Governor Braun reflects on the legislative session.

Braun chastises Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith, plus a battle in the budget over Indiana University trustees.

And more from the television studios at WFYI.

It's Indiana Week in Review for the week ending May 2nd, 2025.

Indiana Week in Review is produced by WFYI in association with Indiana Public Broadcasting stations.

Additional support is provided by the Indy Chamber, working to unite business and community to maintain a strong economy and quality of life.

This week, governor Mike Braun said his first 100 days in office has been a wonderful opening act, as he reflected on a legislative session in which the state budget saw major cuts and property tax reform didn't go as far as Braun wanted.

A recent state revenue forecast created a $2 billion budget shortfall that lawmakers filled with tax hikes and major spending cuts.

When asked how Hoosiers will be impacted by those cuts, Braun said he's optimistic about the economy and when it comes to what we really cut.

nothing got hammered and the most important stuff stayed intact.

The budget cut local public health funding from $150 million this year to $40 million a year.

Braun says it's misguided to believe you have to spend more to improve health, but don't interpret any of that as meaning that we're not going to pay a lot of attention to it.

Braun says his biggest win of the session was a slate of bills aimed at lowering health care costs, even as those bills were dramatically scaled back by the end of session.

How did this session go for Governor Braun?

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

Democrat Karen Tallion, Republican Mike O'Brien, Jon Schwantes, host of Indiana Lawmakers.

And Ebony Chappel, market director for Free Press Indiana.

I'm Indiana Public Broadcasting Statehouse bureau chief Brandon Smith.

Karen Tallion, welcome to your first time on the show.

How was Mike Braun's first session as governor?

One word.

Disaster and disaster.

and it's all about the money.

And it's all about the budget, which I think is a mess.

You know, I did this for many years myself.

I was in the state House.

We started in December with a revenue forecast.

We knew how we were going to build the budget and how much money we had to spend.

But by April, the country's in chaos.

And it's chaos based on what's happening in Washington.

We've got tariffs that are causing fear and confusion among everyone.

We've got budget cuts.

And what happened in Indiana is that we are now $2 billion short on our on our revenue.

But the worst part, the worst part is that besides that $2 billion, we haven't even accounted for yet the cuts that we expect out of the Trump administration.

you know, they have taken they're taking billions of dollars out of the national economy.

And Indiana doesn't even know yet how much we're going to be affected.

They have not put that in the budget yet.

So I believe we're going to have to have another budget session.

or, you know, we're going to have to open the budget again sometime because this will catch up to us.

And frankly, I think that, you know, Governor Braun claims to be in tight with, with President Trump.

He was there in Washington for the wrecking ball that hit the Department of Education.

And, you know, these Republican governors need to stop this.

And they're not doing anything.

This is going to catch up with us.

And I think it's going to be soon.

With first year, first term governors.

You always great on the curve because they start the session.

I mean, they are officially sworn in after the session.

Has been going on for like a week or so.

So there's your you're playing catch up right from the start.

But given that how do you think he did.

I think he did.

Well I do I do agree to some degree with with Karen that, we don't know what's going to happen in DC if you believe what Trump is saying, which is it's going to be short term pain, long term gain, this budget a little bit reflects that.

And that was part of the conversation kind of behind the scenes.

It was.

All right let's kick out vouchers right.

They kick that into the second year like they did move some things into the second year to say all right let's see how this let's see how this plays out.

We had a we had a flat line or maybe a little bit of growth.

And there was growth in this revenue forecast, but not a lot, not based on what they were expecting to spend, coming out of the second half.

you know, so I think it just remains to be seen what the whether we get the gain, you know, what expected the stock.

Market or how long that short term Governor Brown, it really is.

Governor Brown had a short run.

If you have the advantage of thinking you have a blowout election, you start your transition sooner and you start developing your policy proposal.

So you're going to introduce into the session sooner.

But Braun didn't really do that.

He did lay the groundwork for a for a substantive transition, which is what he had.

And what he didn't start.

And the property tax reform was months.

And right.

So the 2026 for for a Brown administration, the 2026 legislative session planning.

What are we going to like now?

Yeah.

You know, so he gets a full cycle next year.

