>> A lot of bills and what was ultimately passed wasn't as stringent, onerous, whatever word you want to use for teachers.

Would have had now sort of a notification.

It would have been acquiesce sense on the part of parents or whether teachers felt moral qualms about using certain -- that didn't pass but there was a suggestion that they would have been granted immunity to call people what they want.

A lot of bills on the education front people said these are things in the law.

It's already legal to distribute obscene material in school libraryieslibraries.

We have a mechanism for complaining if parents are concerned.

We already have this, that and the other -- you know, the notion of trans or with gender affirmation surgery, it's not necessarily -- or any treatment, it's not just a school issue but to Caitlin's point about trans issues, any gender affirming care for minors, no.

But again, people said there was no surgeries taking place anyway.

>> Surgeries.

>> Surgeries.

>> There was medicinal care that would be relative.

>> Reversible, non-reversible.

But maybe with that exception how much of the sort of these bills were more about venting or -- Hoosiers notice a difference other than the 3,500 youth who identify as trans in the state?

>> For trans kids and their families this is huge, this is going to make a big difference.

We were talking about families who feel they have to leave the state if these bills passed especially the health care one.

But about whether or not those kids feel safe or comfortable if in school I think is a big deal.

For the majority of Hoosiers who don't have a kid who is trans, will they notice a difference, I'm not sure other than it raises the question is this going to exacerbate any existing new teacher shortage issue, is this going to continue to drive teachers away from the classroom because of the rhetoric they hear at the state house about the job they do.

Is the school library bill going to become more onerous and take up a lot of time.

They might notice differences there.

>> You know, you asked about buyer's remorse and I think the one that has kind of flown under the radar a little bit that has the potential to have buyer's remorse but we probably won't know for a long time is the amount of money with seemingly almost no oversight that the Indiana general assembly is giving to the Indiana economic development corporation.

More than a billion dollars.

>> For grants to close out deals.

>> I don't think anybody is going to have buyer's remorse.

That program has been wildly popular.

In the first round and the second round will be similar.

Yeah.

I mean, hundreds of millions of dollars for site acquisition, land acquisition or site readiness.

Hundreds of millions of dollars -- >> Needs to do as a state.

>> Hundreds of millions of dollars for a deal closing.

>> Which is cash.

Giving cash to businesses.

>> Now, everybody talks about we are in a moment of time where there are big companies, big industries that are growing that, you know, that look like the future that are looking to figure out where are we going to set up shop and so it does create the potential for maybe we can attract some of these big companies.

Maybe we can make a real difference for the future of Indiana's economy and for Hoosier's themselves but it's a gamble.

And it's hundreds of millions of dollars based on a hope and a prayer.

Maybe a little more confidence than that but not much.

And so maybe it will work out and that will be great for Indiana.

We all want that to happen.

But that's the one that to me has the biggest potential for boy, that was a lot of money and what did we get out of it five, ten years down the road.

>> About not knowing right away.

It's not only when the company announces it's going to break ground and hire, in the case of united maintenance hub which was I remember the big fish that everybody wanted to land until it wasn't here anymore, and -- >> Speaking of any outlets Indianapolis talked about this site and I mean the promise of that, everybody, the mayor, the governor, everybody was excited about that and that's turned into almost nothing.

>> You look at the -- I mean the governor somehow ended upcoming out looking pretty good.

Now he had his chart and the easel and the check boxes even if he only got a portion, there's no asterisk saying I only got 50% or two-thirds.

Good session for him in terms of his priorities.

>> Absolutely.

Yeah, I think he seemed thrilled at the end of session when we had our 3:00 a.m. press conference after they wrapped up and it seemed like a better session for him where it felt like the story line, you know, last few years has been all the things he didn't get or how the republican governor, everything he's asking for.

>> Literally squared off in - court.

>> Yeah.

>> Over emergency powers and issues and I thought frankly that some of that baggage would linger.

And when he was on the show earlier in the season I said he's a sufferer of long haul Covid because on mental health and public health he still has the baggage.

>> This is a very tiny thing but to show he has amended fences with the legislature is they had put in a study of Covid actions basically did governments move too far too fast or you know just really relitigating our Covid reaction.

They put that into the public health bill and they took it out in the conference committee.

That was an example of the one thing he had said.

I really don't want that in there and they took it out.

>> At the beginning of this session it seemed like democrats were the ones examplechampioning his causes and there was skepticism I think in the house on like the textbook, you know, fee.

>> Which he got.

>> Certainly a significant one.

I remember the day and days after the state of the state address it was noticeable that democrats were saying this is our guy, he speaks the truth.

And not so much so on -- everybody happy now?

Can the republicans, super majority go back to Kumbaya or are there lingering divisions that will affect next session?

