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>> The Indiana General Assembly has concluded its second week of the legislative session.

The shorter schedule is seen as House and Senate bills move in both committees and full chambers this week.

The many issues before the legislature include student reading proficiency, student work-based learning child care work exceptions for minors and youth sports and tourism development areas.

>> Happily, Democratic and Republican House leaders are with us to offer an update on the work of the General Assembly.

They're here tonight along with you on this edition of Prime Time.

I'm Bruce Haines and with us in Studio seven Ninth District Republican state represent and House Majority Floor Leader Matt Laman and Eightieths District Democratic State Representative and House Democratic leader Phil Chiquitita.

>> And we invite you to join our conversation to just call in with the questions or comments you might have used the numbers there you see on the screen as we widen out and here we are.

>> There's Phil, there's Matt Coleman.

Happy New Year.

Thanks for joining us.

Happy New Year.

Good to see you, Bruce .

It's always good to here.

>> Thank you.

It's been suggested that if a long legislative session is a marathon that this short sessions a sprint.

>> How would you describe where you are after 14 days?

>> Phil good question.

Um, like most session they usually start up a little slower.

>> I wouldn't necessarily say that was the case this year.

You know, the traditionally the speaker gives his agenda for the House Republicans on organization day in November.

I give my speech on the first ago Monday laying out our priorities.

We had some other news conferences just kind of wanted to discuss the important issues that I think that we believe are important and for Hoosiers and while we do know it's a short session, a short amount of time, we also would like to at least at least the very least see some of these things be discussed if not acted upon.

>> We I think heard gosh 50 to 60 bills I think might have gone through committees this& this this week.

>> And as we go into next week, the last week of committees, I& imagine there'll be a similar number of bills and then lo and behold we're done with the first half and we'll be hearing Senate bills in a couple of weeks.

>> Well, so that marathon spirit or 100 yard dash I'd say it's it's a sprint and it's hard to think when you when you think of a sprint you think of I can see the end and you think well we're really not seeing the end yet but it has gotten quickly.

As Phil said, we've had the committees have been very busy now the first thing about the first couple of days of the session we had state of the state yesterday the judiciary.

So you have a lot of things that kind of fill the calendar so you're kind of delayed in a certain sense.

Then we had Martin Luther King Day so you kind of lost some time.

So we've made up for it though this is the last week has been a sprint and I think the as Phil said, we wrap up next week with committees can be a deadline is a week from Tuesday and then and then we'll finish up our work the first part of February and see what the Senate sends us.

>> So far the House has moved major legislative priority bill forward House Tenno to defining antisemitism as religious discrimination, carrying that into state law that Indiana provides educational opportunities free of discrimination.

What are both of your thoughts?

>> So this passed unanimously.

It was bipartisan that yeah, it passed last year.

It's the same thing that passed last year we've been seeing and I think the nation has been seeing a real big increase in just anti-Semitism as a whole.

And so what we began to see is after October seven you saw that same thing happening but you also now saw it happening to where there was that small sliver of people maybe that were pushing back and saying, you know, I don't think how you can say it's acceptable because the difference is we're not talking about someone who disagrees with the nation of Israel.

You can have every policy difference you want with a nation and you can freely talk about that.

But you know, when you start talking about the elimination of a people, the disenfranchizing of a people we need to step up and say look, we have we have laws now and then if it's not going far enough this needs to be tightened up and you can't be teaching and this applies to college campuses and high schools.

You can't be teaching a curriculum that promotes that.

>> And so like I said, it passed unanimously last year.

>> Little bit more of some pushback this year and it was a little bit of activity in the hallway from some of the other proposals inside and and to get it passed out of our house and then mostly last year it kind of got held up in the Senate for one reason or another and I think it'll be a little bit of an easier path this year.

>> Sure, sir.

Yeah, Um, like there was a limited set of passed unanimously last year.

>> There's a couple of key provisions I think that said, uh, it does not prohibit one from criticizing Israel as mentioned and and also well I know you are I am with regards to free speech, freedom of speech, things like that, folks should be able to express themselves peacefully and if you don't agree with how other countries are conducting their governments but the other thing too is and bold in current statute it references creed, national origin, race in the new world which I know Creed is kind of part of this but is religion and in big boulders the word religion?

>> So in my I took that as religions.

Yeah because expansive expansion you know and and and but it also to know that the rise in anti-Semitism over the last I don't know how many years has really risen and and so that was the reason that the I believe the bill was brought forward last year with some Democratic co-sponsors and then passed unanimously like that said vote.

>> Yeah.

Last year and this year and the probability for you on passage in the Senate does does it feel at the Times 12 months later it's a different context in which this is brought forward that probability of passage in the Senate goes up and I've seen some comments I don't I just I'm not sure where who has the bill or what committee is going to go to the education committee in the Senate like I did in the House.