But he had big wins on energy generation, on health care, transparency, on, you know, and frankly, the budget.

I know it was a mess, but, you know, ten, ten days out, you got to go find $2.4 billion.

That's not an easy task.

This isn't a, you know, a budget line with fat that you can go find.

In terms of I mean, the question put to him, and I think I was the one who put it to him on Wednesday was, how are Hoosiers going to feel the impact of the cuts in the budget?

And he's really downplaying it at this point.

Nobody got hammered.

We heard in the quote, but he was saying, you know, the first three minutes of his answer was the economy is going to be fine.

Basically said, you know what Trump is saying, the short term pain.

Yeah, but everything's going to be great.

We're going to well position the U.S. and Indiana for the future.

This is going to we're going to end up not having nearly as low revenue as the forecast.

The snapshot in time projected.

Is that what Hoosiers are feeling right now?

We won't know for a while.

You know, I have said, that typically when a session is over, we have answers.

That's that's when the gavel falls die.

We have answers this session.

In contrast, we have questions probably more than we did when we started this session.

And the reason I say that we don't know, for instance, how local governments who will see a reduction in property tax revenue, will respond.

Will they cut services first?

Will they try to take advantage of the taxing capacity authority that they have been given at municipal, that is, will schools, how aggressive will they be and reaching out to their constituencies, to parents and other tax payers in their areas through referenda?

and we also don't know what the federal funding situation will be, but it looks as if there will be additional cuts for the federal portion of Medicaid and who knows what else.

So there's so much instability there.

we don't know politically.

You were talking earlier about, you know, grading on a curve.

Let's continue the college metaphor and say, we know what we don't know what the rubrics are.

If you want to say that, you know, for the average Hoosier, that's one set.

We can't answer that.

Now.

That's the incomplete.

If you want to say though politically, I think it was a good session for him politically, he was able to distance himself from his predecessor.

You look at what he did.

I'd I'd an economic development corporation has been reined in.

No new oversight, new transparency.

That's something he wanted during the campaign.

he there's essentially, if you look at legacy of the prior governor, the Next Level trails program zeroed out, and, public health dramatically funded.

Those were all accomplishments of the prior Republican governor.

And I would just lastly, take issue with not getting hammered because there are some things Women's Commission, Native American Commission, Indiana Public Broadcasting stations, the next level trails program that were zeroed out, which I'm not sure how that could be, not being hammered.

The only other thing worse than that would be coming to take money away.

Do not give it back.

The most important things is what he said, the most important things not being that's.

Telling as well.

Yeah.

I do want to ask about one thing.

which is it feels a little inside baseball, but we've seen it impact policy in the last few years, which was under Governor Holcomb, especially towards the end of his eight years.

There were increasing complaints from state lawmakers over not feeling connected to the administration about not hearing from agency leaders, not, you know, they wouldn't come and testify in committee.

They weren't around the building.

They weren't, reachable for questions or issues.

We saw Mike Braun really emphasize getting his folks in the state House in committees.

Did he swing a little too far in the other direction?

I think it's fair to say that he did.

He talks a lot in his remarks earlier this week about how this is the most the second and third floor, you know, have talked to each other in this.

And, you know, I think there are some examples of there being that overstep of him wanting to be involved so much.

He even talked about, you know, those of you who were with me making a clear distinction between those lawmakers that were not.

So I do think that there's some balance to be struck between how much oversight and influence is there.

Yeah.

And that's, you know, talking about the grading on a curve, it feels like the feeling out process of what's the right, you know, what's the right balance.

I think for one thing, if he's done anything that's received a lot of praise has been the reorganization of cabinet.

That's the verticals.

It's transparent.

Everyone knows who's accountable, where the buck stops.

That's right.

With the governor, certainly with his cabinet secretaries.

It's been overwhelmingly positive.

All right.

Time now for viewer feedback.

Each week we post an unscientific online poll question.

And this week's question is do you approve of the job governor Mike Braun has done during his first 100 days in office?

A yes or b no.

Last week we asked you whether there is adequate oversight of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation.

9% of you say yes, 91% say no.

But Governor Braun is taking steps to change those numbers.

