- [Narrator] Indiana's abortion ban temporarily halted.

A study committee on cannabis, plus a new Ways and Means chair, and more on Indiana Week in Review for the week ending September 23rd, 2022.

Indiana Week in Review is made possible by the supporters of Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations.

- This week Indiana's near total abortion ban has been temporarily halted just three days after a judge heard arguments in a lawsuit challenging the ban.

She ruled that the law likely violates the Indiana constitution.

- [Narrator] Judge Kelsey Hanlon, who ran for the bench as a Republican said there is a recognized right to bodily autonomy in the Indiana constitution.

The abortion ban has limited exceptions for risks to the life and serious health of the pregnant person for some lethal fetal anomalies and in some cases of rape or incest.

Hanlon says the law goes too far in restricting the right to bodily autonomy by making that autonomy largely contingent upon first experiencing extreme sexual violence or significant loss of physical health or death.

The ruling means that for now, abortion is once more legal for anyone up to 20 weeks.

The state will appeal the decision.

- Are you surprised at the judge's ruling?

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

Democrat Ann Delaney, Republican Mike O'Brien, Jon Schwantes host of Indiana Lawmakers, and Niki Kelly, Editor-in-Chief for The Indiana Capital Chronicle.

I'm Indiana Public Broadcasting State House Bureau Chief, Brandon Smith.

Mike O'Brien, this came down fast.

Are you surprised by the decision?

- I'm surprised that an Owen County Republic made the decision instead of a Monroe County Democrat.

So let's start there.

I think, I don't think it's surprising.

This question over whether privacy is the right in the Indiana Constitution has a spotty history.

Pro Roe v. Wade being certainly being overturned with a court of appeals affirming it, meaning abortion is a protected right.

The Supreme court vacated it, that produced two dissents that had two opposite opinions.

So the idea that this question needs to be answered isn't I don't think it's a shock to me.

It shouldn't really be.

I know it's I know it's a hopeful, I know you're hopeful that the courts don't have injunction on a law that was passed if you're supportive of it.

But answering this question, I think should be important, is important for the pro-life community as it should be for the pro-choice community.

- This opinion could have gone obviously one of two ways.

And as Mike just pointed out, we have this debate about 15 years ago or so between two Indiana Supreme Court justices in dissents.

One saying no, there's no right.

One saying yes there is.

And she went with the yes, there is crowd.

- Right.

- What's the likelihood that this current Supreme Court goes with the no, there isn't?

- Well, I think she thinks that the likelihood is that they're gonna go with yes, there is, which because it's a preliminary injunction and you have to demonstrate a likelihood of prevailing on the merits in order to get that.

So she clearly, with her reasoning came up with the notion that you know, all of these rights, as we've seen over the course of however many years this country's been in existence evolve.

And what may not have been you know, may not have been an attitude shared by a lot of people 50 years ago is now shared by a lot of people.

And she's absolutely right.

In the past, in other kinds of situations, the state courts have determined that the rights are guaranteed by the Indiana Constitution don't actually mirror the rights provided by the federal constitution.

And in many cases, we are much more liberal about the rights that we recognize under the Indiana Constitution.

So it's not surprising at all.

I think as a Republican from Owen County, she deserves a lot of credit for following what she thinks the law is and should be.

And it obviously will have some political risk to her in that county, but nonetheless, she did the right thing.

And I think she deserves a fantastic amount of credit.

- One of the things she points out in the ruling is, and something that Solicitor General Tom Fisher pointed out in the arguments, which was even if you believe there's a right to privacy or whatever you want to call it in the Indiana Constitution in that article one, section one, they really buried it.

Even if you think that, abortion was banned in Indiana at the time the constitution was written.

And so therefore it cannot possibly be part of what's a protected right in the constitution.

And her point is things have changed in the last however, you know, 200 plus years, or a hundred and something hundred years.

Yeah, I'm not good at math.

- We can tell.

- But the point is things have changed.

Is that argument gonna hold up?

- Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, the fact is it's like women couldn't even vote when we you know, started this.

So you can't really compare everything to exactly the situation when the constitution was written.

So I do think even so-called strict constructionists have to recognize that you know, life has changed and the reason abortion and women might not have been mentioned is 'cause you know, it was just never even thought of back then.

Yeah.

- The Attorney General Todd Rokita's office is appealing this hopefully directly to the Supreme Court.

Their hope is that it'll go directly to Supreme Court.

It seems like a good chance that might happen on something like this.

The Indiana Supreme Court doesn't really get into controversial issues like this very often.