But you know, Senator, have the Senate always a little guarded in his predictions like we all are but said, you know, we'll look we'll take a look at it and but I feel like it at least get a hearing I don't think at a hearing last year or so at least get a hearing and we'll see where it goes from there.

>> Yeah, I think I think you'll see a move this year.

I if you look at it literally is the identical language that passed out of the House last year and the only difference in last year and this year is October 7th.

And I think what that did is it showed that crack is showed that division that maybe we do need to address is I think the Senate will be more receptie to having this went through a pretty good debate in our site.

I mean that bill didn't pass out of committee in ten minutes that they had a lot of debate and I think you'll see the same thing in the Senate and you're going to have a vigorous debate .

>> I think they'll pass it.

The bill was one of several legislative priority measures which is another way of perhaps highlighting some bills over others that there many are called and the use of the ones in both parties that seem to be chosen for for attention.

We are in the second week and I thought I would take an opportunity to have each of you perhaps share a little bit from your perspectives about what those legislative priorities are in your work in the House.

>> And so let me let me start with you.

We'll start with some of the things that you know are going to be big on the House floor.

>> Yeah.

So we you know, we kind of went into this and if you look at the historically you you kind of take House Bill 10 on one in a budget or as the budget that's our top priority.

But those first 10 bills are usually our priority bills and even a short session will say these are our ten priorities we went into this year basically saying we're going to limit that to about two or three and some of them are reactive and one of the priorities is we really got to get some some some a handle on kind of the whole I read and where we're going with with education in that learning space whether it's, you know, becoming a global expansion of 10 or two from last year, which is the workforce development, some of the education things around workforce development getting more of that expanding that allowing some of the scholarships, some of the savings accounts, your education savings accounts to go to those types of spaces and so I think overall and we set a priority to was one of our priorities with the anti-Semitism.

So I think we've kept our priorities I'd say pretty pretty small request.

>> You know, we and we feel to one of the things I think we've kind of taken the approach this year is we've done a lot in the last 10 years and things that I'm very proud that we've done.

But some of this needs to make a little too you know, so we have a tendency sometimes to pass them into law.

>> We want to see all these factors and how the impacts and then before we even get a good feel of that impact, we need to make some changes.

And I think we kind of felt this is a good year to kind of let some of that set and not always have to come back and keep beating that same drum and then see where some of this takes root and you know, we're trying to do some things.

Your education is always a big issue and so we have a bill that starts to deregulate some of the things we ask of schools and I think that now we're getting a hearing here soon maybe and just so I think there's things we're trying to do that say look, we we don't want to cause harm but at the same time we want to make sure we don't get public policy and we're doing it in a way that that really kind of crafts good legislation.

>> It's kind non-controversial you might say.

Yeah, yeah.

Phil for you a bicameral agenda, something different where your colleague in the Senate, Mr. Taylor or Senator Taylor and you're sharing the party's priorities Seymour Yeah.

We I give my big speech.

I'm sure Matt was a anxiously awaiting it because every year I get to respond to those about a week go Monday and we have an opportunity and then the Senate and the House some of us did a joint news conference at the end of the week though about a week ago yesterday and we have different rules than they have in the Senate.

So while we are able to file bills because we have what we call bill pending law so rural excuse me that if you file a bill and the committee it's assigned a committee the committee chairman does not hear the bill.

We can't then go through the amendment process so we can come up with several ideas and then if that opportunity presents itself on the House floor, we'll come back with some amendments, reflect some of these ideas and I'll just talk about a few of those actually one of these is going to be on third round I don't think you mentioned 13 so it's going to be on one of our thought was that last year our republic retirees do not get to see a cost of living adjustment increase or the thirteenth check and increase.

So it's actually a priority of both of ours.

It's going to be on third reading on Monday we talked about I'll go through these kind of quickly raising the minimum wage and so it's been stuck at seven dollars and twenty five for a very long time.

A slew of state does pass here just increase their minimum wage keeping up with what other businesses around the country are paying.

We recognize that child care is very expensive when it costs more to send your kid to child care than it does to public college a public university in the state of Indiana.

You know there's a problem I think the Senate actually got some ideas on on that we've talked about child care, more child care tax credits incentivize seeing more folks to go into the business because you find that in rural areas you have child care dessert so to speak where it just becomes more expensive because there aren't enough of them.

We've yeah issues with regard to third grade reading test scores, our position has always been we need to put more money and more emphasis on pre-K and full day kindergarten, make sure that kids have access across the state to early childhood learning and we just feel like that would be a better way to do that.

Obviously looking at ways always look at ways to lower health care cost, capping the price of insulin and other things.

