The Indiana General Assembly kicked off its 20 22 legislative session January 4th and this year's short session as it's called will run until March 14.

As of today, more than 500 bills have been filed with more bills expected to be filed for consideration during the session 10 weeks.

>> What lies ahead then legislatively for Indiana lawmakers?

That's the question we'll discuss with our guests on this edition of PrimeTime.

And good evening.

Ever since with us today are Nicki Kelly, statehouse reporter for the Journal Gazette.

>> Leo Morris, columnist for the Indiana Policy Review and Andy Downs from the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics at Perdue Fort Wayne .

>> And we welcome you all.

Thank you for being with us and happy New Year I think.

Thank you.

Happy New to you and Nicki all the way down 69 from up here in Fort Wayne .

>> Happy New Year to you as well.

>> We're awfully glad you were able to join us for this program and to kick off the year.

Thanks so much for having me.

>> Hey, before we talk about the content of the session though, maybe you can shed some light on the kind of container aspects of it.

A year ago folks were in the Indiana Government Center.

>> House members committee meetings were all in different situations beyond the normal and the Senate took over the whole chamber at the statehouse.

We're assuming from your reporting and from what we've seen that everyone wants to be back where they've been.

>> Is that right?

>> Yeah.

I mean I think people missed the House members definitely missed being in the House chamber.

The senators who were stuck up in the gallery didn't really like it.

So we are we are going full force with no covid protocols at all.

You know, we're cramming into the small committee rooms again and we're not social distancing and I guess we're just hoping that, you know, everything works out OK.

They don't really have a backup plan for if there are outbreaks and there hope and everyone just is personally responsible to take care of their own health and we will come back to that because all of this happening at a time when the state's caseload is climbing and all McCRUDDEN is arriving with its luggage and lots of other dynamics are in place, certainly not the least of which on the on the House with its measures.

>> But Andy, the long and short of Indiana legislative sessions, everyone talks about a long session in the short session.

>> How did we get to that?

What is the purpose of a short session?

>> The long one builds the budget.

What does the short one do?

Well, it depends on who you ask.

If you go back and talk with people who've been around for a long time they'll tell you the purpose of the short session was to do the things that they couldn't get done or needed to get done sort of emergency type things that come up and they would say that this is the session when they deal with a minimal number of things, not a whole lot of like opening up the entire code .

But if you talk to let's say younger members, people more recently watching it, they say no, it's just another legislative session.

>> We just don't happen to make a budget during it.

So depends on who you talk to.

I said before the show I wanted to give a shout out to Jim Buck.

Yeah, he's in Kokomo.

He's a state senator from District Twenty one for years now as an editorial writer in the last four years just writing a weekly about once a year I make a plea to in the short session that's more government than we need.

It was supposed to be for emergencies and Buck has introduced a bill for the last three years and he just he introduced another one this year to end this recession which they can do by the way through law they don't need a constitutional amendment.

It's never gotten out of committee.

It's never even gotten a hearing.

But he tells me that he gets more support every year and I believe he's going to keep at it because as a legislator before he became a senator he was one of the people instrumental in getting the House members limited to how many bills they could introduce to each in the long session five each in a short session.

So shut out the jumbuck and we should mention that it's not unusual for us to change the meetings.

>> This is something that's happened over time.

So while today we may think of only just a short in a long session, there have been times when we've met more frequently and less frequently when they amended the Constitution in 1970 to do away with the biennial session they made the language kind of vague and said in years when the legislature meets social thought out that at that you know, if you read that one way they could meet say to meet every fifth year as they wanted to more power to him if he would do that.

>> But they won't.

Well, and we begin January with memories recent memories of what could have been one of the shortest sessions back in late November.

There was to be a one day session called for the purpose of passing a piece of legislation that would deal with ending the health emergency and also address vaccine mandates and let me go back to Nikki first on this one.

Nikki, you were reporting this at the time and legislative leaders felt like they were really well.

>> I don't know what were they thinking about calling a short session like this that then ultimately was canceled and this is how we are getting to now.

>> Yeah, I mean they wanted to put these things in the statute that would allow them to in that public health emergency.

They feel like it's it's almost like a just a they want to show that we're moving forward but then they put in some vaccine mandate language that made it very controversial and a lot more complicated.

They heard seven hours of testimony and realized they were not ready to pass a bill in one day.

So we're back doing that bill now.

>> In fact, it got out of committee on Thursday and so it'll go before the full House next week and this is where the average about the lower the number of the bill, the higher the priority and they've been and they've made this House bill ten.

>> Oh, well, I think that's in part because this is something they thought they would be able to take care of in that short little session.

But as Nikki pointed out after hours of testimony they realized maybe we don't know what we're doing here or what we want to do here.

