(MUSIC) >> A debt ceiling deal reached.

Pence points to enter the presidential race, plus the lottery stays passive and more.

From the television studios at W FYE it's Indiana Week in Review.

The week June 2, 2023.

>> Indiana Week in Review is made possible by supporters of Indiana public broadcasting stations.

>> This week President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy struck a deal that will avoid an unprecedented and catastrophic default on the country's debt.

The bipartisan agreement contains both suspension of the debt limit and a package of spending cuts.

Those cuts include limits on federal spending, taking back 27 billion in funds meant to combat COVID-19 pandemic and new work requirements for people on snap Mac and TAN F, the bill garnered strong support from both sides of the aisle in the house.

Seven members of Indiana's house delegation voted in favor with only Republican Victoria Spartz casting a vote.

Jim Banks running for U.S. Senate told multiple radio stations he would vote against the measure but did not actually cast a vote.

Whose position is strengthened by the debt ceiling deal?

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

Democrat Ann Delaney.

Republican Mike O'Brien.

John Schwantes host of Indiana lawmakers and OCA Boyd, public engagement editor for the Indianapolis Star.

I'm Indiana Public Broadcasting Statehouse Bureau Chief Brandon Smith.

Ann Delaney, this was a big test for speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Folks in his caucus haven't been with him from the start.

Did he come at this in the stronger position?

>> I think you probably did.

I think he can point to the cuts or what purport to be cuts in the budget to stay you've arrested some concessions from the president.

It's a good thing all the way around.

As the Republican said it's the most important piece of legislation they were facing.

Meanwhile Jim Banks, who wants to be a senator from Indiana, skated.

He did not cast his vote on this most important piece of legislation.

Mike Braun who wants to manage the state's finances was willing to let us default on debt nationally with a catastrophic result that would happen.

Only Todd Youngs, while Todd Young and some members of the house, stood up and said no I'm going to do what's good for the country.

Neither Mike Braun or Jim Banks had that in their frame of reference at all.

>> A member of the house delegation voted for this.

Todd Young called it, he said this didn't go as far as he would've liked in terms of rating and spending but it was a compromise that was necessary.

Is that a good way to describe what the outcome was?

>> He's a realist.

Basically what he says is we kept the best deal we could given the best political realities in math involved.

The interesting thing with speaker McCarthy, part of the deal he had to cut with the freedom caucus was this motion to vacate that requires one person to file it.

To vacate the speakership and remove him.

It would have been smart, and maybe it happened, that McCarthy is the best case scenario Republican speaker from Joe Biden.

If you're cutting this deal you marginalize further the far right and freedom caucus because you need Democrats to get this done, right?

Pretend you're going to file a motion to vacate to kick the speaker out.

You need Democrats to keep them.

The reality is you will have a Republican leader.

What the Freedom Caucus showed was you let them call the shots and not give any Democrat support to these things we have to do together.

Then you're going to have a way worse outcome.

The interesting to see if the Freedom Caucus with their money where their mouth is because they might lose again with Democrat votes.

>> The intricacies of the deal itself, first of all very people understand how the debt ceiling works.

And then we are talking about things like COVID-19 rescission and federal spending caps for the next few years, these are very minute detailed kind of things that the average person does not know about, probably doesn't care that much about.

So, when you look at it at a high level how do you define success?

>> I don't think the impact, to your point, is nearly as important as the perception here.

I think most Americans won't notice any difference.

Yes, if you have SNAP benefits there requirements to receive certain types of benefits.

They will notice it.

There might be some other individuals who might see something here or there but when you look at, for instance, funding for the IRS, very controversial aspect of what was done by the Biden administration and Congress last budget cycle.

$80 billion to hire a few agents.

I think a percentage of that, 10 or 15 billion >> It's coming back.

That's just ...$$TRANMIT >> No one notices the difference is I guess my point.

The fascinating thing here is to watch the spin.

Normally when you have a deal side come together and shake hands and say we all gave but we all got something.

This time it's basically both sides rushing to spin saying we screw the other people.

They are screwed.

Now the president says he wants to have a national television address, at which point apparently that's what he is going to sign this.

I think he has the bully pulpit in the last word in terms of saying I came out on top.

>> No one knows what the heck the debt ceiling is.

Who pays attention to this?

The average person has no clue and will the average person know if my or SNAP are lessened or lowered or cut off it's because of the debt ceiling.

I don't pick anybody really knows what this is.

It's too nuanced.

I know Republicans and Democrats are fighting over it, but to the average person I don't know they are paying attentin at all.

I think we pay attention but I don't know that they are.

We did our part.

>> The average person also does not trust either side to reduce this, if that's your goal.

Under Donald Trump you went from 19 trillion to 25 trillion.