So we've put out a lot of issues and including the citizen led ballot initiative I Senator Taylor talked about that.

>> So there's all kinds of ideas out there.

We just hope we get an opportunity to present some of them.

>> Tell me about the 13th check this.

This sounds like everyone should want one if we all knew what that was.

>> Yeah.

So there was a it's been a priority the House Republicans and as Phil said, even the House Democrats this is one thing we've agreed on is that we have a pension standpoint.

We're willing to make sure we're taking care of our retired educators.

>> And so what it really means is you get an extra check for your pension and every year we've done that the Senate seems to not go along with that now their response during the budget session was well, we're going to put a cost of living increase in place which is needed but you're in some of those cases that 13th check was a much more stable fixed amount that cost of living increase is too small.

>> So we've always said is there a way to kind of tear this in when you want to get to eventually we're focusing on just the cost of living increase.

It shouldn't be that rabidly.

>> So when we came into session this year talking about what we're going to be our priorities, you know, we've said we have consistently fought hard both as Republicans and Democrats in the House for that thirteen check.

So the speaker agreed let's make that one of our priority bills and it is on the calendar for next week and I think with that as the kind of the the standard you might say that raising that bar a little higher for the Senate, I think it's going to be harder for them to to continue to say well it's just not needed because it has shown and we've shown obediently that it needs to be done have done in past years and we passed it multiple times and was disappointed that it wasn't included in the budget last year or just at all.

And so so yeah.

So we're happy to see that on third and third reading in the house on Monday I'll go the keep our fingers crossed and hopefully they see the light of day again.

>> Yeah you're watching PrimeTime on PBS for winning by the way and thank you for doing so with us tonight we have house Democratic leader Phil Jack acquitted and the House majority floor leader Lehman.

And we also have questions from one viewer who asks Will Senate Bill 187 the bill to limit or eliminate free bus fare on election days get a hearing?

How much support will this bill have?

>> We have House leadership feel free to talk about a Senate bill.

I just saw this yesterday.

I am guessing it won't get a lot of support.

I could be wrong on that.

But I think if the new legislator maybe a new excuse me new senator is proposing that and I would hope not.

I think anything that I've always maintained anything that we can do to encourage voting, make it easier for folks to vote is a good thing and I would hope that that would not pass and I kind of doubt that Bill will get a hearing.

It probably might be too complicated and a short session and trying to do kind of election stuff in an election year is always difficut and always the issue of OK, so if we're going to talk about that, what else would we talk about with changing the election system?

So so that's the kind of bill that ends up getting amendments to it that just become extremely complicated.

So if you're going to have that discussion, I think it really needs to be a long session discussion.

But I don't I don't see that bill getting here again.

We can't you know, on behalf of our Senate colleagues Senate bill.

>> But I would say it would be hard pressed to get this support.

It probably needs to pass.

You know, let me ask each of you with all of the priority legislation, there's the personal legislation that it's authored or coauthored or sponsored and each of you has a few on file and filmi.

Ask you first what are some of the things that you're looking to focus on from your your own perspective?

>> You know, it's interesting.

I'm sure Matt agrees.

We do hear from constituents from time to time not just on sort of those big issues big statewide ones, maybe more smaller parochial parochial issues if you will.

And I do have an issue in my district with regards to some alcohol laws.

Those are always fun trying to change those around and have there's just that example of the Italian market in my district who is having some issues with related to the type of permit that they own.

They want to be able to do some things with regards to carry out and we're trying to adjust and I think the there's a similar bill in the Senate that did receive a hearing and it was passed out of committee.

Senator Holman's carrying the Senate.

Senator Hoeven also represents this part is part where the markets located is in his district and minds and we overlap there and and so I think the plan is to send it over to us and let's see what we can in fact represent Lamont's co-sponsor on the bill so it's a good one to talk about and I think it's going to help this this particular small business.

>> It's doing good things, being able to enhance our business and productivity and all those good things.

>> So we'll see where that goes.

I keep my fingers crossed.

We'll play we'll go with legislative volleys .

>> Yeah.

Yeah.

So I would say so.

So I always tell people we come from our area of expertize and I'm an insurance guy I try to keep an eye on what's going on in that world and making sure that we're doing good public policy and we're competitive et cetera.

Excuse me.

We have a we have a situation kind of growing nationally around.

We're seeing foreign investment.

We're seeing heavy private equity investment into our legal system.

It's called lawsuit lending.

So it's as if I want to sue Phil over a trademark violation.

You know, I may assume for a million dollars and someone comes in and says hey, I'm going to put another two millin on the table.

We'll see him for ten, you know, try to get a much bigger settlement.

And now that three million I've got on the table to spend I use now for getting better counsel.

I can expand into you know, get expert witnesses.

