♪ ♪ a Supreme Court leak on abortion.

Indiana's primary election results.

Plus, school referendums largely successful and more on Indiana Week in Review for the week ending May 6, 2022.

"Indiana Week in Review" is made possible by the supporters of Indiana Public Broadcasting stations, this week, Indiana legislative leaders aren't saying just how far they'll go in banning abortions if the U-S Supreme Court overturns its longstanding abortion rights precedents.

A draft opinion from the Court that leaked Monday night would allow states to enact full bans.

>> >> What little public polling there is on abortion in Indiana shows that a large majority of Hoosiers oppose an abortion ban that doesn't allow exceptions like in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the pregnant person is at risk.

It's not clear how far Indiana Republican leaders will go if the Supreme Court fully overturns Roe v. Wade.

In a statement, Senator Rodric Bray described the leaked opinion as “good news” but said lawmakers will monitor further for a final decision.

House Speaker Todd Huston said the “vast majorit”" of Republican lawmakers want to take further action to ban abortion, based on the Court's final decision.

100 Republicans (out of 110 in the General Assembly) signed a letter in March asking the governor to call a special session to “align” Indiana laws with the Supreme Court's eventual ruling.

The Indiana Democratic Party said Statehouse Republicans' push to ban abortions “will cost lives.” How far will Indiana go in banning abortion?

It's the first question for our Indiana Week in Review panel ... Democrat Ann DeLaney ... Republican Chris Mitchem ... Kaitlin Lange, Statehouse reporter for the Indianapolis Star and Niki Kelly, editor-in-chief of States Newsroom Indiana I'm Indiana Public Broadcasting Statehouse reporter Brandon Smith And if you were paying attention, yes, that is a different job title for Niki Kelly who left the journal guest after a couple of decades, we're happy to see her in her new role, covering State House for a new outlet, how far will Indiana Republicans go?

>> Chris Mitchem: I think it's first important to emphasize this conversation is surrounding a leak, we don't know if this is a final draft we don't know if other Supreme Court justices are going to want to edit the opinion we saw and we don't know if this has the five Supreme Court majority to make this the real thing, I think it's a separate entirely conversation about what that can do to the integrity of the judicial branch all it that said, I think Indiana finds itself in a different situation I think trigger laws thun country have come to thefore front, people are starting to realize the old statutes that could go back, could be enforced if Roe V. Wade is over turned.

Indiana has neither of those, I think it's a unique situation I think to what the supreme court opinion says which is the constitution does not open any legal right or any constitutional right for an abortion so we're going to take this back to the states and allow the citizens to converse amongst each other and elect people that best view, best represent their views.

>> Beyond abortion there's questions around the legal logic justice Alito uses, and whether it can be used to strike down, interracial marriage, gay marriage, gay rights in general, school segregation.

>> And any number of other things.

>> So how far does this movement from conservatives go?

>> ANN DELANEY: I think it goes way too far, and I know you dodged that question veryantly but you dodgeed the question, the fact of the matter is, if the supreme court kicks this back to the states, Indiana is going to do whatever it can do and that means it may even criminalize it, if they were doing it sensibly what they ought to do is have hearings all around the state and, actually, TLEENS what people think about this but they're not going to do that.

They're going to come in and one day in one of their closed caucuses they're going to present a piece of legislation, not going to allow any second reading amendments and go ahead and enact it and it's going to be poorly thought out as Texas is, you get into the situations are we going to pursuit doctors, two different countries, if you have an abortion you can live on the Wabash river but you can't have it if you live on the other side if you go across can you be prosecuted in ind something that is legal in Illinois if a doctor sends you there could he, then, be prosecuted avoid the state of Indiana on the way box to the East Coast?

It is crazy, absolutely crazy, the fact that the ideology of the Republican party because this is owned by the Republican party and that Supreme Court represents the Republican party.

And it is frightening, and it is frightening to so many young women, who are going to face very difficult choices, you know, I've never met somebody who is proabortion never in my life.

But there are situations, that call for it.

I mean, if you have a -- a pregnancy that's doomed to death, and doomed to suffering for the mother or the Child -- it's the idea that that legislature compose, primarily on the Republican side, of old white men, can dictate, to women, what they are allowed or not allowed to do is frightening.

>> I'll respond to that.