Now we go to 32 trillion.

Nobody is looking at either side.

>> The proof of that putting is that the Clinton tax proposal, when he was in office, would have eliminated the debt.

What are the Republicans do when they got control?

Cut it out.

It's important to know the only time we face the debt ceiling prices is when we have it Democrat in the White House and Republican-controlled House.

Donald Trump got his past three or four times during his administration with no fuss about it.

It's only the Republicans doing it.

>> Ronald Reagan's budget cuts set the stage for George Bush to break his famous "Read my lips, no new taxes".

Inheriting the gap that was created by his predecessor.

>> Reports a Mike Pence will launch a campaign for president June 7.

Sources that fed the reporting of his pending announcement said launch will come via a video and speech in Iowa.

There have been a flurry of presidential campaign launches on the Republican side in recent weeks that includes Laura Governor Ron DeSantis, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott and former Arkansas Governor HI Hutchinson.

Also rumored to join our former new Kersey New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

Pence will include former Donald Trump, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, and former Tech and finance CEO Widrick Ramaswamy.

Mike O'Brien, is there any path for Mike Pence?

>> You could ask the question about any of the 40 people he just listed except Donald Trump.

And Ron DeSantis.

Maybe one or two.

I think whether Pence ran or not will play an important role in this primary, especially the primary, especially the general election as to he's the only other guy on that stage that knows what happened.

What was actually happening in that White House?

Donald Trump say whatever he wants to say.

True or not.

Probably not.

>> Always a case for >> Mike Pence at least has the credibility coming out the way the administration ended with some people, certainly not the far right or freedom caucus the think you should overturn the election single-handedly but he does have some credibility and he knows he's the only guy to say here's what we did, here's what I like that we did.

Here's what didn't ever actually happen that Donald Trump is saying happened or that we did, and here's what I didn't like.

Is there a path there?

The front load and heavy in Iowa, New Hampshire, North Carolina.

You catch one of those may be.

At this point you cannot say absolute not, but it's a long shot.

It's a longshot for all of them.

>> It seems to me you have different people trying to occupy certain links, which is the case anytime you get a loaded primary.

But you have Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis vying for that.

Then you have a lot of these other folks.

Chris Christie who has been an outspoken critic of Trump.

Doug Burgum who's trying to do the I'm just a normal guy tried to chart a path to the Republicans.

You have folks like that.

Mike Pence feels like that is going to be his Lane, but is that a winning strategy?

>> I'm guessing you don't think it's a winning strategy.

>> I think Mike Pence relies on Dan Quill for advice and I think it's his campaign and Dan Quayle's campaign, what was it 1996 that Dan Quayle put his toe in the water?

I think he lost it with frostbite at the end.

Same thing.

It's not going anywhere.

He doesn't have a constituency.

>> Jimmy Carter, right?

>> Yes, except there was a difference in that whole situation.

But in this particular case he is as exciting as watching paint dry.

He really is.

You listen to him and it drips sugar every time he talks.

That may do well with the religious right wing but that's not a big enough caucus to get him a path to the nomination.

>> I will totally take boring.

(Laughter) >> Were not at boring anymore.

>> That's the thing.

Is Mike pence is time to buy for the presidency coming?

>> He is a relic.

A throwback to the past.

Early 2000.

We are not there anymore.

He's not a firebrand.

I think he's boring, and not in a bad way, but that's kind of how you want your politics or we did want our politicians years ago to be this way.

That's not what we're looking for today.

When you're going against Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis you cannot be a personality.

You have to have something.

People are looking for that.

He doesn't have it.

Unfortunately.

>> Were just coming out of the Trump administration.

>> Looks better on the Democratic side that it is on the right.

>> The problem Mike Pence has is he knows what went on but he is trying to walk a line between giving just enough and not criticizing Trump.

That's a losing strategy.

>> You mentioned someone earlier who has provided something of a playbook of sorts for Mike Pence and that is, don't laugh, Jimmy Carter.

In 1976 the much higher profile candidates like Rich by life, Frank Church, long list.

A lot from the U.S. Senate.

They were busy sort of creating and operating a peer.

Jimmy Carter went early and often to Iowa and conducted essentially a person-to-person retail kind of campaign.

That is already, according to folks that have been quoted close to the candidate that he intends to visit all 99 counties in Iowa.

Is there a diner or luncheonette I can go pop into?

>> Make sure he takes mother.

>> The list of candidates that went on to win island get the nomination is >> If you do all that, put all your eggs in the Iowa basket and you do not commit with the results you want >> At least you get out early it saves money.

>> It feels like for some of these other folks success isn't necessarily measured by winning the nomination, and that's often true when you have a big primary.