If you'd like to take part in the poll, go to wfyi.org/iwir and look for the poll.

Well, speaking of the governor, Mike Braun this week said that he doesn't like.

But Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith recently called the 3/5 compromise a great move back with his face significant pushback in recent days for his comments about that language in the US Constitution that counts slaves as 3/5 of a person for purposes of representation in Congress.

Beckwith remarks came after debate over a bill banning diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in government referenced the 3/5 compromise.

As the lieutenant governor said, the 18th century agreement helped ensure pro-slavery states wouldn't gain too much power.

Groups, including the Concerned Clergy of Indianapolis, the Alliance of Baptists, and House and Senate Democrats, have rebuked Beckwith comments and called for a retraction.

Braun says he wouldn't have used.

Beckwith, characterized version of the 3/5 compromise.

I'm a believer that you better start thinking about what you're saying before it comes out, so I'll leave it at that.

Braun says.

Beckwith comments made headlines the wrong way, which takes away from the substance of what you're trying to do in general.

Mike du Braun's comments close the book on this controversy, everyone.

Hope so.

I used to tell candidates, look, you're everyone's got a gun pointed at your opponent.

Democrats, the media, voters that aren't for you, but you're holding all the bullets.

So stop handing out bullets.

And in this situation, like this, it's like everyone's already trying.

But, you know, Mike is a guy who likes to be, you know, he likes to.

Be the center of it.

Be the center of attention, make big statements.

Right.

Be controversial.

you know, if you're trying to draw comparisons to compromise and things, of course, American history is like littered with examples of where we, like, had to take half a loaf and, like, not completely make progress while people still had to suffer.

Of course, don't use any of those examples to describe the changes you're making in state government.

That's like there's plenty of other ways to to describe that other than like thinking back to a hot summer in 1787, what the founders had to do to ratify a constitution.

Do you think this closes that?

LeBron said, I don't like it.

He shouldn't have said it.

he needs to think before he speaks.

Does that close the book on this?

I do agree with the governor once.

Well, I think before you talk, but what I find really interesting is that he, took one line out of a floor speech and turned it into some bizarre history lesson that he posted on Facebook and and got the history wrong because the, you know, that 3/5 compromise probably ensured that slavery lasted another 75 years in this country.

I can't figure out what he's trying to do.

I believe Micah with Micah Beckwith version of die is divide, exclude, and insult.

I don't know why he's doing this, except maybe to divert attention from some of the other stuff that he's going on.

Got going on, like his car, like his contract, no bid contracts.

It's strange.

I want to ask about the sort of larger question of one of the biggest things we wondered about a mike Braun administration was how was this relationship with Mike a back with going to work?

Because obviously he didn't choose Michael Beckwith as his running mate.

but, you know, back to John's earlier point of more questions than answers.

At the end of the session, what sense have you gotten from this working relationship between the two of them 100 days into the administration?

Not good.

Trouble in Paradise or more trouble to come?

I do wish, and I understand you know his reasoning probably why he did it, but I do wish that the governor was a little more firm in his stance about, you know, distancing himself and downplaying what it is that not downplaying, but, you know, reprimanding, Michael Beckwith in public for what it is that he said any, you know, good moves or positive consequences that came out of legislation that literally, you know, took my ancestors from being labeled as property, as chattel to be subhuman, as 3/5 of a human like.

There is no positive consequence of that.

So I wish that the governor would have been more, deliberate in his stance against those messages.

And I think the reason why Michael does it is to put himself more at the center of attention and to align with some of the most out there rhetoric that we see coming out of the white House.

He wants to be included in that conversation, and this is his way of doing it.

You know, Mike Braun, during the campaign after he inherited, Mike back with as his running mate when Michael would say something, outrageous or outlandish, that or something that angered people, you'd go and ask Brian and he'd say, you know, I don't agree with him or, you know, I don't support that.

He said that, but I'm not focused on that.

I'm focused on this and this.

You know, whatever the campaign talking points were, this feels just like a continuation of that where it's he shouldn't have said it.

And he just think before he speaks because it takes away from what we're actually focused on in my administration, which is true.

Is that going to continue to work for the next three plus years at least?

I'm not sure what the governor's options are.