I think it's hard to -- hard to group them all as aall white men you've seen every major piece of abortion legislation has been championed by women.

>> How many women do you have on your caucus out of that 70?

What 10%, maybe?

Don't tell me that you're representing women, because you're not.

You're representing a certain type of woman, that you recruit, so you can hold her up there and say, see, we're not anti -- >> They have recently been authored by women, I will say.

>> Niki, she brought up -- the question of will Indiana ban abortions or not?

Seems fairly simple.

Yes, there is a lot of other things, though.

>> Niki Kelly: Yeah, I mean, there's a question if they're going going to ban it outright or do, like, an 8-week, anything under eight weeks, I think the bigger question will be around any exceptions they have, you know, do you have an exception for rape or incest, most of the Republicans I'm talking to, are, like, saying no, but there still seems to be more support for the exception for the life of the mother.

So I think a lot of the debate will be around that topic.

>> ANN DELANEY: Do we criminalize it?

>> You would have to.

>> That's the question.

>> Doctors and women?

>> That's the other question, for whom is it criminalized is it just who is performing it?

Is it the person who seeks the abortion?

>> There has to be some sort of penalty otherwise what's a ban?

>> What do you do with the pills that can be mailed?

What do we do with interstate commerce I guess wavelength throw that out.

>> We'll see what the ruling is, I guess.

Ann raised the idea of hearings around the state or the legislative process here.

>> BRANDON SMITH: Would you expect this to go pretty quickly, once it's made possible?

>> I do, I think it would probably be pretty similar to what they did with redistricting just that this would be a special session most likely so they're not going to be hanging around following the usual calendars.

I mean, I'm sure they will take some public input yes, but, I'm sure they will want to avoid much of the second reading amendments as much as they can because that is going to get really messy.

I think a lot of these people have ran on being prolife, but now we're getting down, to what does that actually mean?

How anti-abortion are you?

When it comes to the exceptions and -- and in terms of the timing limits on these things?

So, I don't think we have a clear picture of what this legislation will look like, but I know that it's probably going to be pretty messy because you still have lawmakers who are going to completely disagree on what this should look like.

>> BRANDON SMITH: Before I move off this topic, I want to ask about the governor week because this week, he was asked for a statement after the leak, and -- then he was -- group of reporters spoke to him, the following day, and, the answer was -- to will you call a special session and what do you support?

Was, I don't know, I'm going to wait and see, you know, it's too early to say anything, I'm going to wait and see, even to the -- if this becomes reality would you, then, call for a special session?

I'm not going to discuss that right now.

Politically-speaking, what sense does that make from a Republican governor?

>> Chris Mitchem: I think he's kind of going off of his previous stances on these kind of controversial topics when you even look at the gun legislation before, he was very hesitant of taking a position until it came push come to shove, he ended up doing that and I think you can see similarities in that situation similar to this one, I think he's also just playing the cards you're also seeing speaker Huston play and rick bray play, at the end of the day this is still a leak, we're not going to pin ourselves down to any discussion unless this changes at the end of the day.

>> He raises an interesting point, Huston and bray have on the governor to call a lled- special session even months before this leak.

>> Right.

>> Do you get what the governor is doing here.

>> This is typical.

When has he shone leadership at all in the five and a half years he's been in office, he's just there occupying the chair, if he wanted to show leadership what he would say you want a special session, okay we'll give you a special session after you commit to holding hearings around the state and having a frank, open discussion about the pros and cons of various alternatives to this.

I'm not going to let you go back in your secret room with your cigars, as a majority that, doesn't even need, to worry about a quorum, and make a decision affecting the lives of millions of people, without any public discussion.

But he won't do that because he just doesn't have -- the wherewithal.

>> Are you a little surprised?

>>, yeah, I mean, he clearly missed an opportunity, I mean, look at every Republican governor in the country and stuff they're calling for, he could still say, you know, "This is just a leak and we still have to see what the actual decision was" but then there's that second sentence you can add to the statement that says but I look forward to protecting life and I want to work with legislators on that.

>> Pretty much what the legislative leaders.

>> He didn't even go there!

>> Far from, you know, not wanting to get out over his skis I guess, is there an argument to be made, by being somewhat silent on this now he's hurting himself now politically with his own party?

>> I think so, I mean, I think the political decisions he's been making have been very, interesting, I guess, and I don't know if that's just because that's what he believes and he's not trying to make any political moves, that kind of beats me.