Nikki Haley, issue vying for vice president slot for whoever the nominee is?

Other folks this is their first time running for president.

They trying to elevate their profile for the next one?

Success for Mike Pence has got to be winning the nomination or nothing, right?

>> I think so.

I don't think he's vying for head of the Department of Interior.

He's not some side hustle.

>> Time for viewer feedback.

Each week we pose an unscientific, online poll.

This week's question is, "Will Mike Pence place better than third in any presidential primary?"

A, yes.

B, L. Last week's question was does the Indian shot -- Indiana Department of Child Services do a good job?

If you'd like to take part in the pull go to WFYI.org/IWIR.

Lottery officials say providing online options to play make sense for the long-term sustainability of the lottery.

But they still won't take an active role in urging lawmakers to make those online options available.

Lottery Executive Director Sarah Taylor says legislators are the decision-makers.

The lottery is there to provide information.

>> We are always happy to answer questions and if that changes and we become more advocates we are happy to engage within to share the reasons why.

>> She says is also important to communicate to its retailers that other states that have added online lottery have not seen declining sales at those brick-and-mortar sellers.

She says that's especially true when lotteries make use of cross promotions.

>> Between your current players going in still to retail but perhaps they want to try online, or you have new online players that also go to retail based on these promotions to encourage them.

>> An independent legislative analysis this past session suggested that brick-and-mortar lottery retailers would be hurt by the addition of online lottery.

O'Shea Boyd, if the lottery thinks online games are successful should we get hundreds of million dollars every year from the lottery.

Should it be more aggressive in lobbying for online games?

>> I feel like it should.

Let me preface this with saying I don't play the lottery (Laughs).

I don't have any stake in this at all.

But it seems smart to me to advocate for it to be online and to push people to play online.

If that's where the future is going.

I think what they don't want to do is make the retail people upset.

That's what I am getting from this.

I think if that's where people are at and that is where the money is at.

Legislators, let's just not say they're out of touch, but let's say they don't always know where things are headed.

And so you need to advocate for them to go with the future.

The future is online.

>> There's questions about online gaming in general, but when it comes to online lottery I think there's a question about is it right to make this easier to play?

Do we want to make it easier for folks to play the lottery?

>> You got to answer the question.

The bigger question is what's the purpose here?

Is it to drive tax revenue?

If that's what it is then the goal should be to make it as simple as possible.

Now, there are other public policy questions that intersect with that where you might not want to encourage making gaming easy but that's the big question.

That's why any issue dealing with gaming, back to the first time the pointer sisters came here with the announcement for George McGinnis and scratched off the first Indiana ticket.

You know, it's always the debate there and with riverboats and with casinos, and with live dealers in casinos and somebody gets hurt every time.

If you give more to this person that part of the sector and the industr gets hurt.

That's always going to be the case.

We sought with online betting on sports.

Didn't have to go through brick-and-mortar casino in Indiana, or could it be in some of the roundabout manner?

That's what ultimately is going on here.

Should the agency, I mean part of me thinks and this is somewhat flippant that there are a lot of people it seems the general assembly who don't like any agency, or any agency that tries to suggest anything.

We've seen pushback, and that I'm not kidding about.

Maybe this is reverse psychology and saying let's be quiet.

If we advocate for it they might think we are trying to be rogue.

>> Please don't put me in that category.

>> It does seem like a lot of disagreement here.

Part of this in the past session was the online lottery was wrapped up in the larger online gambling bill, and that died for other reasons, and I don't think the lottery was really one of those reasons.

It just got caught up.

>> They are part of that bigger question.

>> But to that point there is a question of are you going to hurt convenience stores, grocery stores to get the sales?

The lottery says no.

Do you believe that?

>> On the I gaming side it shows it helped the brick-and- mortar because you partner with them.

Now they have an online option they never had available before.

All the national studies, gaming commission study says this benefits brick and mortar retailers.

What does the legislator services agency said no it doesn't, it hurts them.

At the lottery there saying it doesn't hurt the convenience stores, it helps them.

Everyone's just like what are you talking about?

Getting a lottery ticket on your phone and not walking in a play the lottery while pumping gas.

Why am I going inside?

>> It was intuitively just like it didn't make any sense to anybody when they were making that argument early in the session.

But the lottery as part of this bigger, they tried to go it alone and go online at year ago.

The legislature put the brakes on that and made them part of the bigger debate about should be allowing expansion of multiple gaming.

Whether it's a lottery owned by the government or the casinos owned by the private industry.

>> To that point how much of the lottery saying we will answer any question you have but otherwise we are staying out of it.

How much of that is they got smacked on the nose pretty good about 1.5 years ago when they were ready to go online and brief leaders about it who were like, oh yeah, okay.

