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Indiana Lawmakers from the statehouse to your house.

Welcome to the first regular session of Indiana's 124th General Assembly, better known as the 2025 Long Session.

Here's a quick refresher on what can seem like a pretty convoluted process.

Like anything that produces winners and losers, the Indiana General Assembly tends to be defined by numbers.

As many of us learned back in civics class, Indiana's legislative branch comprises two bodies the House of Representatives, which has 100 members who serve two year terms, and the Senate, which has 50 members who face voters every four years.

In theory, based on district maps redrawn after the 2020 census, each House member represents 67,855 Hoosiers.

While each senator answers to 135,711 constituent arts, at the moment, Republicans outnumber Democrats 70 to 30 in the House and 40 to 10 in the Senate, just as they did before November's election.

Because Republicans constitute supermajorities in both chambers.

That is, they make up more than two thirds of members.

They, by themselves, can provide the quorum necessary to conduct business.

Don't assume, however, that party affiliation alone determines how a lawmaker will vote on any given issue.

Last year, members of the General Assembly introduced 714 pieces of legislation dealing with dozens of topics, although a number of those proposals triggered fierce debate.

All but four of the 172 bills had ultimately reached the governor's desk, enjoyed at least some degree of bipartisan support, and 73 of them passed both chambers unanimously.

Keep in mind that before a bill can reach the governor's desk, it must survive three readings or clearly defined procedural stages, and the chamber where it's introduced.

And then repeat the same three part process in the other chamber.

A lot of proposals never get out of the gate, and those that do can die at any point along the way.

Bills that do make it through the General Assembly.

And actually at that point they're called enrolled acts.

But let's not get hung up on minutia.

Still aren't a done deal, as they can be vetoed by the governor.

Of course, vetoes can be overridden by a simple legislative majority that is at least 51 votes in the House and 26 votes in the Senate.

Last year, Governor Eric Holcomb issued one veto, which lawmakers opted not to challenge.

Now, as for timing, in odd numbered years, when two year state budgets are crafted, the General Assembly meets for up to 61 session days, and session days are not necessarily consecutive calendar days and must adjourn by April 29th.

Sessions and even numbered years are capped at 30 session days, with adjournment coming no later than March 14th unless otherwise specified.

Indiana's new laws will take effect July 1st.

The start of the state's fiscal year.

Now, if all of this seems a bit overwhelming, don't worry.

Round the session, the team here at Indiana Lawmakers will be working nonstop.

Or can I say 24 over seven to sort out what's happening and to explain what it means for you, your family and your community?

After all, for us, that's job one.

And welcome back to part two of our special leadership conversation.

I am pleased to welcome House Speaker Todd Houston, a Fisher's Republican.

House Minority Leader Phil GiaQuinta, a Fort Wayne Democrat.

Senate President Pro Tem Roderic Bray, a Martinsville Republican.

And Senate Minority Leader Shelli Yoder, a Bloomington Democrat.

You said there are some concerns and warning bells that you see in the air as it relates to schools.

Talk about that.

Well, when for our caucus, we're going to be focused on really lifting up those professions that the majority of Hoosier parents trust.

And they do trust their public school teachers.

And currently over half of them make less than $50,000.

And so we're proposing that we lift those salaries up to 65,000 and make sure that we are paying them, I mean, even $65,000.

But at least we can do better than we're currently doing paying them for, for for the work that they do and how Hoosier parents, the majority 90%, are trusting in our public school system to educate our kids and make sure that they're getting the skills that they need to enter this next phase, which would be the global workforce.

Well, certainly, teacher salaries have been a front burner issue for several sessions now, in part because of concerns about a teacher shortage.

But or can they expect another bump?

Well, look.

I mean, we're pleased that the, you know, we set a goal of the average teacher pay be over $6,000.

It is.

the report just came out and said that we we said we wanted the starting teacher pay to go up.

It has a credit to local schools.

You know, local schools make those decisions.

I mean, you know, we as we noted earlier, we fund education over $9 billion a year, but we don't tell schools how big their class sizes are.