I can -- (laughing), I guess the one thing I would say is that, lawmakers have shown that they don't always listen to what governor Holcomb wants, I think he does probably realize if he does call a special session he may have much control over the final product.

>> In any way, yeah.

>> Then he doesn't have to call the special session.

>> He doesn't, does he?

>> And do it during normal session where there is more time, to get something, you know, more worked out.

>> And after an election, and I'm wondering if he's trying to delay the pushback that you are going to see from major stakeholders not only in Indianapolis area from around the state, you've seen it with the hate crimes legislation, the CRT legislation, the -- >> You know, there's going to be pushback.

>> There's going to be a lot of pushback against it, it is going to be a dichotomy in the approach of all the candidates, between Republican and Democrat and let's see if they want to stand behind something the voters don't support, like, what they're going to do with this criminalizing abortion.

>> We'll see.

Time now for viewer feedback, each week we pose an unscientific online poll question and this week's question is If the Supreme Court clears the way, will Indiana fully ban abortion, with no exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the pregnant person?

A.

Yes B.

No Last week's question: How many Statehouse incumbents will lose in Indiana's primary election?

A.

Fewer than five Got got 49% of the vote, it turned out to be 6 so 39% who said 5 to 10, were on the money, 12% said more than 10 and maybe they were the liberty defense folks if you would like to take part in the poll go to WFYI.org/IWIR, and look for the poll.

Well, only a small handful Statehouse incumbents lost their re-election bids in Tuesday's -- look at the synergy there, a concerted effort this cycle by more conservative challengers to unseat lawmakers but few were successful.

There was always going to be at least three incumbent losses this year.

That's because there were three races with incumbents facing off against each other.

But one of those was part of a larger trend this cycle.

Republican Representative Curt Nisly lost to his House colleague Craig Snow.

Nisly has long been one of the two most extreme members of the GOP at the Statehouse.

The other most extreme member also lost.

Representative John Jacob was one of the incumbents upset by an outside challenger this year.

Still, two candidates who channeled anger among some conservatives over perceived inaction at the Statehouse over COVID-19 mandates and government overreach did unseat incumbents.

That includes Republican Representative John Young and 10-term GOP Rep Dan Leonard, considered one of the more moderate Republican voices at the Statehouse.

>> Ann DeLaney, was this largely a status quo result?

When you look across the field?

>> ANN DELANEY: Pretty much, really, I mean, -- with the exceptions of the couple of targets that the Republican caucus had in -- in representatives nisly Jacobson.

>> Two of the 6 incumbents were targeted by the how soon Republican caucus.

>> And they spent a fortune, I don't know what the spent on the nisly race but certainly spent a fortune on the Jacobs race, they probably got somebody down there not quite openly, racist anti-Catholic antiMuslim as Jacobs was but probably will vote the same way.

I mean, certainly not a moderate, she's for the rule of law, but not for Roe V. Wade, so it's only some laws she's for the rule of, I don't know faith family and law and order, wow.

That's a -- it's sort of an Apple pie in there.

>> It's votes, what is the loss of dan Leonard mean to the caucus and the state house.

>> I think looking back, I think, the GOP's going to see that as their biggest loss easily, not only is he, a staple in a lot of the complicated unemployment and tax issues you see, he was in charge of the rules procedure he was the one if there was any amendment that they thought were nongermane to a bill, he was the guy that, kind of made times gave really good of the - reasoning as to why this rule was violated.

>> That's part of the reason he was targeted by, the -- the.

>> Right wing.

>> The conservative challengers who were able to paint him as the face of the -- as -- in their minds, obstruction.

>> Blocking, yeah.

>> It's going to be hard to fill.

>> To that point, Niki I want to ask you you know representative Leonard pretty well, covered him for a long time in terms of who becomes the next Rules Committee chair, like baseball not going to ask you for a prediction, if you're someone on the caucus do you want to be Rules Committee chair after the last guy was targeted for defeat and loss?

>> Niki Kelly: It should be someone in a very safe district.

>>, I mean, he outspun her 10 to 1 and she still won, it was all grassroots out there.

All sort of this, you know, -- grassroots group, sort of -- >> That tends to happen in your area.

>> Niki Kelly: It does, when it happens it's that.