That's just not what the state court system generally covers.

Not to say that they don't do any controversial things.

Heck last year they had the Holkham verses the legislature, which was pretty darn controversial, but this is a very different level from all of that.

Do you think realistically, that will affect their deliberation?

- Well, as I've said before, they're not sealed in some sort of you know, mayonnaise jar impervious to any kind of input from the society around them.

They are last time I checked all living, breathing human beings.

So that's not to say they're gonna be swayed by it.

I think they will do their best to interpret the constitution as the best they possibly can.

But this is an undecided area.

I mean, you look back at the debate that you've just cited.

There were two very well regarded associate justices, arguing very different things.

Actually maybe was Brent Dickson maybe was chief justice at, I don't- He wasn't, okay.

Just associate justice.

I didn't want to rob him of chief status.

So it's, but yeah, it's a hot potato.

Look at, I'm fascinated how we got to this point.

I mean, it was filed in Monroe County where all the judges, I believe are Democrats and the people- - Not by accident.

- Not by accident.

- They chose that venue for a reason.

- Right, and you would think you know, once judge one says no, and they don't have to provide a reason in civil litigation as they would if they were recusing themselves in criminal trials, why they don't.

But first person said no, second person, no.

Pretty soon it's going to the judge for the district to assign it.

And in the order that sent it to Kelsey Hanlon said this is the only judge in the region, in the district that can do it and begs the rhetorical question what if she weren't around?

Everybody I guess could say no and then that throws it I guess, to a appointment of a special judge, a retired judge.

- Another mayonnaise jar.

- I mean, nobody is- - A mayonnaise jar your full judges.

- Yeah, maybe.

There's just, nobody's eager probably to tackle this.

Let's put it that way.

Kudos to her for stepping up and doing what a judge is supposed to do, which is you know, whether it's calling balls and strikes or you know, as Justice Roberts at the federal level likes to say, at least she was willing to step behind home plate and make some calls.

- After four hours of public testimony, much of it conflicting, Indiana lawmakers appear no closer to deciding whether to legalize cannabis.

- [Narrator] The legislature has been examining the subject for about four years.

And the testimony in a legislative study committee this week wasn't much different from what lawmakers have heard before.

Katie Wiley is the Chief Legal Officer for Stash Ventures, the parent company for cannabis growers and sellers in Michigan.

She says as a mother, she wants legal and regulated cannabis to help prevent a black market.

- If my child got their hands on something, I would want to know what was in it.

I would want to know it's safe, it's effective, and that there's a control around it.

- [Narrator] But Indiana prosecutors and business community leaders, chiefly the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, continue to urge legislators to pump the breaks.

Chamber Vice President, Mike Reilly says there's still no good way to determine whether someone is impaired because of cannabis.

And he says that has impacts on the criminal justice system and the workplace.

- The longer we wait to implement things, you know, more data comes out.

We think time is on our side.

- [Narrator] Both sides of the debate offered conflicting studies and data on whether cannabis legalization is better or worse for health and better or worse for public safety.

- Ann Delaney, here we go again, is there a catalyst that can finally prompt action on this in the general assembly?

- I don't know.

I mean sometimes you wonder if there are backbones in any of the people listening to this testimony and voting on some of these more controversial issues.

It just look, I mean I thought a very good case made at least for medical marijuana, for people with chronic diseases, and veterans having trouble, and they don't even wanna countenance that.

So I think the only catalyst that could spur them to do something in the way of action would be if the federal government finally got its act together and legalized it.

And they'd have to do that because this hodgepodge we have of states doing it and the money not being able to be put in banks is resulting in all kinds of corruption and robberies and this, that, and the other thing.

And it's just, it is a public- It's interesting that legalizing it has become a public safety threat, not because of the marijuana, but because of the money coming from the marijuana.

So I really think the federal government needs to step up, put their big boy pants on, since they're almost all boys, and do the right thing, and legalize it.

- As Ann points out, this is not as easy as just saying okay, legalize it.

It gets complicated.

How you set it up, how you regulate it, how you work with the banking community at the state level.

Is the best idea then for Indiana to wait for the federal government, which makes some of those more complicated issues a heck of a lot easier?

- I'm with Anne.

I can't believe the federal government hasn't just reschedule it.

And let everybody just go do, let them go have that debate, but they can have it with clean air.

- But you don't have to tell everybody- - We're this close to a Trump Attorney General starting to enforce this and say it's not really legal.

Right.

And having an federal attorney general say that.

