The issue that dominated this legislative session is one that wasn’t on many Hoosiers’ radar: attracting the Chicago Bears to northwest Indiana.
But in the final days of the General Assembly’s 2026 session, Gov. Mike Braun signed legislation that would provide up to $1 billion in public funding for a football stadium for the Chicago Bears in the Wolf Lake area of Hammond.
Efforts to attract the Bears across the Illinois border received widespread, bipartisan support. But other items lawmakers tackled — tax tweaks, Medicaid eligibility, utility and housing reform, data centers, and a new casino — were contentious.
The session began in December with a bitter fight over mid-decade redistricting that splintered the Republican Party and resulted in a majority of GOP senators voting against congressional maps pushed by President Donald Trump.
House Speaker Todd Huston, R-Fishers, said those quarrels quickly faded as legislators turned their attention to improving Hoosiers’ cost of living.“We started in a little bit different way this year in December, and we went through a process,” Huston said. “But look, I would tell people all the time, ‘We’ve got great relationships and partners throughout this building, whether in the different caucuses or across the different chambers. … In Indiana, we get big stuff done.’”Here’s an extensive list of legislation IBJ tracked, along with each bill’s author (or lead author if the bill had more than one). All bills were sent to the governor by Feb. 27; enrolled acts are bills approved by the House and Senate and eligible for the governor to sign or veto. Braun on Monday told reporters he doesn’t intend to veto any bills this session.
Economic development
The potential NFL stadium in Hammond and a $500 million casino in northeast Indiana headlined economic development discussions at the Statehouse. Beyond those two projects, lawmakers passed measures to codify a more regional focus for the Indiana Economic Development Corp.
Senate Enrolled Act 27, Sen. Ryan Mishler, R-Mishawaka
Establishes a stadium authority and provides a framework to finance a stadium for the Chicago Bears in Hammond. Braun signed the legislation less than two hours after it passed. The team has not committed to a move, but on Dec. 17, Chicago Bears CEO Kevin Warren published a letter saying the historic NFL franchise was open to the idea of building a stadium in northern Indiana. Warren’s letter sparked a flurry of activity among Indiana elected officials to put together a stadium package for the Bears. Just 10 weeks after the Bears publicly opened negotiations for a new stadium, Braun signed the funding bill.
House Enrolled Act 1038, Rep. Craig Snow, R-Warsaw
Converts an unused horse betting license into a full casino license that can go in Allen, DeKalb or Steuben county. Requires a $150 million application fee and a $500 million minimum investment in the casino. Also requires voters in Allen, DeKalb or Steuben county to approve the casino by referendum.
The casino bill proved to be one of the session’s most contentious, passing the Senate by just one vote. Braun told reporters he would have vetoed the bill if it hadn’t included a mandatory referendum. Indianapolis and Richmond were also floated as casino sites, but Senate leadership didn’t favor those locations.
House Enrolled Act 1406, Rep. Jeff Thompson, R-Lizton
Carves out $50 million in IEDC tax credits for regional development authorities and building restoration projects in rural communities.
Braun has said he wants the IEDC to focus more on “Main Street” business. The building restoration tax credits are part of a new Small Town Opportunity Initiative.
House Enrolled Act 1268, Rep. Steve Bartels, R-Boonville
Creates an administrative structure for Indiana’s recent designation as a federal drone-testing site and clarifies the IEDC and Applied Research Institute will manage the program. Exempts ARI from normal state procurement and contracting requirements, while creating reporting requirements.
Indiana was named one of two federal drone testing sites in January. Language surrounding the drone program was added to the bill by Rep. Danny Lopez, R-Carmel.
Senate Enrolled Act 277, Sen. Rick Niemeyer, R-Lowell
An Indiana Department of Environmental Management agency bill that updates code, eliminates certain administrative and permitting requirements, and says Indiana environmental standards can be “no more stringent or burdensome” than federal ones.
The legislation narrowly passed the House, with opponents saying it will weaken environmental standards by changing at least 20 instances of “shall” to “may.”
Data centers
Legislators filed close to a dozen bills concerning data centers, but only two passed. Lawmakers settled on a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes, or PILOT, framework for data centers in future projects to pay local governments a small portion of the tax benefits they receive.
House Enrolled Act 1210, Rep. Craig Snow, R-Warsaw
Starting July 1, any data center receiving a 7% abatement from the IEDC on its sales tax must pay 1% of that amount to local units of government.
In light of the data-center ban in several counties, the payment to local units is meant to encourage local governments to approve future projects. Earlier versions of the bill would have seen more money going to locals.
House Enrolled Act 1406, Rep. Jeff Thompson, R-Lizton
Requires the Indiana Finance Authority to conduct a study of whether tax credits given to data centers are worth the forgone revenue. The study must also examine the impact of data centers on the cost of utilities and water usage.
Rep. Ed DeLaney, D-Indianapolis, added the data-center-study language.