>> ANN DELANEY: Just too bad they didn't regulcognize he's helpful.

>> He's a moderate.

>> ANN DELANEY: Oh, my goodness.

>> Institutional knowledge being lost there is significant just for the institution if nothing else, Kaitlin, when you look -- I'm going to ask about governor Holcomb again because we talked to him about the results and a lot of people were channeling anger towards governor Holcomb when they were challenging Republican incumbents even if a lot of the Republican incumbents were probably upset with governor Holcomb, too, does this bolster the standing in the party at least in the state a lot of results didn't go against him or the establishment?

>> I think maybe a little but you've got to look back, we just had a gubernatorial election, you know, sort of recently, and he still won that one easily, too, and so, I don't know that would change the dynamic of things all that much because of it, but I think it does show, you know, maybe the group of people, that didn't think our lawmakers were conservative enough, maybe they are more on the minority than maybe we thought because, again, only 6 lawmakers were ousted.

3 of those I believe.

>> Three had to be ousted.

>> Because of redistricting so I think there was a huge ouster that I think the liberty defense group and some of those others were hoping for.

So I think the establishment kind of won in this case whether that's because of, you know, the money they put towards it, they -- and the first preprimary reporting period they had spent 1.2 million, that's more than they have, this entire, you know, century here, so I -- I just think you can't ignore how big of a factor the money played too.

>> Staying on election results....

Voters approved seven school referendums this week.

Only Vigo County Schools and Franklin Township failed to get approval.

This was Franklin Township Community Schools' fourth proposed referendum since 2009 all failed.

More than 60 percent of district voters voted no.

Vigo County Schools also failed to get approval for a construction referendum, with more than 65 percent of votes against it.

The district won voter approval in 2019 for an operations referendum.

Most of the referendums that passed got more than 60 percent approval, including Edinburgh, Griffith, M-S-D Perry Township and both Lebanon Community Schools referendums.

Both Mount Vernon Schools and Valparaiso Community Schools' referendums received about 55 percent approval.

>> Niki Kelly, we've talked on the show before about whether schools would need to be more Spending we've been seeing out of the legislature these past years would force schools to be hesitant about the referendums, particularly because we've seen pushback at the state house on referendums, some of the restrictions haven't been successful so far, do these results give schools thinking about asking for money a boost?

7 out of 9 is not bad >> Yeah, I think so I particularly thought that some of the operations ones would have a little more trouble because if you're looking at, like, the budget the legislature put out the last time and you're saying oh, my God they gave all this massive new money and we, obviously, have a lot of money that is available for the next budget as well, so I'm surprised given all the new money that has flowed on top of that they asked for operations money for, you know, teachers and classrooms and stuff, so that part's surprises me a little more than the other ones.

>> I just ask -- I mention in my question to Niki, you know, the idea of -- the legislature we've seen some bills authored the last couple of years about starting to restrict -- you know, how referendums are done, when they can be offered, for instance I think there was a bill you couldn't do them in the primary anymore.

>> Yeah.

>> Because they tend to succeed in the primary as opposed to the general.

Do these sorts of positive results mean more bills to restrict referendums in the future?

>> I think they could, I mean, -- it's hard to say if the results would have been different had it not been a primary and this is a pretty big success rate.

The only ones we saw fail were the capital referendums.

So I just think that's really interesting.

It shows people's priorities, I think to Niki's point, earlier, you know, I think, obviously, like, there's some surprise that districts we ask for the money given the inflex of state money they might have received also I don't think normal people are paying attention to that that much, I don't think normal people are putting that together, you know, to -- to think oh, they don't need anymore money, so I think -- sometimes we forget that people don't always live and breathe everything that happens at the state house.

>> Yeah, I was going to say God knows people in the state house are not normal.

>> They are not normal.

>> To both the points they just mentioned, pointed out the only two that failed were construction ones, Niki thought it would only be construction that would be successful.

Are we -- how much can you read into this cycles results?

>> I think you can read into it as it's truly a grass effort -- grassroots effort is needed.

I know that the Vigo county superintendent said we simply did not do a good enough job of reflecting the needs of our community, the democratic process didn't do a good job I think I think the Valparaiso superintendent said a lot of our efforts make sure people understood the referendum question, first of all, and making it career this is where the money is going to go, to the whole community rather than maybe certain segments.