Not that we have the capacity to enforce any of this, but look, I think in the context of the state, the Indiana legislature, it is progress for a hearing to take place.

It is progress for legislation to be introduced.

Like that isn't nothing in this debate for the legislature to make the political or the policy decision to have this conversation.

And I think you're gonna incrementally see legislation, more legislation be introduced, more players come into the state that's new.

Stash and other players coming into the state is a new dynamic in this.

It was just a theoretical conversation before.

Now you have players coming into the state saying here's how we did it in Michigan.

Here's how we did it in other places.

And that brings credibility to the argument.

And it gives lawmakers some you know, some context, and really start to think through the details, which is a measure of progress, ultimately for this- - It's money.

- How many times- - How many terms of contributions?

- How many times do you have to listen to the debate?

And how many times do you have to have the debate?

How many times do you enter?

Is it like daylight savings that we're gonna deal with it for 20 years first?

- I think everyone understood turning the clock back.

I'm not sure everyone understands the vertical integration and delivery system of cannabis.

Right or- - Well, I don't know.

- Or how we do that.

- Yeah, is that maybe the more complex part of this, is that it's not as simple.

I mean daylight savings time was are we setting the clocks back?

Are we not?

This one is if we legalize it- well, first of all, is it just for medical or is it for adults entirely?

And then setting up a regulated marketplace for it.

Is that gonna be ultimately a bigger stumbling block in these last few years presumably before it finally happens?

- There are two stumbling blocks.

One is federal inability to reschedule this.

And as long as they're a Holkham's governor, and as long as people who feel the same way that it's folly for the state to ignore federal law and pretend because of banking concerns and other sorts of financial transactions, which all of a sudden are done in cash.

And it becomes kind of a wild, wild west, you know, with six shooters on their waist making- - Well we have an open case.

(cross talk) - I was just gonna say, that's a selling point for a lot of people.

- Quite a selling point.

So that's an issue, but then beyond that, you can't just legalize it because the real money, the real bruising, the legislative roller derby here is not gonna be whether to legalize it or not.

It's gonna be how to divvy up the contracts, the licenses.

We're talking lots and lots of money here, obviously.

And those who get the foothold first are going to reap in reap significant financial gain.

That's where it's gonna be very bruising, I think more so than just the yes or no debate, which again is being held up, I think largely by the federal government.

- And what we heard again on this week was the money here isn't just okay who's gonna get rich.

Some of it is also like, as many of the people who've done this in other states have argued.

If you wanna prevent the black market from forming or reforming, it's only a black market in Indiana now, but if you wanna stop that from happening, that's going to how much you charge, like how your licensing systems work, how much you charge for some of this stuff.

That makes a difference, because if you make it out of reach for small businesses, that's where the black market then grows in a legalized state, right?

- Yeah.

I mean I listen to part of it.

I hear what you're saying that you do think there is some progress being made.

I mean, just from someone who's sat in those hearings, it sounds just the same as it sounded two years ago, and four years ago.

We've really gone nowhere on the federal side.

You know, we still have a governor who you know, doesn't wanna be involved in that until that's changed.

So, gosh, I don't know.

I don't know what the catalyst is in it.

I agree I guess there's some tiny, incremental steps, but it ultimately sounds much the same to me.

- Time now for viewer feedback.

Each week we pose an unscientific online poll question.

This week's question is a relatively simple one, I suppose.

should Indiana fully legalize cannabis?

A, yes or B, no.

Last week's question was do you care if the candidates for secretary of state have a debate?

75% of you say yes, 25% say no.

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

Indiana House Republicans have a new budget architect, 12 term representative, Jeff Thompson.

Speaker, Todd Huston recently appointed Thompson as chair of the House's most influential committee, Ways and Means.

- [Narrator] Each bill with a significant financial impact must go through the Ways and Means committee.

And the state budget starts there.

More than 50% of that budget is education, which comes in handy for Thompson.

He was a teacher for 30 years and led his caucuses efforts in recent years to rewrite the state's school funding formula.

Political scientist, Andrew Downs says Thompson can't necessarily focus on further changes to the formula now that he's the house GOP's main budget writer.

- But his awareness of the issues is certainly going to be beneficial.

- Downs notes that the average Hoosier likely won't notice a difference in the budget process under Thompson.

- You know, the governor will still chime in, the Senate, will chime in, members of the House Caucus will chime in.

I just don't, it's hard to imagine how there will be significant shifts.

- Thompson replaces Republican representative, Tim brown, who is retiring.

- Niki Kelly, is Thompson a safe choice?