I should say there really are kind of two things they're trying to accomplish.

One of them I think wholeheartedly supported by the governor, the other one not so much but it's indicative of an interesting tension and I think that exists right now and that tension is between trying to protect and embrace and even elevate personal rights and liberties and the other sort of looking at the traditional roles especially of the Republican Party being pro-business and being a smaller a party for smaller government as Leo just mentioned a moment ago, now you have the possibility that in the name of personal liberties the government may tell the government the business is something that they have to do, which is an interesting quandary to be in and when businesses are kind of facing it from up from the top and the bottom up while the state is debating what to do, you know, like requiring businesses to provide exemptions from vaccination mandates or testing in lieu of vaccinations and not charge the employees for it.

The federal government is the Supreme Court just today heard arguments on the Biden administration's plan to require companies over with more than 100 employees to to mandatorily test.

So if you know while the states are debating this that's going on at the federal level too.

And if the federal government if the Supreme Court should uphold Biden's mandate, that kind of supersedes anything the state can do so lots of things like that tensions not only within the state but pressure from outside of state to know if I understand it correctly, the Senate measure Senate Bill three wants to be sure that the states health emergency ends in a reasonable, prudent manner so that federal funds can still be received and vaccinations would still continue.

>> But that other provision related to vaccine mandates and the role of business and the role of the government that's that's still not necessarily in in concert with the House measure at this hour.

>> I think the Senate version also maybe I don't think it was the Senate version and just added a provision that states will the state will reimburse since companies can't charge the employees can't push the cost of testing off the employees, the state will reimburse businesses for that cost that which might make it more palatable to business Nikki.

Let me ask you from what you've been hearing around the state House from the Senate side of this bill, how how far apart are the two chambers on this this notion of the health emergency and vaccine mandate on the issue of the health emergency they're all on board and the Senate the reason they filed it separately is they just want to get that done and over to the governor like within a couple weeks they're hoping to get that off thing and they might very well come to agreement on the vaccine mandate language but they don't want to slow down ending the public health emergency.

>> OK. Now meanwhile in the Senate there is if you're scoring at home Senate Bill 114 which has been referencing something called vaccine status discrimination, another piece of legislation and so Nikki, let me start with you on that and then have the the gentleman here also weigh in discrimination in what way?

>> Yeah.

So during the hearings on that one Bill, what we heard a lot of people get up there and say was I should be protected from discrimination.

In other words, if I'm not vaccinated I shouldn't have to be made to wear a mask or made to get testing or in any way sort of separated out among other employers or employees or even in public.

So they want to kind of add it kind of like we have a civil rights code that protects you for your race, your religion, things like that.

I have not heard a lot of interest in that idea from leadership.

So I think I'm not sure that one will really get enough steam.

I think they'll focus on slightly lower level stuff on that.

>> And I have a feeling like Nikki I think that it will make for some interesting conversations.

I think that there's the possibility we'll see maybe a hearing on it.

I'm not even sure that will happen but certainly some folks will write some letters to the editor.

They will write some op ed columns, some legislators will talk about it.

>> But I don't anticipate that one making it very far.

I just like to kind of jump on some add on something you said earlier which is the the tension between individual liberty and autonomy and society and obligation to the larger group and I think that's been at play a lot here.

An interesting concept that's been batted around a lot lately bodily sovereignty and that's that's interesting me as a conservative and libertarian at war with myself sometimes I find it interesting that a lot of conservatives now are coming out in favor of bodily sovereignty when they always haven't necessarily I mean what's the difference between telling me I must take a vaccine if the idea is I don't harm society and telling me I can't take care one if the result is I heard society where does body sovereignty end and my obligation to society begin and I would like to hear that discussed a lot between liberals, conservatives and libertarians.

>> Those concepts may well arise as again 10 to one goes to the floor.

I believe next week because we're short session and everything is expedited expedited.

The real issue is that in a long session they'll be about twelve hundred pieces of legislation that are introduced in a short session.

It's only about eight hundred.

So they they do things a little bit faster in some respects but they're also dealing with a much smaller number of bills.

>> One no bill is the next one to two which also gets lots of coverage in print media and electronic as well.

And this is all about the money which was not supposed to be about the short session, some will argue.

But this is the notion of Indiana's tax revenue so strong projections so good not only are we all eligible for a return of funds of a kind in May but maybe by 2025 we will be taking about a billion dollars out with additional tax reductions chambers mileage may vary and when we start with you on this one, where do you think where do you think it's going?

>> Well, I would actually say let's have Leo start with this one as the as the identified conservative libertarian.

>> Let's see what he has to say about the tax.

How can we describe what we have?

It's an embarrassment of riches .