We don't tell them how many teachers they should have, how many counselors they should have, what their age should be.

That's up to the local school districts to make those decisions.

And, you know, obviously the more people you put in the pie the pie gets, the less amount of money there is for each individual in that pie.

So they have to make those decisions locally.

I think, you know, it's our job and our responsibility to fund the, again, we put in and we'll put in well, well over $9 billion this year in the K 12 education.

and then it needs to decide the local level and how teachers are paid and so appropriately.

That's the right place it should be.

And certainly compensation is important, but it's only one piece of the puzzle in terms of job satisfaction for our state's educators.

like to say that we certainly have made some progress with teacher.

Teacher salaries.

however, we still are experiencing a teacher shortage.

And I think part of the issue has just been this constantly tinkering, with education policy, year after year after year.

I'll talk I talk with, not only Democrat colleagues, but certainly even Republican colleagues that would just say, man, well, can we just take a little bit of a pause here, break, and see, what we've been what have we put, what we have put in place in the last couple of years?

Is it working?

How can we measure against something if it's continually, continuing to change?

So and that's, I think, been a big frustration for teachers as well that this constant changing.

And they would just like to be able to, to teach at least, teach to and use the things that they've been required to do, and see if that works or not.

So this kind of, this continuing changing of the policies that we've had, I do think is driving a lot of teachers.

That's more of a concern than, for instance, a specific type of licensure requirement that some may see.

And so that part of the part of the issue, part of the heart of the issue.

How about, this this notion, we got some good news in recent days, which was that the graduation high school graduation rate for, students in Indiana was a record high in 2024.

So why not sit back and say, hey, we must be doing something, something, right?

we've made several changes over the last several years to education.

And so it would be nice to take it to take a break on some of those things and say, all right, how are we doing?

I think it shows Indiana has been improving over the years as we rate or compare nationally to the other states.

So we're we're very proud of that.

but nevertheless, I think there's still some work to do, in, in certain topics.

And you'll see, the, our education committee, the House Education Education Committee also have bills that they'll work out, work on, debate and discuss as to whether they're appropriate to move forward with or not.

And, so it'll because it's the most important thing that the state of Indiana does, will certainly work in that space.

And I'll go.

Ahead.

Well, how would you say I mean, like, look, I think our House priority bill will be a deregulation bill.

I think there's a lot of things that are unnecessary.

And I agree with you on that.

are unnecessary.

And frankly, we put in the statute.

Give me a few, give us a few, and we'll.

We'll roll out of that as part of our agenda.

But, we're going through all.

Of you could give us a little throw us a bone here.

Come on.

I mean, there's just a ton of things that we've heard through the years from from administrators and schools that say, you know, that's just unnecessary.

Many around reporting requirements, Sean, that just take up time and unnecessary resources.

And we can certainly do that.

But I think it is important to note, like, you know, through through this entire discussion, the not only we funded schools, but we're thrilled with the results.

We have seen higher graduation rates.

I think you're seeing schools really take advantage and are excited about the changes of what's taking place and, and in the high school diploma process.

So as I talked to the schools, it's been great to hear their feedback and the way they're thinking about it.

And this is something.

And reading 2023, you said that there should be a new one.

And now the state Board of Education is closing.

And now they love the flexibility of the new one.

And then and then, you know, our reading results, are up.

We've made investments in science reading.

We said reading is important in this state.

We should never think about any student at the third grade level who we know that is the gateway of success.

If they can't read it in the third grade, it puts a barrier up that most kids will never overcome.

We've made tremendous investments in that, and science reading has been bipartisan.

I'm grateful and thankful for for the bipartisan and by Kim leadership on this, but, you know, so I think there's some positive things.

I think we we need to clear some space in the deregulatory aspect, and we look for doing that this year.

You talk about deregulation and the notion, I guess, that let teachers teach and and students learn, and that's how it should be.

And yet your caucus and other and certainly Republican in the Senate in recent years have pushed for, you could say, more government oversight of how teachers, whether it's review of textbooks, with parent committees and some of this was a made it and some didn't.