- Yeah, I mean, and I think it also signals probably a more short term choice, maybe one or two budget cycles.

Obviously representative Thompson's been around for more than 20 years.

So maybe they're gonna try to put a younger person you know, and give him sort of the training along the way.

- Well, that's what they did.

- Yep.

- And the person that they were training was Todd Huston, who then became Speaker of the House.

So kind of derailed that whole plan of succession.

- Yeah, and obviously representative Thompson, he's got a lot of knowledge on the K12 side.

He'll have to bone up a little on some of the you know, other agencies, but I think he should have no problem this session getting through.

- In talking to Andy downs, Andy pointed out that Jeff Thompson kind of straddles the line of he's from a suburbanish area.

- Greater Lizton.

- Yeah, the donut counties certainly, kind of a nod to the donut counties around Indianapolis, but he also, he's got a foot in the ag community certainly.

He's a public school teacher.

He kind of checks off a lot of boxes.

- He does.

And he gets the system.

He understands the institution.

He respects the institution.

You have some people who just want to torch the whole thing.

And don't even like the idea that the state collects money.

I may be being somewhat hyperbolic, but not much.

But the state collects money and then dispenses it.

- Pays them.

- So he is safe in that regard.

And I think you're right.

He probably won't stay as long as some, but this is as Committee Chair assignments go, I was thinking back modern history.

And I'll say modern history is basically since you were running for- - Us.

- Us, okay.

Modern history.

- If he were a DC, he'd be a young guy.

One of the young guys.

- There have been five, prior to this have been five in that modern history, which we'll say it had been five chairs.

And there would've not been that many, except you had change of control of the parties.

So even there it's an eight year, you know, average, 'cause I'm saying roughly 40 years.

- I mean, yeah, Doc Brown was close to 10 years.

- Yeah.

- As a lobbyist, we talked a lot in before this decision was announced, we talked a lot about partly why it matters is you have all these folks out there, both in government and outside of government who were trying to prepare their pitches on the upcoming state budget.

And without knowing who that chair was gonna be, makes it hard to know how to tailor that pitch.

How do you tailor a pitch without giving away too many secrets Ann Delaney?

How do you tailor a pitch?

- That's that's what he gets paid for.

- Well the upside is you've been pitching him for years, right.

I mean he had the office next to Tim Brown.

You know, this guy, it's not like he got pulled out obscure.

He's been on the committee forever.

- Which wasn't the case, which wasn't the case with Tim Brown.

I mean, obviously he was the Chair of the Public Health.

- He was a surprise pick.

- He was a surprise pick.

This feels- - At the time.

- Yeah.

- As a lobbyist, as the former Hendricks County Republican Chairman, I love having a Hendricks County guy from Greater Lizton Indiana.

The only Lizton on planet earth.

- There you go.

So yeah, no, I think it's a good pick.

I don't think, I think it's continuity.

I think it's stability.

And you know, as lobbyists, we don't love, you know, turmoil and surprises.

- From a Democrat's perspective, is Jeff Thompson a good pick?

- I think so, especially among the group that were eligible.

Yes, I think he's a good pick.

I mean, he knows - As close as you're ever gonna get.

- Yeah, well, he knows enough about how the bulk of the money for the state is spent.

I just hope he has some vision and some ideas about how we deal with all the money that they have in reserve with all the needs that are out there.

And they're not gonna turn into an abominable noman like Tim Brown was.

It's time for us to invest- - Is that one of your husband's lens?

- No, actually I've never even tried that out.

- Oh, all right.

- It sounds like something- - Should I?

- Sounds like something I would've called you on before.

- No, no, but the point is with all of that money, we need somebody that understands how the state works and has a vision for what the state could be and is willing to make the investments necessary to get us there.

And I'm hoping he's one of those people.

- I would absolutely bet he has a vision for how that reserve should be spent.

I don't know if you'll like that vision.

I bet he hasn't- - As long as it's not gonna be in some chicken whatever, half of a percent of a cut of something that you know, so we don't have the money the next time we need it.

- All right, Indiana like many other states has seen a recent increase in the number of women registering to vote ahead of this year's election.

According to our report this week in the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

- [Narrator] The Capital Chronicle story says there were a little more than 278,000 people who either newly registered or updated their voter registration since January.

Data from the Secretary of State's office shows that of those people, 52% were women.

Women make up 50.4% of the total state population, according to the Census Bureau.

The gender discrepancy in registration was much sharper in other states.

In Kansas, women registrants were 16 percentage points higher now than before the Supreme Court ruled on abortion this year.

