More money for the LEAP district.

The Department of Health defends itself in court.

Plus, a GOP convention preview and more from the television studios at WFYI.

It's Indiana Week in Review for the week ending June 14th, 2024.

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

This week, the State Budget Committee approved nearly $100 million more for the Indiana Economic Development Corporation's controversial leap district in Central Indiana.

And some of that money will go towards securing about 1400 more acres of land for the project.

The new money had previously been earmarked for the IDC to lure an advanced manufacturing company to the state, but that project is stalled, prompting the shift to the leap district in Boone County.

The state has spent hundreds of millions on leaps so far, and only Eli Lilly has announced plans to locate at the site.

But IDC Vice President Mark Boesky says there's strong confidence and conversations with other companies.

The companies involved are engaged in advanced computing, information technology, .... component manufacturing and biopharmaceutical manufacturing, which we anticipate to result in tens of billions of dollars in capital investment.

That's all the details the IDC is willing to share.

And Democrats like Representative Ed DeLaney say more information is needed.

I think the number of open ended questions, the kinds.

Of dollar amounts.

The uncertainty, the lack of the report on the water study alone.

I don't think this is a matter that this body should act on today.

the new land purchases will bring the total site to around 9000 acres.

Aren't you surprised lawmakers are forging ahead so quickly?

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

Democrat Ann DeLaney.

Republican Mike O'Brien.

Oseye Boyd editor-in-chief of Mirror Indy.

And Whitney Downard, senior reporter for the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

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

I almost forgot my name for a second.

Ann DeLaney.

a House Republican, just lost her re-election bid, in large part due to issues related to the leftist right.

Doesn't that give lawmakers pause?

Those lemmings that are on the budget committee for the Republicans who didn't ask a question, didn't make a comment.

They were more concerned with the welcome stations for the state than they were on this project.

That's, you know, it's a half $1 billion.

And it's like the Field of Dreams will build it.

They'll come.

I mean, they're paying incredible amounts per acre for the land.

They don't know where the electricity is coming from.

They don't know where the water is coming from.

They don't know if they can get water for it, and they don't know who's going to pay for it in the surrounding areas to get the electricity and water there.

I mean, it is it was poorly thought out at the beginning.

They certainly didn't plan for these eventualities.

This group has not enough oversight, and it's about time for the legislature to rein them in, because this is ridiculous that you're spending this amount of money on the off chance that somebody is going to want to come.

I know they claim credit for Lily.

Lily was going there anyway.

Okay.

And they don't need the IDC to do a project.

So I really think oversight is necessary.

In light of Sharon Nagel's loss.

are you surprised?

It was relatively easily rubber stamped by the budget Committee?

No, because that's the role is for them to go in front of the budget committee to meet that and explain what they're doing for money that's already been appropriated from that standpoint.

No, I mean, the state budget committee serve the function that they, you know, the budget requires them to serve.

I agree, we had Lily was early on.

but that was largely a manufacturing facility.

The advanced the next two phases that brought that investment up to $9 billion are in large part or in part because of because the LEAP district that they were in, Lily was looking to go and other places in the country for that before they before they announced those investments.

So you are starting to see some some activity there, but look at it say it is a new risky kind of on the cutting edge strategy for economic development, for very high paying jobs, for very advanced, companies that are and high tech companies that were the state's trying to attract.

So.

so, yeah, I mean, I, I'm sure they're not I'm sure they're feeling the heat.

Of course they're feeling pressure.

It's a ton of money.

There's a lot of questions around it.

There's a lot of controversy around it with the water and the, and the and the electricity.

But I do I do expect because legislature, as has been Republicans, the legislature have been in this season of pushing back on state agencies are pulling more authority to the legislature, to the legislative branch, from the executive branch, when they perceive that, rightly or wrongly, that the agency is acting too autonomously or making big decisions without it.

Notably not on the IDC.

Not so far.

Not so far.

I think it's I think it's coming.

I think the next session is going to be it.

Well, I.

Wanted to add that even with the three phases of Lily, they revealed that they only had enough water from Lebanon's utility for the first phase, and they think they can only get 10 to 15 million more gallons of water, and they need 80 million in the next two decades in order to fully the.

This really moved up a problem that that they knew was coming, which is water resources in northern or central Indiana.