We have hundreds of millions of dollars floating around from a couple you know, from the cold relief bill and the infrastructure bill plus our what's expected be a five billion dollar surplus which is like what, 29 or 30 percent of total spending which is unheard of .

I mean we shoot for 10 and sometimes we get 15 and I say, you know, they see if they do this business tax cut it'll cost the state this 500 million and if they do this in personal income tax cut, it will cost the state this much.

I say what one way of saying it cost your state as much as that saves taxpayers this much.

So the more they want to give us back or let us keep the more I like.

>> So maybe that's a minority view.

But now for me when I look at just a few years ago when everyone thought well we've cut things about as far as we need to cut them in order to be competitive from a business attraction standpoint, I find it interesting a couple of years later we're able to have a discussion about cutting taxes again.

But part of that conversation has to be about that surplus, that rainy day fund that is growing to a very large measure.

But this is not exactly money that's coming in on a regular basis.

A chunk of this is money that's a one time expenditure from the federal government or one in one time expenditure from the government and the federal government.

So I think we have to be careful about what it is we decide to do from a tax structure, tax rate, et cetera point of view going forward.

>> Having said that, given that this is not the budget year, given that this is the year when they sort of deal with those things that kind of pop up or emergences, what could happen or what maybe we should be looking for is a very interesting conversation about what to do, not necessarily action being taken this year.

Now Nikki can tell me I'm I'm being pie in the sky thinking that this will just be an interesting conversation and they're not going to take action this year but will next year.

>> That's the advantage she has of being down in Indianapolis and listening to what they have to say on a regular basis.

So let's handicap this.

>> Go ahead.

Yeah, I mean it's fascinating.

One thing I do want to clarify real quickly though we're not talking about the five billion in surplus is all state money.

None of that is the federal money that we got from covid.

The question is did all the money that the federal government that they pumped into the economy.

Is that what led to our increased taxes because everyone is spending that money?

So we got more sales tax revenue.

We got more income tax revenue that kind.

Now the fascinating thing is House Republicans are all in on this tax cut and they're pushing hard.

>> Republicans say we want to wait till 2020 three.

That's when we do the budget.

Let's not get ahead, you know, and then we've got Governor Holcomb who is kind of in the middle.

He's sort of just not sure where he's going right now.

But the one thing he has said is look, I got some things I want to do for the next budget.

I want to invest in public health .

I want to maybe continue these economic development grants.

He wants to maybe look at making state pay attractive.

So he's concerned that if they give back a billion dollars even more than a billion in the House Republican list, then then he won't be able to make those investments.

>> I would add one caveat to if you're going to spend the surplus as opposed to keeping it or giving it back to taxpayers, I would strongly suggest first you look at one time things to pay down, things that to get rid of things like some of the unfunded pension liabilities and be very careful if you use to fund something that's going to be an ongoing obligation like increasing teacher pay.

You know, when you do something like that, build it into the budget.

>> Don't don't go committing yourself to something you can't fund later on.

>> And this is exactly the reason that I think what they ought to do is spend a little time discussing what it is they think they should do with the money, whether it's the rainy day fund or the increased revenue that we've had coming in.

This is not something that should be done on a whim.

>> This is this will have significant impact on what happens in the state for years to come and Nikki, back to you on this one because Senate bill one is connected with some of this revenue return and interestingly to say that all Hoosiers will get a refund apparently with this legislation that's not quite right but they want it to be right.

>> It yeah, the way the automatic taxpayer refund has been formulated and we've only hit it one other time is it sort of depends on whether you filed the last two years and if you had tax liability.

So if you weren't making enough money to physically file income taxes then you would get a refund.

And so they're trying to clear up sort of a small amount of people not small.

It's nine hundred thousand Hoosiers out of about four million.

So they're trying to make sure that those people also get some money back because they maybe did pay sales taxes even if they weren't paying income taxes.

So that's sort of and also ironically and I do find this interesting the way it was crafted before it was all done through your taxes, it was a tax credit.

So if if you filed and owed three hundred for instance and you were getting one hundred twenty five, then you owe one seventy five for that kind of thing.

But now the way they're doing it under this bill is they're sending a check to everyone just like the federal government did because when you get to hold a check in your hand or see it show up in your your checking account, that's a lot better than you owing less when you do your taxes right.

>> And locally you should point out that it's State Senator Travis Holdman who is carrying Senator Bill one in this regard and one other important notion on the money front and policy which is that next let's see it would be the 11th state of the state address with Governor Holcomb speaking to a joint session of the General Assembly seven o'clock you can watch that address live right here on PBS Fort Wayne.

>> So let me ask each of you this is the part where the session will play out over almost a whole quarter.

What are you looking for beyond what we've talked about so far and what are you looking to perhaps monitor in the in the weeks ahead here?