>> To that point, I mean, you know you look at -- failed four times since 2009 that doesn't, Franklin township, that feels they're struggling to get that vote.

>> Franklin township property taxes are relatively high and that's largely because they don't have commercial and industrial development down there so they're paying a price for that.

They're reacting to it.

The idea tlegislature would restrict the ability of locals doing this is crazy, you have people coming out and voting to increase their own taxes they can vote no as we know that can happen and, you know, yes, it was an influx of funds, there still isn't enough money in public education and I think what you can read into the 7 out of 9, is that there is, a lot of grassroots support, for traditional public education, they want to see the buildings, look good for the children.

>> ANN DELANEY: And they want to see the teachers paid adequately to attract the kind of talent they need and that's a good thing.

>> More on an -- these type of things are local issues.

>> Particularly in the primary.

>> >> The Bail Project filed a lawsuit this week against the state over legislation set to become law on July 1 that would curtail some of its activity.

>> The lawsuit targets House Enrolled Act 1300, which restricts nonprofits like the Bail Project that help low-income individuals pay their bail.

The new law prohibits the organization from posting bail for anyone charged with a violent crime and anyone previously convicted of a violent crime that is charged with a felony.

The suit, led by the ACLU of Indiana, alleges that the organization's activities are expressive advocacy, and therefore protected under the First Amendment.

>> Kaitlin Lange, what's the background behind this law?

in the first place >> KAITLIN LANGE: This law was intended as a package of bills to target crime, specifically in Marion County, you know, this comes up pretty much every year, with this particular bill it was targeting the Bail Project, there was some misinformation surrounding it or misunderstanding I guess I would say about how much of the issues can be connected to the Bail Project versus other bail bondsmen family that sort of thing, basically, the -- this stemmed from you had a couple of people who were charged with homicides that -- were connected to the Bail Project, but when you look at the numbers, a lot more people are connected to -- traditional.

>> Traditional.

>> Options, family friends, commercial that sort of thing.

>> Yeah, to that point, I mean, -- there was a couple of high-profile case wheres the Bail project had bailed people out who then went on to allegedly commit violent crimes but to say that, only the Bail Project was the problem and not traditional bail bondsmen with this sort of law does that make sense legally?

I'm not going to ask you for legal analysis.

>> You don't want that.

>> Does that make sense to you?

>> Technically because they're doing the same thing ultimately, obviously, the revenues are coming from different places but at the end of the day, and the -- the author of this bill made it clear that there is no -- there's no regulation, no oversight on these charity bail organizations at all prior to legislation being enacted and even the legislation says we're still only targeting violent offenders repeat offenders with violent histories so I think that's mainly the main crux of it going forward.

>> ANN DELANEY: This is a totally phony bill.

Okay?

It's phony because they are attempting to do something or saying they're doing something about violent crime in Marion county.

They don't want to deal with the issue of guns, in Marion County and the fact that 14-year-olds can get it over Instagram connections, and all of that can be traceed to the fact that in this state, I think they're going to issue guns when the children are born, it's ridiculous how easy they are to get.

And that's all this is, to say we did something about violent crime in Marion County, it doesn't do anything and it's going to be thrown out because it targets one group that isn't P doing anything different than all the other groups and, actually, providing some competition, to some of the bail agencies that are out there.

So it's not going anywhere, and it is bogus, and what they ought to do is deal with concealed carry, and the other things that are contributing to the violent crime here and around the country.

>> I'll be honest, I don't, obviously, I'm not a lawyer, I have no idea how this case is going to be resolved but at the very least Niki we didn't get an ACLU lawsuit up on abortion this year, at least, one on something else.

>> Maybe they need funding.

>> They need the fees.

>> In the end, it's been a major contributor for the ACLU for the last few years, maybe they get a chance, for a payday, that's "Indiana Week in Review" for this week, our panel is Democrat Ann DeLaney; Republican Chris Mitchem; Kaitlin Lange at the IndyStar, and Niki Kelly of States newsroom Indiana got to get used to saying that.

If you would like a Podcast of this program you can find it at WFYI.org/IWIR or starting Monday you can stream it, we'll get it on demand from Xfinity and on the WFYI app, I'm Brandon Smith of Indiana Public Broadcasting, join us next time because a lot can happen in an Indiana Week.

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