Because, because because of the growth that was a problem that was gonna have to get solved.

We've just made it.

Well, to the point, though, to that point, though.

So the IBJ, wrote this week that the Lebanon, the mayor of Lebanon basically said all of our water is accounted for, like we have enough water for everything we need.

And everything we know right now is coming.

But if we had any more construction, any more facilities, we don't right now have the water for that.

That seems like a more pressing problem than, well, we'll figure it out eventually.

I agree.

water is a necessary resource.

We need it to live.

We need to survive.

So?

So it seems like you would try to data centers.

Yeah.

And they're bringing.

And they're bringing in these high paying jobs that will use a lot of water.

So it seems like they will want to go ahead and solve this problem before we start talking.

And I.

Did I.

Did.

And when I went to the website just to go kind of look around and say, it looks like it's a done deal.

It looks like everything is in place.

You wouldn't know that nothing is really happening until you really read.

and then you really find out, oh, there's a water study.

They were still trying to figure out what are we going to do about, some that we need to drink.

That's the sales part, you know.

The dirty car out of.

The.

Well, I mean, in all seriousness to that point, to that point.

But water Mark to talk to Mark, you talked about how they're having I think there's like three companies there in very strong conversations with that.

They're very hopeful Will will come to the LEAP district.

But if you're those companies, you're not you're not just buying the sales pitch off the top.

That's the that's going to.

Be down to the.

Fact you're going to down, you're going to you're going to know that right now.

The the mayor of Lebanon said, we don't have water for you, but you're not going to make that conversation harder.

But they also know a lot more than we know, which was part of the transparent transparency conversation.

But he hoped these companies still.

Aren't stupid companies.

I mean, they're going to they're going to do their due diligence and they're having which is that's part of the angst with the IDC.

It's like we're in these conversations, what with who?

I can't tell you.

And it's like, okay, well, that's that's an unusual reaction in government, but it's a necessary one in this case because these are sensitive conversations.

You are in competition with other places to try to land.

Deals that they're in conversations, and that those conversations are.

I know that even then even goes to that even goes to the idea of when I think it was Representative DeLaney who was saying, well, how much are you paying for this land that you want to buy up?

And to a certain point they're like, well, we don't want to say totally, because we don't want to negotiate against ourselves in public, but isn't that a big part of the problem?

If you're if you're creating this huge district, first of all, you don't leave holes in the middle of the district before you go forward, okay?

Because you just put yourself in a terrible bargaining position and every single one of those lanDownards there will know what was paid for the land adjacent to them.

It's not going to be a secret.

All right, time now for viewer feedback.

Each week we pose an unscientific online poll question.

And this week's question is do you support the IDC's leap District in central Indiana?

A yes or no?

Last week, we asked you whether the debates can have an impact on the governor's race.

63% of you say yes, 37% say no.

If you'd like to take part in the poll.

Go to WFYI.org slash.

We're and look for the poll.

Now last month, an anti-abortion group filed a lawsuit against the Indiana Department of Health to regain access to individual terminated pregnancy reports.

The agency stopped sharing them last year, citing patient privacy concerns.

This week, two Indiana physicians who provide abortion care in the state filed a motion to prevent the organization from obtaining the reports.

The motion explains the providers have a personal stake in the outcome of the case for a variety of reasons, such as avoiding conflict of legal duties and protecting patient privacy.

It highlights last year's state Medical Board decision that determined partial disclosure of information violated privacy protections.

The group representing the physician says the 31 data points required on the reports can be used to identify individual patients.

The motion also says the providers have an interest in preventing Attorney General Todd Richter's interpretation of the statute from becoming law.

In April, Rokita released an advisory opinion that said the decision to not disclose the reports complicates enforcement of Indiana law.

The physicians motion says the providers want to avoid unauthorized surveillance by a private organization with no relevant expertise.

It argues the antiabortion group behind the suit is not a neutral public servant.

Meanwhile, the Indiana Capital Chronicle reported this week that it appears the Department of Health has retained its own outside attorneys in the case without seemingly required permission from Attorney General Rokita.

Like O'Brien, this gets messy.

What happens when a state agency and the attorney general disagree over a legal issue like this?

Chaos.

I think we're going to find out.

it's it's really it's really it's complicated.

It's really it's tricky because one receipt is correct.

