The Indiana General Assembly has made it to the midpoint of its annual legislative session without having to shut down due to a COVID-19 outbreak among lawmakers or staff.
The Legislature did take a week off in January when state police warned that disgruntled supporters of Republican former President Donald Trump potentially intended to storm the Statehouse, akin to the Trump-inspired Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
But that’s just how things have gone this year in Indianapolis — it's the things no one is expecting that end up disrupting the process.
For example, few state representatives likely anticipated last week that a proposal in House Bill 1367 to move a few dozen students from one South Bend-area school district to another would lead to a racial confrontation outside the temporary House chamber in the Indiana Government Center South building and spur House Speaker Todd Huston, R-Fishers, to more vigorously enforce the rules on decorum and respect.
Huston has not yet embraced a call by the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus to defuse tensions by requiring all 100 House members to participate in implicit bias training, which likely will keep racial issues simmering as the Legislature continues working toward its April 29 adjournment deadline.
The speaker, nevertheless, sees the session’s first half as a success after advancing every item on the House Republican agenda to the Republican-controlled Senate, including a new two-year state budget in House Bill 1001.
"Despite the unprecedented economic challenges of the last year, Indiana not only weathered the storm but we're also making strategic investments to help Hoosiers and our economy bounce back stronger than ever before,” Huston said.
“Whether it's including an additional $438 million in new money for K-12 public education or $250 million in broadband expansion grants, we're focused on helping Hoosier students, families and workers.”
Democrats, meanwhile, see the session so far as a collection of missed opportunities to help Hoosiers in need after Democratic proposals to increase the minimum wage, boost funding for food banks, increase teacher pay, ban police chokeholds, and make voting easier all have failed to garner majority support.
“What are we doing? It seems like every problem Hoosiers have contacted us about over the last year have gone unheard,” said Senate Democratic Leader Greg Taylor, D-Indianapolis.
Two measures, so far, have been enacted into law: Senate Enrolled Act 1 provides civil legal immunity to businesses, schools, health care providers, nursing homes, and similar entities against lawsuits stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The other, Senate Enrolled Act 148, was enacted over a 2020 veto by Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb. It gives landlords expedited access to the courts to speed tenant evictions and invalidates all local landlord-tenant regulations.
Indeed, the theme of the 2021 General Assembly seems to be eliminating meaningful local control in favor of centralized authority at the Statehouse.
Numerous measures stripping power from locally elected officials so far have made it through one chamber of the Legislature, including Senate Bill 263 barring any operating restrictions on houses of worship even in a public health emergency, House Bill 1453 ceding control of Lake County judicial selection to the governor, Senate Bill 200 eliminating prosecutorial discretion, and House Bill 1077 guaranteeing access for child operated beverage stands in local parks.
Lawmakers also are halfway toward eliminating protections for state-regulated wetlands (Senate Bill 389), permitting any Hoosier eligible to own a handgun to carry it in public without a license (House Bill 1369), and forcing doctors to tell women a pill-induced abortion possibly can be “reversed” — despite no medical basis for that claim (House Bill 1577).
At the same time, several Northwest Indiana lawmakers have advanced forward-looking proposals, including Senate Bill 3 by state Sen. Ed Charbonneau, R-Valparaiso, continuing expanded telehealth access after the COVID-19 pandemic, House Bill 1305 ensuring Indiana kids served by Medicaid can obtain treatment at out-of state children's hospitals by state Rep. Hal Slager, R-Schererville, and Senate Bill 275 authorizing counties to establish a property tax amnesty program by state Sen. Eddie Melton, D-Gary.
In all, 316 legislative proposals have made it to the second half of the session out of the 1,031 measures introduced back in January.
Legislation that passed the House now goes to the Senate, and Senate-endorsed measures head to the House.
Lawmakers will spend roughly the next five weeks evaluating, debating and deciding whether those proposals should advance to the governor immediately, or be worked on a little bit longer through the House-Senate conference committee process.
There’s also the possibility something that failed to advance in the first half of the session is revived in the second, perhaps work zone speed camera enforcement (House Bill 1465), or a plan by state Rep. Mike Andrade, D-Munster, to criminalize shooting a firearm without justification in a city or town following the 2017 stray-bullet death of 13-year-old Noah Inman in Hammond.
“All we can do is work hard, study hard, and get creative on how we’re going to work on these amendments and these bills with the Republicans,” Andrade said.
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