It's more than five percentage points higher in Idaho, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

Jon Schwantes, is Indiana's number enough to make much of a difference one way or the other this fall?

- I think it could make a difference.

You know, the challenge when you start to compare the disparity or the uptick with other states, then you have to assume almost that every woman votes the same way on this issue and is motivated primarily by this issue.

And then you have to, once you make that leap, then you have to take another leap and say that everybody will turn out who is registered, which is another, perhaps even bigger, well, not bigger leap.

They're both big leaps.

So my point- - If you don't register, you can't get your next- - My point is we based on what we've seen elsewhere and granted, the numbers are not, we haven't seen as much of a ground swell here, but still there is a force.

There is something going on here and not just from the data, which thank goodness you did the story, but it's good to know the facts 'cause anecdotally, I hear a lot of people, 20 something women, and even young men who are motivated by this issue and are in alignment, gender not withstanding on their motivated perhaps to go to the polls this time around to a degree they haven't in the past.

So I'm not willing to say oh, it happened in other states because it was more than 5% uptick.

It could happen.

I think that is a wildcard in virtually every race this November across the country.

- The biggest jump, obviously in Kansas, I mean way bigger than everybody else.

And there's an obvious reason there.

They had a vote they had to take directly on abortion.

We were the first state to pass an abortion ban in the wake of Dobbs, a new one.

Are you surprised that the jump wasn't a little higher?

- I thought it might be a little higher.

What I found fascinating was the new registrations are still more men than women, but it's the updating.

And so what we're seeing a lot on that is maybe lapsed female voters who were frustrated and they've you know, they just gave up a couple times ago and now they're like, you know what no, I want my voice to be heard this time.

Let's change my address.

Let's get this going back.

And that's where we're seeing more of the women come in is updating their vote.

- We are making a big assumption here though, which is that the reason that these women are registering or updating is because of abortion A, and it's on the cause of pro-abortion rights.

Is that too big an assumption to make?

- I don't think so.

I really don't think so.

And the other part of this is we still have another what, two or three weeks for registration coming up too, and that's when- - A lot can happen in Indiana in a week, you know.

- Yeah, I know, but that's when the tables get set up and the signs go up and that kind of thing.

So it's gonna be interesting to look at those numbers after the 30 days before the election.

- If you're a Republican candidate, do these numbers make you give you pause at all?

- Well, I've said before, there's a catalyst for some of these kind of purple areas.

There's an issue that can be a catalyst, just like healthcare reform in Southern Indiana was a catalyst for Democrats to change their voting habits.

But when 2016, when I ran the governor's campaign, people would like when early voting started and we started seeing these huge numbers turning out in largely Republican areas, people would twist some themselves in knots with me trying to explain that so this was gonna be a Republican repudiation of Donald Trump and they'd have all these theories why that was.

And I used to just say look, I think if we're seeing historic numbers of Republicans voting in traditionally Republican areas, I think they're probably mostly voting Republican and that's what wound up happening.

So let's see where the early voting is.

This isn't that, right.

This isn't that.

This isn't an Ann issue versus a you know, a candidate, but we'll see.

That's why we have the election.

- Numbers like this make me think I don't know if we'll see a huge impact on statewide races, but is the place where this could have more of an impact because we don't know of course necessarily where all of these people are.

Is it on those smaller, if you will state house races where something like this could have a bigger impact?

- Sure.

I think again, I tend think generally speaking, those races are decided by issues that aren't the kind of headline issues.

- Let you stand out.

- They tend to be, right.

They tend to be oh, that's my insurance agent or that's my kid's teacher.

Oh and I know that person, it's a neighbor.

This may be different.

This because this is engaging people who either have not engaged in the past or as you point out, might have decided to sit the past few cycles out.

- Yeah, it could make a difference though, in those donut county areas where we've got some strong women running.

- Yeah, that's part of the key too, as you've pointed out before.

If you don't have a candidate running, it's hard to make a difference.

Those are the areas where they are.

- It's going to Republicans and urban and suburban centers.

- All right, that's Indiana Week in Review for this week.

Our panel is Democrat Ann Delaney, Republican Mike O'Brien, Jon Schwantes of Indiana Lawmakers, and Niki Kelly of the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

You can find Indiana Week in Review's podcast and episodes at WFYI.org/IWIR, or on the PBS video app.

I'm Brandon Smith of Indiana Public Broadcasting.

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

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] The opinions expressed are solely those of the panelists.

Indiana Week in Review is a WFYI production in association with Indiana's Public Broadcasting Stations.