- Hi, I'm Jon Schwantes, and this is Indiana Lawmakers.

Think of us as a walking-talking playbill.

And the production in question is, of course, the second regular session of Indiana's 123rd General Assembly, better known, thankfully, as the 2024 short session.

And although the reviews have yet to come in, one thing is certain, just because the session is short in duration doesn't mean it'll be short on energy, consequence or drama.

So please find your seats, it's Indiana Lawmakers from the Statehouse to your house.

(upbeat music) Welcome to the Indiana General Assembly's 2024 session, and to Indiana Lawmakers 43rd season.

Now we're kicking off this season with observations, insights, and predictions from some of the state's best political pundits to people who understand, and better yet can explain, more often than not, what can be at times a fairly convoluted process.

Joining me are Brandon Smith, Statehouse Bureau Chief for Indiana Public Broadcasting and host of Indiana Week in Review; and Oseye Boyd, Editor-in-Chief of Mirror Indy, part of Free Press Indiana.

Thank you, thank you.

- Always enjoy doing this.

- Thank you, thank you for having me.

- Well, at the end of the session when we have you back, we'll see how, if you're as enthusiastic.

(Oseye laughs) And to that point, before we look forward at the next two and a half months or so, let's look back.

And my premise is that no session is an island unto itself, it's a continuum.

- Mm-hmm.

- Yeah.

- I mean, technically this is the second session of the 123rd- - Of the, yeah.

- So I mean, officially it's a continuation.

So we had a busy session this last, it was a budget year, $44 billion budget, and a lot of things there were, wasn't supposed to be the culture wars.

Of course, it erupted in culture wars.

- Yes.

- So what hangover do we have looking back?

How does, I mean, in terms of setting the stage- - Yeah.

- Is there a lingering effect from last session, the 2023 session that will actually affect what does or doesn't happen this time?

- There always is to a certain extent, but this year, I mean, legislative leaders, Republican legislative leaders have been very forthright about saying, absolutely it's going to affect what happens in, 2023 is going to affect what happens in 2024.

- [Jon] Didn't they call it the transition year or the wait and see year?

- Well, okay, so- - I mean, I've heard different sort of labels.

- So you have a, first of all, you have a speaker of the House, Todd Huston, who even before he became speaker, I mean, we used to have conversations where he decried the way that the short session, what we're coming into, the off, the non-budget session had sort of over time become like they were trying to cram just as much as they did in the long session into half the amount of time it seems like.

- [Jon] And never mind that it started out as an emergency session- - And that's his point- - (mumbles) yeah.

- Yeah, I mean- - That's sort of a quaint thought that- - I mean, there was a time when lawmakers didn't meet every single year.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- They only met in that second year for an emergency.

- It was a safety ballot in case the sky was falling.

- And over time, that grew from, okay, we're gonna do a few big things that absolutely have to be done too, it's become a regular session just in a compressed timeframe.

- And, of course, one of the things that nobody wants to get into the budget.

- Yeah.

- There's still bruises (chuckles) that were inflicted during- - Mm-hmm.

- For the past session and...

But can that, how reasonable is that?

Can there be a blanket agreement and there is no agreement, but can leaders hold to their notion that this is not a budget year, so we're not gonna open the state's coffers?

Because it's hard to make a lot of improvements if there's no, something there on the table.

- I really at this point don't think so.

I really, I think, okay, you passed the budget, sure, but we still have to talk about money every year, every year we're talking about spending.

So then how do you not talk about the budget?

And it's interesting about going back and thinking about how this was an emergency at one point, just we didn't have this session every year.

Now we're going to where we're seeming to just have every year we're going longer and longer, but emergency sessions and hearings, and so I wonder if we're gonna get to, or we're just gonna be full-time all year-round.

- I'm gonna move over here because I think the lightning strike (Oseye laughs) may come down tonight, I don't wanna have metal.

- Well, (Oseye laughs) I will say this in terms of reopening the budget, literally, I mean, to your point I absolutely think they're gonna talk about money.

I mean, that's a conversation that's continued since the last session.

You have all of these study committees, and as much as we've talked about how study committees have lost some of their effectiveness, partly because lawmakers aren't using them in the most effective way anymore.

- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

- There are some major ones that happened in 2023 that are being used effectively, the Medicaid Oversight- - Yeah.

- Mm-hmm.

- Committee, the Health Care Cost Task Force- - Which is now kind of morphed into a childcare cost.

- Yeah, well, they've been talking about childcare.

- But these things just keep going to- - And these things just keep going.

- Yeah.

- Absolutely.

I mean, the State and Local Tax Review Task Force.

- Sure.

- The SALT Task Force, as it's being called.

That's gonna be a big one that we play.

- I love acronyms.

- On 2025.

- I got my key here, my cheat sheet of acronyms.

- Right.

But I mean, in terms of actually spending money in the 2024 session, I think as always legislative leaders are saying, no, no, no, no; no, no, no, no, we can't reopen the budget.

However, there's two things going on there.

One, there is still the issue out there of the fact that last, again, talking about the impact that the 2023 session will have on 2024.