So I'm not suggesting.

Sure.

But you also had, reporting requirements among teachers whose kids might be identifying as, as a different gender or, I mean, these were all bills that, that.

I mean, a lot of bills, John.

What gets into some.

But.

Right, but but I want to be fair.

This like yes you're you're there has been too much I think we will acknowledge.

That in too much of that kind.

Of all.

I mean, like going, what what we need to do is look and see what are the priorities.

But a lot of times these come, these suggestions come for everybody wants a report on the topic that matters most of them.

Everybody wants the issue on the topic that, you know, once the law on the top, the mayor's most of them.

And what we're saying is, is, look, we have to at the end of the day, we have to trust the local administrator.

We have to trust the local administrator.

Now, I don't want to confuse that.

Parents should have every right to know, every right to know.

And this wouldn't when things are decided that should be done, you know, and whether issues.

Between, types of regulation and oversight.

Of certain types.

Of library books.

What can be in library should.

Look I mean, schools know.

Yeah.

I think I think a community should have intact I think it's I think a community should have impact in their involvement in those types of decisions and making sure that they're it's not just one of the books in the library, but certainly where in the library and what age, what what's age appropriate.

But but my bigger point is, is that, look, we want to make sure that the school administrators have the flexibility to do what they think is best for kids.

And the deregulatory aspect is some workshop.

Do you want to are you heartened to hear that?

there's, no appetite for further regulation and government, involvement with teachers and the decisions they make on a day to day basis?

Yeah.

And, and I also just want to add, hopefully that we're going to include, educators, and teachers in these discussions.

superintendents as well.

I hope that they're involved, in these when we're, when we're talking about, the, the type of bills that, we're hearing about potential of, deregulation or clearing some things up.

And, I think maybe you said it best, John, is let's let these teachers teach.

That's what they want to do.

what they're trained to do and what they enjoy doing.

And that's why they got into the profession.

And that these are the type of things that have driven teachers out of the profession, just too much regulation and trying to do these things that, of getting the way of teaching students.

So, I'm happy.

I'm happy to hear that, one bill would take any school district that has fewer than 50% of the students enroll eligible students in its jurisdiction, not attending those schools.

They would be disbanded, dissolved, and I guess the state would turn them over to charters.

Rod Bray, what do you think?

Oh, I think that's a house bill.

I haven't looked at that yet.

and again.

Rod Bray not thrilled with House bill.

I think the speaker I think the speaker said earlier that, you know, there's an awful lot of bills we're going to file, as a as a body in the house, in the Senate, over a thousand bills this year.

And we have to take a look at the ones that actually pass.

About 25, 20% of those will actually, get across the finish line to the governor's desk and get signed.

And so we'll try and be thoughtful about all of those.

but with regard to, I can't speak specifically about that bill because I don't know anything about it.

but I think there will be a conversation.

There has been a conversation over the last few years about charter schools and property taxes.

There's a gap between charter schools and traditional public schools.

Charter schools, obviously are public schools.

But you guys, there's a distinction between them and traditional public schools.

And there's a gap because they don't have access to property taxes.

A couple of years ago, through Senator Rogers bill, I believe it was there was a a small change in that.

And for counties that have most of the charter schools that there's a, started a conversation to share some of that property tax so that that money, again, consistent with what we've been doing across the state, that money follows the student.

So if I'm the district that wages the levy battle and I win, if you're a, a charter school in my area, you're going to share in the bounty.

I mean, yes.

Yeah, that's that's part of the conversation.

Should that be that was for jurisdictions.

You'll see the conversation to grow that happen this year whether it passes or not I don't know.

But it'll be an interesting conversation that I think people need to follow.

But there was a house bill.

Yeah.

It was a more than 1 in 4 kids in Indiana choose a school outside of their neighborhood school to go to the vast majority of school choices in any in Indiana is between a public school to another.

Is that good or bad.

Or I think it's great.

Or.

But some would say that the best thing is to improve the school that's down the street.

But but.