>> I'm sure there is but they're in a lot better place that they were.

The big question is less so about republicans in the state house and more about maybe republicans outside the state house like for instance, on the public health bill, I'll be interested to see which counties choose to opt in to receive that funding.

I think if not many counties opt in it might signify a problem among the greater electorate on the distrust of government.

I think that's where we're at as Lawmakers, you know, they made it through the big primary where a lot of the incumbents were threatened and now it's waiting to see if the rest of the state will follow suit.

>> You know, you have all talked about some of the high profile bills and they tended to be the cultural bills because they get people riled up.

You see testimony that doesn't always affect the votes and committee or on the floor but still, high profile.

Then you have other bills maybe to use your phrase flying under the radar, are sort of practical.

Everybody now is going to be registered for 21st century scholars.

Nobody is going to be left out because parents didn't know to the little Johnny or Sally could qualify.

You have pharmacists being able to give access to birth control for instance.

I wrote down a few of these.

Red light -- pilot with red light and try to protect highway workers in construction zones.

I mean these are sort of things that maybe don't warrant as much attention.

>> Here's the thing.

We have an audience engagement tool with IPB news where people text in their questions and we put those in every story that we post.

One of the questions we get fairly regularly is are they doing anything bipartisan at the state house?

And the thing is you talked about 252 bills passed this year.

The vast majority of them pass on a bipartisan basis whether with maybe sometimes only a few votes from the other party but a lot are just, you know, almost unanimous votes and that's the bulk of what Indiana does as a legislature every single year.

>> Or they end up tending to get -- >> Well the budget this year got a couple of democratic votes unlike two years ago where almost every democrat voted for but the voucher thing really -- >> Not every republican voted.

>> That's a story we don't have time for that.

>> A lot of this stuff that will affect -- I cover state government so I advocate for people paying attention to state government but part of the reason I do that is there's so much attention on the federal level in congress and the things do matter but they don't do that much.

When you talk about things impacting people's lives on a day to day basis, that's what the state legislature does and so many of these bills go through on a practical level because they are impacting everybody's day to day life.

>> And a couple things that promise to affect a lot of Hoosiers, housing, affordable housing or the lack thereof.

>> They put some money toward that.

>> And a related topic, property taxes.

>> On the tax side they did -- they accelerated some income tax cuts so people will see reductions in their income tax rates.

>> Five years instead of seven.

>> They gave $100 million for next year's bills, not the ones you paid yesterday.

>> So the screaming is still going to occur here.

>> On the other hand, they extended a gas tax increase for three years.

That's about $90 million.

There was some good news and bad news on the tax front.

>> On the housing thing I will say it was billed as affordable housing.

>> It's just housing.

>> The biggest thing they did was what everybody agreed was one of the biggest drivers of costs for a house which is infrastructure so when you build a housing development you have to connect all of the water and sewer lines, connect electrical lines and build the roads and pave the sidewalks and builders were shouldering those costs and passing them on to their customers.

Now there's going to be a fund that local governments can dip into, revolving loan fund and they can cover the cost of those infrastructure necessities.

>> Even if they're not low cost.

>> That's the thing.

There's nothing about whether or not the homes need to be affordable and nothing that says the cost savings has to be passed on to the home buyer.

There's nothing stopping a builder from saying great, an extra $52,000 in my pocket per home.

Now let's hope they won't do that but there's nothing to stop them.

>> Right.

Almost out of time.

We talked about things that didn't happen this session.

What can you guarantee will be back next session?

I want to place my bets right now so I'm holding you to it.

>> Partisan school boards is my bet.

I definitely think we're going to see that coming back.

>> And will the outcome be different?

>> There was more momentum this year.

If they keep building I could see something happening.

Will it be a requirement or option -- >> Figure out what form it takes.

What do you think is our guaranteed return engagement?

>> I'm going to go with taxes because, you know, the Lawmakers passed a bill this year to study that in future years.

There's lots of talk about maybe getting rid of income taxes, I don't know if that will actually happen but we could see that or some changes to property taxes, any of those.

>> I'll hold you to it.

I'll seal those in a jar.

Thank you very much.

Now you can commence your vacations and relaxation, you earned it.

I appreciate your work throughout the session and joining us for this discussion.

Again my guests Brandon Smith of Indiana Public Broadcasting, Niki Kelly of Indiana Capital Chronicle, Caitlin Lang of state affairs and Erica Herron.

Well, that concludes another edition and another season of Indiana Lawmakers, the state's longest running public affairs show.

I'm John Schwantes and on behalf of a lot of extremely talented and dedicated professionals here at WFYI public media including producer Brad Mcqueen thank you for joining us and I invite you to visit WFYI.org for more state house news.

Until next year, take care.