He's made clear on numerous occasions that he isn't thrilled about the sort of wildcat, appointments and approaches.

And it wasn't just this, certainly this one got a lot of attention.

But keep in mind, before the budget was final or actually go back further before the property tax SB1 was finalized and signed, he had called via social media on the governor, his partner in crime, to veto it because no one knows what it is.

It does.

And he said, it takes we need a bill that doesn't require an army of accountants to figure it out.

And of course, the governor immediately signed it.

And I think one of the reasons he immediately signed it that day that he got it was in that discussion.

Yeah.

You don't want that going back and forth in media every day saying, governor, what about what the lieutenant governor said?

Are you are you listening to that?

So I don't know, short of taking his phone away, I mean, that works now and in the state of New York is taking away, students phones.

But I don't know if that applies to the lieutenant governor in Indiana.

Yeah.

You know, you either an army of accountants to understand the bill or just Geoff Thompson.

That also worked.

All right.

26 past chairs of the Indiana University Alumni Association this week urged governor Mike Braun not to sign a bill that would end alumni elections for the IU board of trustees.

In a letter to Braun and university President Pamela Whitten, the former alumni leaders say that the elimination of alumni voting may make IU graduates feel unrepresented and less likely to support the institution.

The IU administration has not said whether it supports the change, but Braun says he supports the change and compared IU negatively to other universities in the state.

all the other universities, seem to have more value in terms of the education they're giving us for the cost.

And those three, trustees that were being arranged by just a small percentage of alumni didn't make sense to me.

Lawmakers wrote the ban, which targets IU into the state budget in the final days of session.

It was not part of a standalone bill, and the public had no opportunity to testify about it before it was passed.

If signed into law, it would give the governor complete control of appointing IU's governing body to us as our resident IU person on the.

Show say, fill in the blank.

what what is going on here?

As much as I would like to talk about the upcoming football season or the new coach, basketball coaches, recruiting efforts in the portal, I will answer your question.

I think there's no other way to interpret this other than stifling expression and dissent and silencing dissent.

because if you look at it from a practical standpoint, there were only three trustee appointments that came as a result of alumni.

The governor appointed a majority and has for 135 years, I think, is how long this approach has been in place.

He, he or she, perhaps in the future, already had the control.

So all this, it seems to me there can be no other explanation than to say let's speak with one voice.

Don't need any of this.

You know, any malcontents that that, when we pass a policy about expression on campus or when we deal with the, no confidence votes that the faculty has had about the president, and when they give her bonus.

And that's let's have everybody in lockstep.

So to me, that's the only thing.

Now, the question, of course, is where who spurred this?

I don't know, first hand.

Steve Sanders, who's a law professor in Bloomington, a dear friend of mine, we were undergraduates together, known for 40 years.

Trust him completely.

Former journalist.

he said it started with Pam Whitten.

That's his understanding.

Now, lawmakers have said it has.

I cannot confirm that.

Right.

But I believe Steve, and she certainly didn't do anything to, push back, but and.

Well, I'll say I'll say this.

I mean, I don't know where Braun says he wasn't behind it.

He was he didn't oppose it.

He welcomed it, but he was not behind it.

Lawmakers didn't indicate it was the governor's office.

The lawmakers also said it wasn't Pam Whitten, although nobody could quite say it was the people in the room.

Who after those 1.2, some of the justification for this was if you look at how turnout was for the votes, you know, why bother with an election, which is sort of a tenuous, position, especially if you went back and looked at some of the primary municipal elections, the turnout in those elections, in those primaries for municipal races is as low generally as it is for the IU Board of trustees.

So I'm looking forward to next session when IU, when the Indiana General Assembly does away with all municipal elections.

I mean, I wouldn't rule that out.

I don't know where it came from, but it would certainly seem to benefit Pam Whitten, which doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me when you have in the very recent past, Republicans at the state House expressing discontent with Pam Whitten.

Yeah, it's a very, very strange situation, and I wish that she would say something about it to help people understand what her stance is.

So I think no answer is an answer, and that's letting us know that maybe she's okay with that.

Brown has tried to say that this is just doing it the way other universities in Indiana do it, but it's not the way it's not exactly the way other Indiana universities are.