The that that gives the school the motivation to improve and know that those kids can go somewhere.

The.

Product is they can.

Well, it just the notion that a kid may need a different type of school, like it isn't an indictment on the school that they left oftentimes.

I mean, you a smaller school, they may need a school in which there are different types of activities.

But but I think the conversation is, you know, again, it if more than 1 in 4 kids are not going to school, they're of their, their neighborhood school.

Then again, if if we have a state policy, which I think has been wildly successful, wildly popular, by the way, to allow money to follow the student, then the discussion, I think, Senator, know the discussion should be at should more of the money follow the public school student, whether they're going to another traditional public school or to a charter school?

That'll be a discussion has had where we end up, I don't know.

Before we leave it, the dissolution, if I may add, since it's a House bill, the dissolution of these districts that don't that fall into that fewer than 50%.

That's IPS.

Indianapolis Public Schools.

Where do you stand on that?

Well, look, I. I begin first and foremost.

And I've told IPS, very directly this I'm continue.

I think, you know, they have partnerships with charter schools.

The majority of the kids and IPS is, as noted in the bill, don't go to the traditional public schools.

So I'm not sure why IPS gets all the local property tax dollars.

So that's the conversation we'll have.

Shelley over.

You had something to say?

I do want to interject because it it seems contradictory.

And in one answer, it's about giving local control the ability to make those decisions.

And then the next one is let the state like an 1136 make that decision for local, political subdivisions like schools and which way we're going to have it.

Is there an inconsistency or can you explain the heard, the reconcile?

First of all, you she she has a point.

And I wanted to make sure, you know, John, as we all know I mean, I always make this comment precious at the beginning.

Don't judge us where we start.

Don't judge us in the middle, judge where we and a lot of bills are file.

They work themselves through the process.

you know, you have to start somewhere, but where you end is someplace completely different.

Where where this all ends.

I think Senator Yoder will not find inconsistency.

but but I understand her point right now.

Do you want to weigh on, weigh in on this part before we move on to some other topics?

well, I was told the charter schools were going to save us money.

Now all of a sudden, we have to figure out how we're going to fund them.

also, I've always heard that we have to have competition.

Now, this bill wants to eliminat the school corporations also, you know, in particular, in my area, we have a lot of students that choose to go to parochial schools, religious schools.

That's fine.

but when we're starting to to put that, category, when we're calculating the number to get us to this percentage, I don't think that's fair.

because obviously public schools can't teach, religion.

So, I think there's a lot of problems with this bill.

I haven't read it either that much that that close about just what I've seen.

in the media, I think there's going to be a lot of, concerns and issues, with this going forward.

So to this, you know, to this, warmer.

Thanks.

Sure.

To just, the data that I've seen, we like to be data driven.

it does show that charter schools really are not performing very well.

I mean, they just aren't.

They've got a few that do well, but for the most part, they're really not doing that well.

And, and that should be a concern for all of us.

They close and October, November and then leaving students, out in the cold to have to choose another school.

So, I think we should really kind of take a look at, those type of type of schools that just really aren't doing that well.

And, and that's a fact.

I want to well, I don't know, the Stanford study, the Notre Dame studies all say the charter schools in Indianapolis outperform the, the the district schools.

So I'm not sure what studies that's referring to.

And, you know, as we every time we get these notions of, oh, the charter schools dump kids after a charter, after count dates, we found that to not to be true at all.

So I think, you know, I don't know why the hostility towards families getting to pick schools or schools, there being different options for schools.

But I think, you know, again, we went to a money follows a student, policy a long time ago.

We've given families options.

I would say I would know it is extraordinarily popular.

that's why you now see elections ran on this policy anymore because it is extraordinary popular.

And and I'm, you know, our caucus is pleased to support it.

We'll continue to support it.

let's shift a little bit here, for the remainder of our discussion and talk about some of the financial pressures on Hoosiers to energy costs have been going up, significantly.

We used to have some of the lowest, if not lowest in the country.

Now, that still not it still not in the bad ranking, but but moving up.

same thing with health care costs.