If either you love that lawyer or not, not having access to information on where people are and why or seeking abortions, does does interfere with enforcement that you may not support or not.

So I don't disagree with them there.

The problem is he's now taking this public position that's adverse to the agency position, and now he's got to go be their lawyer.

Clearly he won't be, but he won't be.

But what's it just it's just gets complicated when you.

And this is a this is an extreme example of, you know, when you have an attorney general that's taking a lot of public positions on policy that has nothing really to do with what the four corners of the law that you're, that you're trying to inform.

Yeah, I'm with you.

I don't necessarily think I disagree with Todd Rokita on this legal issue.

I'm not a lawyer, of course, but it seems to me if they weren't public before and now they're not, nothing has changed the problem.

Well, first of all the laws changed okay.

And then the second.

Law regarding abortions.

Yes.

But you also get to the point where you in very small communities where we easy to pinpoint who the person was, who had the abortion, and that is a violation of her privacy.

So there's that.

But in this particular case, Rokita has no choice.

He has to allow or he has to sanction the hiring of outside counsel.

He can't represent both sides of the issue, especially when baiting one side to get involved in this question.

And if he doesn't, if he fights it and takes it to the Supreme Court, which when he lose, I think that invites another disciplinary complaint.

You can't be on both sides of an issue.

He knows that if he ever bothers to read the Indiana Code and to read the canons of ethics, so he needs to step back from that, allow outside counsel to be hired, and then he can go on his own white charger and see what he can do.

Because to that point, he he did basically invite this group to sue over this law.

No, he held a press conference saying he disagreed with the Department of Health's interpretation.

And to kind of piggyback on what Anne was saying, I think the idea is when you were having, you know, a couple hundred abortions, that if, you know, you had one woman, 126 year old woman from a town with only 500 people, well, how many a 26 year old woman are in this town?

Like, it's going to be pretty easy to identify who this woman is and what he wants to do.

I think that's when they started, you know, realizing that when there's such small numbers of abortions, it's so much easier to identify who this person might be.

To identify and shame that perso I recall years and years ago when then Attorney General Greg Zeller, a Republican, refused to defend, an immigration bill that Indiana had passed because or at least a bunch a large portion of that bill that was being sued over because the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in a case out of Arizona that was basically it was the same law that Indiana had just borrowed after Arizona and passed it.

And he said, the Supreme Court has spoken.

I'm not going to defend a law that is clearly now unconstitutional.

And I remember Senate Republicans at the time being very, very angry about that and threatening to do something about it.

I don't think we'll hear Republicans be very, very angry about Todd Rokita now, but does the legislature need to create something because the Attorney General's office is statutorily created?

There's no constitutional involvement to that office.

Does the legislature need to address this situation where an elected attorney general disagrees with appointed agency heads over the county, part of.

The canons of ethics already addressed that he's a lawyer.

He can't be on both sides of the issue.

But does the legislature need to do something to probably now?

Probably now, because he said in precedent.

And so I do think that the next time he can, he can do whatever he wants to do or the next attorney general.

I do think there's a precedent being set.

And so there needs to be something done about it.

because he's become a very active in these social issues, not become he is has been.

To the point you've been before is this another argument for the attorney general should be appointed?

Absolutely, absolutely.

It really is.

All right.

Hundreds of Indiana Republican convention delegates will gather in Indianapolis this weekend to choose the party's nominees for lieutenant governor and attorney general.

The GOP nominee for the attorney general is already set.

Incumbent Todd Rokita is unopposed as he seeks a second term.

It's the race for lieutenant governor.

That's drawing attention this year.

Typically, the nominee for governor chooses their running mate and convention delegates rubber stamp the pick.

But ultra conservative pastor Micah Beckwith has been running a public campaign for lieutenant governor since last year.

He frames himself as a check on the establishment and was inspired to run, in part due to anger over Governor Eric Holcomb's Covid 19 mitigation policies.

Beckwith faces off against state lawmaker Julian McGuire, who gubernatorial nominee Mike Braun named as his pick for the spot.

Whitney Downard does, now, I didn't have this into the piece because we learned it after I filed this story for the show last night.

Donald Trump, came out on social media last night endorsing Julian McGuire in the lieutenant governor's race.

does that maybe secure the nomination for Jerry Maguire?

I want to say that I think Julian McGuire has a pretty good chance.