The thing is it's not transparent so we have no idea where this money's coming from and we're seeing evidence of foreign investment.

And so I have a bill I call litigation funding but I don't think it'll move but it's starts to set the table and then we'll take it through what's called Encore, which is the Council of Insurance Underwriters.

I'm involved in throughout the year.

Then we come back next year with hopefully a much better bill.

But it's something we have to address and we have to address nationally as well.

And Congress has a couple of bills out there now kind of doing that.

So that's an issue I've been following for several years and then the last one I'll plug is the in in twenty twenty six is our two hundred and fifty birthday and I have a you know in keeping with what we did in the bicentennial we have we're going to have a 250 license plate and so you know big big heavy heavy lift there but I was saving this for the end because I knew in advance you got injured.

>> Yeah, no not it was it was my my word for the week the semi Quinn centennial.

>> Yes.

And if you put that in if you're typing down your computer like this it comes up as a as a spell check there's no work for it wants to break it apart.

>> So this creates the commission and there will be a commission has been created and now the commission is saying we want to now start as we start to plan these events we're going to plan and one of them is going to be your ability to get a two fifty license plate in for your vehicle in twenty twenty five and twenty twenty six you can feel me going back to one that you are going to remember wasn't so long ago we were discussing the special carved out areas where open containers you know would be permitted for alcohol sales and so forth.

The special designated area the spirit of that came back to me in looking at the bill that is being developed to look at youth sports and tourism development areas that as one does for one particular interest there's there's an opportunity to do some additional designations.

>> Tell me more about that.

Yeah, we we have professional we have sports districts I should say and they were they actually collect the taxes and so instead of going to the state the taxes stay within that particular area and I know Mayor steaming up MacMichael New Haven's interested in this.

You know, youth sports is really growing.

It can be very popular in certain cities where you have these kind of decent pretty good sized complexes of of basketball courts and other things where in hockey and you know with ice and so you know and I always think about it when you it's to parents and bring their son or daughter to play sport, maybe the little kid tags along as well.

>> And so there's a real opportunity to enhance cities and increase revenue and things like that so that Christianities Bill and I went on it and it happened co-sponsor with him and we'll see what happens there again.

Maybe it's too much for a short session but at least we'll start the conversation as we head into a budget year next year.

>> I was thinking of youth measures as well meant with some of the student work based education going on in ten to one and your bill ten sixty to you and a representative king about work exceptions for minors.

This is specific to perhaps some areas of state and the others Representative King's bill was put into another bill that had to do with mirroring our laws with federal labor laws.

But one day one of the places there's always been exceptions among like the Amish for pulling their kids out and working in the family business etc.

and in some of those have now tightened to the point where they can't do that.

And what Reverend King is trying to do is get it back to where we've done it for decades of allowing them to be able to leave school at 15 and work different hours than what the law would maybe require them to not put them in the factories and things like that.

It's a lot more but it's just in their in their family businesses and small local businesses.

So it is you I don't want to say it's it's it's central to just that but it's it's really an issue among the Amish right .

There are big issues in a short space and we talk about education literacy and of course you mentioned health care, a variety of tax related issues.

How much of a challenge is it in our two minutes remaining that in the short session it's hard to do fiscal when fiscal is seen as something for a longer session like the one next year to start with?

>> Yeah, I think what we've told our members is is you know, there are times and some people come into the General Assembly with this idea that I'm going to change the world right in my short short session.

>> I'm a change world.

I've said there's times this legislation takes time and effort to find the right fit and especially if there's a fiscal impact, you know you're going to have to have it ready by budget.

Not now.

And so a lot of bills out there I think do have potential but that potential is a good time to vet that maybe this year.

But come spend your summer getting us in the right place and come back next year with a much better bill that's financially sound.

Yeah, oftentimes you hear the phrase you know, we don't want to open up the budget.

That means in a short session that we don't start doing that because that can lead us to different down different roads that maybe we don't want to go down.

But certainly having these discussions now we're you know, gosh, you're going to be back here in less than 12 months again.

So there'll be certainly time to discuss something.

Obviously in the past we have opened the budget when needed and if it's if we feel like it's a meets at emergency threshold or whatever that we there is certainly the opportunity to do that will continue.

>> Best wishes for your work on behalf of the region in Indianapolis.

Gentlemen, thank you so much for being here tonight to on the show.

>> Thank you.

Thank you.

We have State Representative that Lehmann State Representative Phil Geia Quinter leaders in the House of India Anapolis and for all of us with prime time on bruisings thank you for watching as well.

Take care and we'll see you next week right here tonight The Regional Chamber of Northeast Indiana.

Advocates for a world class infrastructure, a competitive business climate, 21st century talent and rural investment.

One region, one voice.

NEINAdvocates.com.