One big thing that wasn't in the budget that I think all of us were pretty shocked at was support for people on public pensions in Indiana.

- Mm-hmm.

- Every single- - Which is a relatively small ask in a lot of- - Mm-hmm.

- In many ways, it's- - I mean, it's about $16 million to do what, one of two things, which is historically public pensioners have gotten what's called a 13th check.

- Yes.

- In the state budget, which is one extra month of their monthly benefits.

A couple of years ago, lawmakers decided, hey, instead of doing a 13th check, let's do a 1% COLA, cost-of-living adjustment.

- Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

- So instead of an extra month all of their monthly benefits went up a little bit.

Well, this year the House and Senate couldn't decide which they wanted to do, and ultimately landed on nothing.

Obviously those 100,000 public pensioners were like, "Hey, what the heck guys?"

- Yes.

- After basically guaranteed that for 30 plus years, all of a sudden they were left without it.

There's money sitting in an account right now that can only be used for that that just isn't being spent.

And lawmakers have said, that doesn't count as reopening the budget, that's money that's already there, so they may do something with that.

- Because something, as we said before, - There's capital- - Things cost money.

- There's interest, how many things don't count.

- Well, if we got money sitting around, and yeah, the money is- (Oseye laughs) already sitting around.

- Well, and you also- - But I'll say, the biggest thing that will prevent lawmakers from really reopening the budget in any significant way is something that happened towards the end of December, which is they got a new revenue forecast.

- Mm-hmm.

- Million dollar surprise.

- Yeah.

And normally those, as part of their revenue forecast, they also get a forecast on Medicaid spending.

And yeah, you see those numbers fluctuate, but there's usually, that's not usually the headline grabbing moment of the revenue forecast.

Well, this time it was because, oops, the state Medicaid program went, sorry, it turns out we need $1 billion more for Medicaid.

- That checkbook didn't get balanced properly.

- Yes.

- Yeah.

- In the current budget than we thought.

- Which gives people who don't wanna do a lot, and wanna get out the door, so they can go campaign in primaries and so forth.

It gives them justification, say we are- - We are reopening.

- It's a budget year, but- - We are in a sense reopening the budget, and that we have to now spend- - Deal with- - Nearly $1 billion.

- Yeah.

- And that seems like one of the default excuses.

And again, I'm not trying to say denigrate, I mean, people can argue whether you should look back and do, or just leave things, let them settle a little bit.

And that's the other argument aside from the budget.

You have things like healthcare containment initiatives and some of these other issues that, I mean, there was a public database that was, I think created with legislation in 2020 that still has not gone operative.

So there's this notion, the other thing we hear is, we gotta wait, we're getting ahead of ourselves, we get... We don't know what the problem is until we let the data catch up.

Are we gonna be hearing that a lot, do you think, whether it's on healthcare cost containment or whether it's on- - Mental health spending.

- Mental health, yeah, I mean.

- Education, well, they just gave - - Well, I think- - The first grants to 86 of the county, so.

- Yeah.

- So I think we're always getting ahead of ourselves because we never know how much things really cost.

It's always an estimation.

And then when you really get down to the data, you find out, "Oh, we didn't estimate enough money", so it's always kind of a going back.

So that's why I don't think, I get that we, the budget is closed, we don't wanna reopen it, but in real life, you don't close a budget and never go back.

(chuckles) You have to always revisit costs.

And I think that's why we're always getting to this position where they're like, "Okay, well, this didn't, we have a shortfall."

You have a shortfall like with Medicaid because we didn't know it was gonna really cost this much more.

Things cost more now.

- And even if it's not a budget issue, with cost containment it might be, for instance, caps, we talked about that, or non-compete clauses for physicians and whatnot.

I mean, that isn't necessarily a state budget issue, but still the data aren't there to know if, I mean- - Well, what I find- - Is what has been enacted still in the works, we don't know.

- Yeah, I mean- - Essentially, but how- - Absolutely.

I mean, there is a compelling argument to say, listen, we have to let some of this stuff start to work because we have to find out- - Mm-hmm.

- If it's going to work.

- Mm-hmm.

- If you just are, I mean, we've seen this in education, I mean, educators, and even parents and students have been begging lawmakers for years, please stop.

- Yes.

- A new test, a new program.

- Oh yeah, it's like every year- - I mean, there's been so much, there was so much like turnover- - New curriculum - And change, yeah.

- A new curriculum, so much of that over a period of like half a decade that they just felt like they didn't know what to do.

And lawmakers didn't really slow down on that, but to a certain extent, you have to give things a little time to see if they're going to work.

But what I note though is interesting is one of the things that, that, again, Republican legislative leaders have said is, we did so many big things in 2023, we have to let them start to work and find out if they're working before we go and try and change, do big changes again.

That's a very logical argument.

- [Oseye] Yes.

- But some of the things- - Mm-hmm.

- That are on their relatively limited priority list, things like reading literacy.

- And we're gonna be talking more about the priorities certainly in another segment- - Right, but I'll say that they did two bills, big bills last session about fundamentally changing the way we teach reading in this state, but we're not gonna give that time to see if it's working, we gotta address that problem more quickly.