I don't, you know, I think Beckwith is probably going to get a pretty strong support, but I don't think that.

I mean, I could be wrong.

Not many of us did not see Diego Morales upset over Holly Sullivan, but I think that the Trump nom nod might kind of push her over the edge for some of the people who are on the fence still.

But I don't think it will have an overwhelming effect.

Yeah.

I mean, the the the analogy to the Diego Morales victory at the convention seems pretty direct here.

but arguably the Republican leadership, is a little more prepared this time than they were for the Diego Morales upset.

What do you think happens this week?

Well, I definitely think that, Trump's endorsement, Trump's endorsement has helped create a little more confusion, in the process.

And some of the, some of the, so many people that Beckwith attracts, I think, now are trying to figure out who do they go for?

Do I go for, do I go for Maguire?

Do I go for Beckwith?

so it's going to be interesting to see where it lands for sure.

I think, it's made the race a little more interesting.

Something I don't think was as interesting before because she was also battling this, this whole idea that she's establishment to establishment for someone that, target audience.

Yeah.

I mean, is Beckwith got a compel So the one element that's missing from this convention that has been present in the previous upset victory is whether it was Hallie Sullivan and Diego Morales.

Go all the way back to, you know, Mitch Daniels and John Kasich for attorney general renominated Greg Allen, or the convention nominee or the one element that's missing this time is that delegates are also trying to, like, kind of take a bite out of the governor.

They were angry about something with Holcomb.

They were mad about Covid with Mitch.

They were mad about kind of all these things that he had changed and disrupted in the party and and, and they were looking to kind of take a shot at him.

And that's not really in play here.

You know, we just nominated Mike Braun.

It's been a it's been a really good there hasn't been like fallout from a hard primary.

You know inside of the party.

There's not people that are refusing to you know, kind of come together, make sure we're all we're all supporting Mike Braun and make sure that he gets elected in November.

So that's the one thing in my analysis of this, having been in all these conventions, including the ones or the rough sets, that elements really change and there's no like negative undertone to what's driving any supporter for Mike.

Come back with a lot of a lot of delegates I talked to were trying to just kind of make a decision based on the two people, and that Mike Braun is like, no, I want this person.

It's good enough for me.

Frankly, I'm an old party guy, so I'm kind of top down.

Like, that's the thing the governor won, so that's what he gets for.

That's kind of the start.

But but is that kind of like for me, is that mindset becoming more and more rare among conventions?

Sure.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

what does Beckwith if if Beckwith can win?

What does that do to the race?

I mean, is it possible for them to tack more to the right?

that's what it does, clearly.

And the one the one element of this that may, interfere with the analysis you just gave, Mike, is the fact that the, well, is the fact that of all the people that he chose, he chose the one person who retired Jordan, who was the savior of that of that group.

Yeah.

He wasn't loved by the far right, though.

He was, but he was.

He may not have been loved, but he was.

He was, Jacob.

Natural.

Jacob.

I'm sorry.

You're right, you're right.

Well, I'm trying to forget about him, actually, but.

But he was a hero to some of them.

And Beckwith has been driving that message home over and over and over again.

It's interesting that Braun had to go to Trump to bail out his choice.

It shows that he doesn't have overwhelming support of the Republican hierarchy.

We've seen some reporting, even, that kind of akin to that, which is some GOP convention delegates anonymously or telling some, some folks, oh, this this looks like desperation from the Braun campaign.

Is that how you would read?

I mean, I think that it was just Braun trying to shore up the support that he has and show that, hey, you might think that I'm too establishment, but I have a connection to Donald Trump, you know, because I think that's been an argument is that he is, you know, not an outsider was the big theme of the primary election.

So I think that that's his way of saying, look, you know, look who I have a connection to and who actually I can get.

There just.

In every single ad he did.

Yeah, he wrapped himself.

And I mean, Trump endorsed him and Trump endorsed him and paid.

For the whole let me use it.

Let me ask this, though, is this also going to come down to whether or not this becomes a real precedent in the state of Indiana with loses?

He tried something.

It didn't work.

But the fact is, Beckwith wins.

Do gubernatorial nominee.

He's not choose their lieutenant governor nominees anymore.

Yeah, I think the floodgates will be open.

All right.

I think that's when we move all of these two appointed offices.