And then lawmakers found out because of a story by Megan Kelly.

Found out just how far the online lottery was going to go.

Like this is not what you told us it was going to be.

They absently shut them down.

Are they a little, pardon the phrase, gun shy.

>> I think they probably are.

I think there's a more fundamental question.

You cannot turn on your television without being bombarded by gaming in one form or another.

When is enough?

When we reach saturation point?

You got all of these things encouraging people to start giving you the first $100 and chances are whatever it is, I don't even know what the term is, betting deposits.

You are sucking people in who are going to spend a fair amount of their hard earned money doing this to no avail.

That's a concern.

>> I will say credit to State Senator John for trying to push against online gaming.

He has said when I talked to him in December I am all for this, but with the state doing a more robust problem giving program.

I don't wear those dollars are going.

We do >> We don't really have that here.

>> We don't spend a lot of not at all.

>> They run it through addictions.

They got their hands full with all the other addictions.

>> So you're saying we actually care about people who gamble if they are addicted?

I don't think we do.

I feel like we are past the morality question.

There's a lot of morality questions here but I thought we were long past that.

>> We went past it when you met with state lottery.

When the state actually decided you could do gaming.

To carry it even further then we have gone it seems we need to have a discussion.

>> I don't like to play the lottery I just throw cash out the window.

>> You might as well.

>> You're not saturating people already in your giving access to people who never will be.

>> I don't think that's true with the sports gaming.

I think you're going to have kids.

18, 21-year-old kids playing that.

>> Quite frankly >> 18 and 21-year-old people are not kids.

>> They are in my mind.

>> The author of the online sports gaming bill in 2019 I think it was, the authors got up and say they voted on the bill overall.

Got up on the bill on the final passage and said, "I don't like this.

I don't like the idea of the casino in the home of everyone on their phone.

I don't like it.

it."

he was charged you by the caucus but he was warning about this then.

>> We've all been told this.

Lawmakers in Indiana don't pick winners and losers.

We can take that to the bank.

>> State Representative Jim Lucas was booked into a southern Indiana jail this week for operating while intoxicated.

Police arrested a Republican after he allegedly crashed his vehicle on I 65 and drove off.

A state police spokesperson says his vehicle was found by Seymour police shortly after the crash.

He was located nearby and arrested by state police and booked into the Jackson County Jail for operating a vehicle while intoxicated and leaving the scene of a crash that caused property damage.

The most serious of the charges would be a Class A misdemeanor which carries up to one year in jail and a $5000 fine.

He is in his fifth term as a state lawmaker.

He is considered one of the legislature's most striking advocates to reduce or eliminate gun regulations and has pushed Indiana to legalize cannabis.

Lucas has repeatedly courted controversy in his time at the Statehouse, notably for racist social media posts.

John Schwantes, if these charges are true, which is and if at this point, will there be any followed for Jim Lucas?

>> There will be obviously for him personal, financial and legal intimations.

-- implication.

This will sound like a copout.

It's really up to his constituents.

That's who he answers to full there's nothing in state law that says he can't, even if he is convicted, that would bar him from continuing to serve the general assembly.

That's not the question.

Nobody can order his removal.

It's not as if the House Speaker gone -- of governor, feeling person he answers to in terms of continuing the service or not the people put them there in the first place.

That's a question for them.

There's precedent here and across the country, a lot of elected officials do from time to time get in similar predicaments.

We see mayors recently in large cities, other lawmakers across the country.

Some have weathered the storm and put it behind them.

>> Will see the weather the mayor of Fort Wayne >> More specific on being generic.

>> We talked about it on the show.

Are his constituents going to care realistically?

>> I don't think so.

Or maybe this is where they finally draw the line.

I doubt it.

He's a fifth term lawmaker.

He's been in a lot of controversial things over the years.

I don't know if this is where they'll draw the line but it will be interesting to find out where it is.

We now look intriguing and driving a lot differently than we once did as well.

And maybe also it is about how apologetic he is, how much he says this is a mistake and say it was a one-time thing.

Never driven drunk before.

Allegedly.

We shall see what happens.

>> I think if he apologizes it might be the first time he's apologized.

That's Indiana Week in Review for this week.

Our panel is Democrat, Ann Delaney.

Republican Mike O'Brien.

John Schwantes of Indiana Lawmakers and Asante Boyd of the IndyStar.

You can find Indiana Week in Review podcast and episodes at WFI I'd sought work/ JOIN IWIR or on the PBS app.

I'm Brandon Smith of Indiana public broadcasting.

A lot can happen in an Indiana week.

(MUSIC) >> The opinions expressed are solely those of the panelists.

Indiana Week in Review is a WFIY production with associated