>> There are a few things that I'm looking at.

Number one, how will things actually happen logistically speaking?

What will happen?

How will it happen?

How will it play out?

As Nicky pointed out, they're trying to operate as if everything is back to normal.

If anything happens, what will they do?

I think that will be interesting for us to watch.

I think the tension that Leo and I have now mentioned a little bit between, you know, your individual rights and your obligations to society versus looking and as well as looking for smaller government so to speak.

That'll be interesting to watch play out and see how people manage to deal with the dissonance they may be having internally about that.

A couple of other things that I'm interested in will be the education bill or bills that are out there.

I think those are those are going to be significant and interesting discussions.

And then finally for me the push to make school board elections not a partizan I think will be another interesting one to watch even if it goes nowhere as long as it gets a little bit of a discussion.

>> I think it's interesting, Leo, I'm going to amplify the school issue.

>> I think education is going to dominate a lot of this session and I would look for it to dominate sessions for the next several years because there has been a sort of a quiet revolution brewing under the surface for the last couple of years and covid kind of brought it out into the open because a lot of parents saw what their kids were actually learning and didn't like it.

>> And I think it's and it's more than what some people say just a few cranky conservatives upset about progressive education.

There is there's a real debate now starting on who should teach our children what they should teach them.

And in addition to the partizanship of , you know, making the school board members declare their partizan affiliations, we have to have a measure to make materials more available to parents.

>> But every bit of the curricula online we have one bill I forget if it's in the House or the Senate require souring public be able allowed to speak in public meetings which most people are surprised to find out that our open meetings law doesn't.

It requires meetings to be open.

It doesn't require the public to be able to speak and I think that's that you know, the divisions that we face in our society you know the red state, blue state, all that stuff are being felt in schools now it's just a symbol a symptom right now of our divide.

>> But ultimately our public school system is either going to have to lead us out of that divide or they're going to push us further into a divide I think where we have to separate school systems, public school system for one set of parents and a private homeschooling network for other people and I hate to see that happen but I anyway that's to me that's what the issue to watch this year and Nikki do again.

>> Five hundred different pieces of something moving.

They're like herding cats but what what have you picked from out of that group for your yourself going forward?

>> Obviously as the other gentleman mentioned, this sort of culture war stuff we're seeing is really big.

The eight hour hearing on the so-called critical race theory bill this week was an example but we're also going to delve into a lot of other controversial topics you know where we've already passed a bill out of committee getting gun licenses or carry permits in Indiana we will undoubtedly see abortion language that will try to model some of this language that the Supreme Court is considering has let go through out of Texas and down south.

So we will see a lot of that to a fair look and see if I can add one thing to what Lisa was talking about.

>> As I recall, there's a bill that will make it possible for districts to have a different group of student or parents who are involved in curriculum matters in terms of looking at materials and what might be used or might not be used which is interesting when you think about the fact that there's already an elected school board that exists.

>> Beyond that though, if public schools are required to post their lesson plans, et cetera and a second system develops as Leo has pointed out, the homeschool folks can start just looking at the lesson plans that are available through the public schools, decide which ones they like, which ones they don't like and adopt those.

So there are issues go well beyond just the sort of the culture war issues that all three of us have now mentioned to actually logistic of how do you how do you do education?

>> How do you educate people?

Right.

One measure that caught my eye this afternoon was one to try to rectify how we make turns in our automobiles.

Lawmakers speeding out with a change to be sure that Senate Bill 124 allows us reasonable distance in which to put our signals on or to just remind myself to use the turn signal been at all that that struck you as well, Leo?

>> Apparently.

Well, just the way it is now I think and I think Mickey probably knows more about this than I do but it's you have to signal within 200 feet in the as this pointed out, a lot of a lot of urban areas intersections come up more than 200 feet.

So that's a law that's you can't follow when the government replace it with reasonable distance which anybody can, you know what's reasonable so that they're replacing a law that you can't follow with when they can't enforce and while we have just time enough Decky you touched on one just before we went on air about lots of things.

>> We have the state flower we at the state bird, we have the state whatever and then we are maybe going to get the state what the state Bockl and it'll be the mastodon if they pass that we will have to track it all and possibly have you all back so that we can grade the grade the work that is about to be done before us all and in the public space.

And we'll catch weekly updates here on prime time on 730 Friday nights.

But for right now we have to say goodbye for this one.

Vicki Kelly, statehouse reporter for the Journal Gazette, thank you so very much.

Welcome to our trio.

We're very grateful for you to be here.

Andy Downs of the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics.

Leo Morris, writer for the Indiana Policy Review.

And I'm Bruce Haines for all of us with prime time.

Take care.

We'll see you again next week.

>> Good night