AG governor, go pick your running mate.

They're on the ballot already.

But the governor case.

The governor dies, but not for AG.

All right, well, a group of adult website operators, pornographic website operators are suing the state of Indiana over a new law that requires stricter age verification for sites that have adult content.

The operators want a judge to block the law from taking effect July 1st.

The law requires sites with material harmful to minors to verify their customers ages with a mobile driver's license or government ID, which Indiana doesn't provide, or through a third party service that verifies the customer's age.

If they don't, the law bans them from operating in Indiana.

The adult platforms and their trade association, the Free Speech Coalition, say the measure is unconstitutional censorship.

They argue the age verification requirement is both vague and won't protect children because it's easy to circumvent.

Attorney General Todd Rokita calls the law a common sense effort to shield children from pornography.

Joshua Boyd Doesn't the state have a right to protect kids from accessing adult content?

Yes, I begrudgingly yes, it does, but we're creating here a nanny state, in my opinion, in many ways.

to your point, earlier about the Lake District, we're trying to attract all these businesses, high paying jobs, but yet we've made it very unattractive to move to Indiana, in my opinion.

we we should protect.

High paying, high tech employees.

One free and open access to porn.

But my thing, I guess my thing is they will travel.

That they will easily get around high tech, easily get around that.

They will they will get around this.

They will get around this.

But my point is, yes, as a state, we should try to protect children.

That's been a theme here recently.

protect children, protect children.

But at what cost?

We protecting children?

What are we giving up on this idea of protecting children?

I remember reading the article.

what about when children, when parents give their kid the phone and then their kid somehow accesses it?

Well, that becomes a parent's responsibility.

What happened to that?

There was a time when you got your mail and you hit it and this is still kind of what this is the idea in cyberspace, on the internet of hiding from children with this verification.

It's just we don't have any business in everything.

But I don't think anybody disagrees that kids shouldn't have access to this sort of pornographic content.

And there's study after study, this study that shows how harmful it is.

I think it was Greg Taylor who was the only no vote against this bill, I think, across the entire General Assembly.

And his point was, if you want to protect kids, this isn't the way to protect kids.

Are there better options than Indiana lawmakers should be?

Yeah.

So when we asked Pornhub, Pornhub actually said, you know, we think that you should use device verification.

And there's a lot of arguments about whether or not it should be linked to devices being age appropriate.

But one of Taylor's biggest arguments against this was he didn't feel like the data would be protected by these sites and that, you know, if we put our driver's license information into an adult content website, that's our data, and we are a little willy nilly when it comes to sharing and giving out our private data.

And this is yet another way that the state is now encouraging us to give that out.

And is that something that we should be protecting, or should there be more parameters to make sure it's protected?

I think that's.

There's.

Also something talked about.

There's also a question about we know what we're trying to block access to.

What are we actually going to block?

I mean, those are all the unanswered questions, you know?

I mean, there's no everybody wants to protect children from harmful material.

Okay, I agree with that.

And I do agree that the parents have the primary responsibility for doing that.

And if there are other things you can do without jeopardizing privacy or without interfering with adults who for some reason want this information, you know, we ought to explore all of them.

There's and this has been looked at in other states, and somehow some of them have managed to deal with it.

Maybe we could do.

Yeah.

I mean, this is a nobody's against the idea, but everybody is trying to find the right way to do it.

But it's also a question of if I'm just if I'm a kid trying to look up, if I'm trying to learn about my sexuality, am I going to be blocked from seeing things that I should have the right to say?

Todd Well, I.

Mean, I mean, it's yeah, I mean, it's a little look up.

Girls know it when you see it, right?

Still, the old.

Stands in here.

We're doing a lot of pointing because I don't agree with how you want to live your life.

I need to now police you to say that you what you're doing is right or wrong.

As a lobbyist, I do want to give a shout out to whoever came up with the Free Speech Coalition as the trade association.

For that support.

Good naming.

Yeah.

That was well done.

That's Indiana Week can review for this week.

Our panel is Democrat Ann DeLaney Republican Mike O'Brien, Oseye Boyd of Mirror Indy and Whitney Downard of the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

You can find Indiana Week interviews 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 Indiana week.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the panelist.

Indiana Week in Review was a WFYI production in association with Indiana's public broadcasting stations.