Let's take them, let's take them in that order, I guess.

Energy costs.

and let's let's go to you.

What can Hoosiers count on lawmakers doing this session to make sure that their utility bills, are kept?

If not kept reasonable?

Well, so, first of all, you're right.

We've, we've watched, our energy costs as we compare to other states kind of creep up since the early 2000. a disturbing factor.

It's very difficult to figure out exactly why that's happening.

That's a very complicated, complicated industry.

And, but we've been working in that space, trying to make sure that, that doesn't continue to happen, because it's hard right now.

Everything's more expensive.

Going to the grocery store is more expensive.

Paying your light bill is more expensive.

And so we're trying to we're trying to figure that that out and put some downward pressure on that.

but you know what?

The thing is giving the Utility Regulatory Commission more.

Well, not they already have some would argue the authority, but they're being told to be more aggressive in terms of halting or slowing the closure of fossil fuel plants, coal plants and others.

Is that.

Yeah.

That's right.

And it's not to try and save coal.

It's just to make sure that we have a diverse amount of resources that, that people can use to generate power for us.

And we've got lots of challenges in the state of Indiana with regard to our utilities capacity is one of them, because we've experienced such growth over the last several years that, in particular, things like data centers use an awful lot of power.

And so it's a challenge to, to have enough capacity so we don't need to be shutting down any plants right now because we need that capacity to help.

And, more of that capacity can help keep the cost down.

Jake, did you buy into the whole all of the above approach?

Meaning that bring in solar, bring in wind?

Bring.

But don't get rid of coal too fast.

Don't get rid of some of the other.

Well, where are you?

I believe that the, the, you know, private industry is they're going to make those decisions as they should.

they haven't been unfettered in that regard.

I mean, we've seen legislation more that's a that's halting that, which I don't agree with.

I mean, I'm not sure why we're involved in these decision.

These are these type of decisions that businesses are trying to make, so that they can, one of agreement regulation bad across the board out of whatever times twice down by.

So yeah.

so, yeah.

But no, I think the encouragement of renewables and things like that, I think would really go a long way in helping your caucus be, you know, your district.

I mean, environmental, environmental sensitivity is front and center.

Absolutely.

And I do want to address this issue because Hoosiers, at the end of the day, it is about how energy costs impact their pocketbook.

And we know that 174,000 Hoosiers have their utilities cut off because of failure to pay.

That's 500 families a day.

And the Indiana Senate Democratic Caucus has a very common sense bill that we are supporting and prioritizing this session because of the high costs of utilities.

And that is if this is the case for a family, a utility cannot cut off on Friday or the weekend or the holidays because Hoosiers want to pay their bills.

And we need to make common sense steps to make sure that they have the protections there.

Because we think about utilities when it's cold, but the majority of our utilities are when it's really hot.

And climate change is going to continue to make it hotter and hotter.

it's hard to imagine that in the in the dead of winter, but it's going to be warmer.

And we need to make sure that families have some common sense protections there.

And our caucus is working on that.

We are almost out of time.

So I'm going to give you to Houston a choice.

You can weigh in on this topic, or you can talk about health care costs and what you're doing to bring them in.

So I'm giving you, I'll just say on this, in this health.

Care, some would say the related if you can't, if you're, if you're if you're heat gets turned off, you might catch a. Yeah.

But this all of the above thing is critical.

And as Senator Brady noted that that, you know, we have to have the array of, of, of energy sources available to us coal, natural gas, wind, solar.

As nuclear comes on, we want to make sure we're at the lead of that.

You know, unfortunately, the federal policy around, energy the last four years has been on theory and not in reality.

I'm hoping that that changes.

We've got to be, you know, cognizant every new.

Energy has more drilling, at the end of the Biden presidents.

And then you can't bill, you know, honestly, what they've done to the coal plants, which is cleaner than they've ever been before, yet they're shutting them down.

The regulatory aspect, they've gone after natural gas.

It's harder to do natural gas plants ever before.

We've got to have relief on that, because John Energy is a driver of our our economy right now, as Senator Bray noted.