Universities in Indiana do it.

So does this does any part of this look good?

Well, if you'll indulge me for a minute, I like to tell a little story.

It was my first year in the state House, my very first conference committee, and it was it was then senator, Republican Senator Beverly Gard had a bill, and some Republican from the House came over and basically one heard him put all kinds of stuff into her bill that he couldn't get done in the house.

And she looked at him with some sort of disdain and said.

I've been on the other end of that.

Let's do that.

We have rules.

And I must have heard it 100 times.

I heard it 100 times.

We don't do that.

We have rules.

We want to hear what's going on.

We want to have a full vetting of a bill, and this kind of stuff going into the budget at the last minute without any hearing, any public.

It's the worst of super majority control, because that's the only way they can get by with this.

So and it's anonymous and it's sneaky and and you don't know who put that in there.

It takes a lot to get that kind of unvetted language into the budget in the last minute.

Somebody had a lot of clout to be able to do that.

Show your face.

Who are you?

Who did this?

That's what we want to know.

I want to talk a little bit about that because, you know, this this comes into the budget.

This is not the first time that language that had never been in the bill gets dropped into the budget at the end of the session because it's.

Well, yeah, technically casinos, the casinos were created that way.

But in recent years you've had language about, shielding.

You know, how we were getting, the drugs to carry out the death penalty and executions dropped into the budget at the end out of nowhere.

But process doesn't always matter.

Or sometimes you can focus too much on process and not impact.

But on this one, does the process make this look much, much worse?

Yeah.

And it's not.

It's not a product of supermajorities.

To your point, it was in 1988, you know, and the the old actually used to happen more when the majorities were tight because both parties had things they couldn't get through.

Committee through a committee.

So they'd have to have more.

They'd have to go cut the deal to put more in the budget that hadn't been vetted.

So actually, it happens a lot less than it used to under super majorities.

And it did.

And when there were tight majorities.

But to the to your point where no answer, no answer means choose your own adventure politically, this is either the governor wanted control or wouldn't want to control, or the governor already had control.

And these are small, small, you know, turn elections.

So it doesn't really matter.

He could have put like whatever universe he can put on whoever he wants say that it's anti-palestinian from the protests over the summer.

It's it's whatever you want it to be if you don't explain why it is what it is.

So.

But is that more of a problem from the people who did it?

Because now you can you, the folks who want to make it a big deal and attack you with it can do.

That's what I mean, is your adventure.

Yeah, this is always a problem.

And for those of us who want to hear answers from the administration, I don't think we're going to hold out for a news conference or any kind of pronouncement, but we will.

But we will get some answers, because if you look at what's happening in the Big Ten, and this is starting with Rutgers, there is a movement there to try to create a Big Ten consortium or compact.

we already have seen other universities follow Harvard's lead.

For instance, there was a letter signed by 200 universities.

And now with the Big Ten comes together.

How many schools are in the Big Ten now?

I don't even know 19.

It's not ten anymore.

I know that 18.

If it if it ends up being the membership roster, we see the stationery and the letterhead on that compact or that consortium, and it's 17 of them or 16 of them and Purdue and I you were left out.

I think that'll answer a lot of questions.

All right.

Finally, we have to end on some sad news to pass along.

Katie Scheller, the daughter of former longtime host of this show, Jim Scheller, passed away recently.

The thoughts of everyone here at air are with Jim and his family.

And if you out there are of the praying sort, Jim and his family could certainly use your prayers right now.

And that is Indiana Week in Review for this week.

Our panel is Democrat Karen Tallian.

Republican Mike O'Brien, Jon Schwantes of Indiana Lawmakers and Ebony Chappel of Free Press Indiana.

You can find Indiana Weekend Reviews podcast and episodes at wfyi.org/iwir or on the PBS app.

I'm Brandon Smith of Indiana Public Broadcasting.

Join us next time, because a lot can happen in an Indiana week.

The views expressed are solely those of the panelists.

Indiana Week in Review is produced by WFYI in association with Indiana Public Broadcasting stations.

Additional support is provided by the Indy Chamber, working to unite business and community to maintain a strong economy and quality of life.