Taxes
Following last year’s major property tax overhaul, lawmakers spent the 2026 session looking at fixes to local income tax levies and delayed the effective date for many of those provisions by a year. Lawmakers also opted to bring Indiana’s tax code in line with some of the key tax cuts in the 2025 federal tax law sometimes called the Big Beautiful Bill.
Senate Enrolled Act 243, Sen. Travis Holdman, R-Markle
Brings state tax code in line with Trump’s tax cuts on overtime, tips and new-car loan interest for one year. The nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency estimates the tax cuts will save Hoosiers around $250 million.
House Enrolled Act 1210, Rep. Craig Snow, R-Warsaw
Delays the effective date of certain income tax provisions contained in 2025’s Senate Enrolled Act 1 to 2029. Removes requirement for municipalities to vote on an income tax rate each year. Requires municipalities and counties to negotiate income tax distribution rates and present findings to the Department of Local Government Finance.
Senate Enrolled Act 1, Sen. Chris Garten, R-Charlestown
Sets work requirements for Medicaid and SNAP programs. Allows Indiana officials to report program applicants with questionable citizenship status to federal immigration enforcement. This Republican priority bill requires more stringent work requirements than new federal guidelines.
Affordability
Both parties touted affordability and the rising cost of living as their top priority coming into the session. Republican bills on the housing and utilities fronts received bipartisan support, although Democrats and Republicans disagreed on how far those measures should go to lower electric bills and home costs.
House Enrolled Act 1002, Rep. Alaina Shonkwiler, R-Noblesville
Requires utilities to offer low-income assistance programs and moves Indiana toward performance-based ratemaking instead of the traditional cost-of-service model.
Rising utility prices have become a key policy point for Braun, who supported HEA 1002. The bill received bipartisan support, although Democrats said eliminating the 7% sales tax on utilities would have provided more immediate relief.
House Enrolled Act 1001, Rep. Doug Miller, R-Elkhart
Prohibits local governments from imposing or raising building and permitting fees. Requires local governments to report data on the number of housing permits accepted and denied each year and to conduct a formal unified development ordinance with the goal of increasing housing units and housing density.
A Republican priority measure, HB 1001 originally took an aggressive approach to streamlining the housing permitting process by making any single-family units, duplexes and accessory dwelling units automatically permissible uses in residential zones. Concerns over overriding local control watered down the bill; Senate amendments required local governments to update their planning ordinances and to collect data on housing issues.
House Enrolled Act 1210, Rep. Craig Snow, R-Warsaw
Prohibits local governments from restricting the number of rental properties in their community. Makes only owner-occupied properties eligible to vote in homeowner’s association elections on HOA-specific rental restrictions.
Fishers and Carmel passed ordinances last year restricting single-family-home rentals in a subdivision to 10%. Those cities’ ordinances can remain effective until Jan. 1, 2028.
Child care
The lack of available and affordable child care options has business leaders worried about attracting workers to Indiana and whether existing residents will leave the workforce to care for their children.
Senate Enrolled Act 4, Sen. Ryan Mishler, R-Mishawaka
Allows the state budget agency to use the Financial Responsibility and Opportunity Growth fund for the state’s child care development fund. The FROG fund, which now has $300 million, was created last year by lawmakers for use only on correctional facility operations.
House Enrolled Act 1177, Rep. Becky Cash, R-Zionsville
Increases the number of employers that qualify for a tax credit when they offer employees child care services. The credit now applies to businesses with 500 or fewer employees and sets the maximum credit at $100,000 per employer. It formerly applied to companies with fewer than 100 employees; no employer has claimed the credit.
What didn’t pass
In addition to legislation on the governor’s desk, the 2026 session will also be marked by two key measures that didn’t pass.
Redistricting created a rift in the Republican Party as Braun joined the president in attacking Hoosier lawmakers who didn’t support Trump’s agenda to increase the number of Republican seats in Congress. House Bill 1032 passed the House with 12 Republicans voting no but died in the Senate, where 21 of the chamber’s 40 Republicans joined Democrats to defeat it.
Another key bill that couldn’t get over the finish line was Senate Bill 250, Indiana’s latest attempt to regulate the marketplace of THC products. The bill authored by Sen. Aaron Freeman, R-Indianapolis, sought to conform Indiana to federal guidelines on delta-8 products and ban any items over 0.3% THC by volume. Items under that threshold would have been heavily regulated.
Indiana businesses that sell THC products have asked lawmakers for clarity and have supported legislation in previous years. They opposed SEA 250, however, because it has stricter THC limits and would ban most of their products. The bill easily passed the Senate but died in the House.
Senate President Pro Tem Rod Bray, R-Martinsville, said THC regulation is important, but that it’s a tough topic to get consensus on across the two chambers.
“It’s not just as simple as saying, ‘OK, you’ve got to make it illegal for people under 21,’” Bray said on Feb. 19. “We have to have a grander, larger conversation than that about whether these products are available for people that are over 21."