So it's just critical we have to come along and partner with with our companies, our energy companies.

I urge you to make sure we have a great regulatory environment, to have the energy we need to support Indian.

Businesses, health care costs.

We're gonna have to close it out.

I think with this, you guys have done some things with transparency and dashboards and trying to enhance competition.

and this may be one of those cases where we don't know yet.

The dust is still settling.

Does more need to be done?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes, yes, it more needs to be done.

But I'll say to that also the things that we have done already need time to work.

because this is a very, very complex industry and it's going to take a while for those things to start to pay their benefits.

Hopefully they'll begin to pay dividends, but you'll still see us work in this space this year talking about, Reauthorization is that legislation doesn't go anywhere.

Or Johnson is going to bring, it's not going to be priority, Bill, but he's going to we're going to have a good conversation.

Is that there wouldn't be, authorization required in most in some cases, certainly.

To limit it any anyway.

And and pharmacy benefit managers that that conversation is going to be on the table as well.

They'd have to have a fiduciary responsibility to their guys or to the recipients of that.

That's correct.

And that fiduciary responsibility, which is a Senator Bush bill, and it's a priority bill, is going to be something that we'll talk about is very broad at this point.

And we're going to just make sure that, the insurance, companies have some fiduciary responsibility to the people that they're insuring.

All right.

I think we should go next time for a for show special edition, because clearly two aren't even enough.

For the record, you said that.

Not us.

All right, you're denying everything I'm saying that you said.

But.

All right, all right.

Thank you very much, though, for for being here and weighing in and for your ongoing commitment to Indiana and to public service.

I commend you for that.

Again, our guests have been House Speaker Todd Houston, a fishers Republican, House Minority leader.

Phil GiaQuinta, a Fort Wayne Democrat, Senate President Pro Tem Roderic Bray, a Martinsville Republican, and Senate Minority Leader.

Shelli Yoder, a Bloomington Democrat.

Time now for our weekly conversation with Ed Feigenbaum, publisher of the newsletter Indiana Legislative Insight, part of Hanna News Service.

Well, we scratched the surface in terms of topics, but obviously there are a lot of issues that we haven't addressed in the roundtable.

What are you going to be keeping an eye on?

Well, one thing that we're going to be watching for our new newest vertical, Indiana Transportation Insight is road funding.

That's going to be an extremely important and contentious issue.

There are huge funding gaps.

studies say in terms just to keep roads essentially where they are now.

And because we've built so much, we've got to maintain that.

But we're also looking at widening so many different interstates.

And there's no money to do that.

And there's concern over the gas tax and whether the gas tax can sustain the road building and maintenance program.

Given the reduction in miles driven and given the move to electric and hybrid vehicles.

That's seemed like a good idea in 2018.

May not apply now, but it does.

That open the door to some of these, revenue increases, whether it's fees on cell phones, whether it's new gas taxes, whether it's rideshare fees.

I think legislators are really focused on trying to to relate the taxes to something that relates to the reason for those taxes, for example.

We've talked for years now about raising the cigarette tax on the show.

And one thing that we've heard as well, we just don't want that going to the general fund.

Or we may see an increase of $1.50 to $2 a pack on cigarettes and other tobacco products to go to, cutting the Medicaid deficit this year.

So it's not just about money.

It's about trying to get a healthier Indiana citizenry.

That as well.

That's a side benefit.

Any surprises?

As we before we give up, we should be looking for or all the cards on the table?

Well, if you paid close attention as a viewer to the show last year we talked a lot about energy issues, and I think that's going to dominate, and kind of a lesser level, the legislative discussion this year.

All right.

Speaking of energy, I look at you and I think energy Ed, as always, appreciate your energy and your insight.

Thank you, John.

Every odd numbered year, the General Assembly has one obligation to pass a two year state budget.

This year, the funding levels and the demands are historic.

We'll dissect it all on the next.

Indiana Lawmakers Well, that concludes another edition of Indiana Lawmakers.

Until next week.

Take care.

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