- And one final thing, even though I know we gotta end this segment, but before we go forward, we gotta look back.

We had four new lawmakers as of organization Day one because of a death sadly, and then free resignations.

I mean, does that changed the dynamic?

You got newbies who are- - New committee chairs.

- New committee chairs.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- How does that affect it?

And briefly, because we'll be talking more about safe some time.

- Now you put me on the spot with the briefly.

(chuckles) - All right, well, that's all we have time.

- It could change, it could change.

I would like to see some change, but we don't know until they actually get in there, but we shall see.

- Fair enough.

As much as it helps to know the stories to follow, it's just as helpful to know how the process works.

Here's a little explainer to get you up to speed, we'll call it the Indiana General Assembly by the numbers.

Like anything that produces winners and losers, the Indiana General Assembly tends to be defined by numbers.

As many of us learn back in Civics class, Indiana's legislative branch comprises two bodies.

The House of Representatives wear 100 members, serve two-year terms; and the Senate wear 50 members face voters every four years.

Based on the 2020 census, each member of the House represents over 67,000 Hoosiers while each senator answers to over 135,000 constituents.

At the moment, Republicans outnumber Democrats 70 to 30 in the House and 40 to 10 in the Senate.

Because Republicans constitute supermajorities in both chambers, that is they make up more than two-thirds of members, they by themselves can provide the quorums necessary to conduct business.

Don't assume though that party affiliation alone determines how a lawmaker will vote on any given issue.

Last year the General Assembly sent 252 bills to the governor's desk, and more than 91% of them enjoyed some degree of bipartisan support.

Now if all this seems a bit overwhelming, don't worry, throughout ths session the team here at Indiana Lawmakers will be working nonstop to sort out what's happening, and to explain what it means for you, your family, and your community.

After all for us, that's job one.

All right, we look back, time to look forward.

Brandon, the conventional wisdom is, if you listen to leadership on Organization Day and during their presentations of their agendas, this is not a year where we're gonna dig in with a lot of new topics, we're gonna let things sort of percolate, and we did a lot.

So we're just gonna get what we need to do and hit the road, it's not really gonna happen.

- The timeline makes it, like we talked about, the compressed timeline of it makes it that you can't do as much.

You just can't.

- Fewer committee hearings, like limits- - There are fewer committee- Yeah.

- Fewer bills.

- Exactly.

Yeah, bill limitations on lawmakers, they can only file certain number of bills, that sort of thing.

So literally speaking, yes, they will not get as many bills passed.

It's usually about half of the number of bills that pass in a short session, is passed in a long session.

But it doesn't mean that they're gonna tackle any less weighty subjects.

I mean, some of the things that legislative leaders have said that they're gonna prioritize, things like literacy.

The fact that so many kids who don't pass the third grade reading exam are still moving on to fourth grade when they can't, I mean, they aren't literate at the level they need to be.

That's a real problem, and it does require retention.

Things like chronic absenteeism, that is a huge problem in the state.

We've seen those numbers from the state.

- And schools were talking about now.

- And schools are talking about, yes, in schools.

Again, a problem, you can't afford to wait until the next time- - Mm-hmm.

- To start addressing that.

- Mm-hmm.

- So there are gonna be weighty topics that they consider.

Childcare, we've mentioned that coming out of the last session, the study committee that they worked on, that will be something they try to tackle in terms of affording more opportunities to get childcare centers open.

Now what that functionally means without spending any money is probably just reducing regulation, which is a debate they'll have to have of, well, you need to keep kids safe, but we don't wanna tie up places with too much red tape.

Finding the balance there is tricky.

So, weighty topics certainly.

- Right.

- Just not as many literal bills.

- But how realistic is it to think that, okay, we're gonna talk about chronic absenteeism or maybe even truancy some...

I've heard the T word that, haven't heard that word in a long time, but coming back- - No, we haven't.

- Talking about third grade reading, accomplishment, and so forth.

But can you really talk about school issues without somebody somewhere saying, that brings to mind the very important issue of vouchers.

Now nevermind the private school vouchers are already essentially universal, but then we also have parental rights issues as we've gotta help hefty dose of that, what's taught in the classrooms.

Do teachers have to listen for what pronouns kids might be using and changing?

I mean, we dealt with all of that in the end of the last session.

How realistic is it to think you can mention education or school without somebody saying, "Oh, this is my cue, I'm gonna talk about these other pet issues that, yes, have something to do with school, so it's germane, I'm gonna go talk about these"?

- I think you're gonna have those issues come up.

They're gonna crop up because as I think we mentioned in the last segment, nothing happens in a vacuum.

Everything moves from the last session to the last session to the last session.

Things hold over, things so we... - Things won't resolve.

- There's some grudges, people are still settling scores.

- Yeah, that was my point.

- Yeah.

(chuckles) - Things are not resolved (chuckles) from the last session.

People still have grudges, and they're waiting for the opportunity to bring up some of these things.

To Brandon's point, we do have to bring up literacy, absenteeism, truancy, those things have to be talked about because we didn't finish them last year, we did not finish them.

I don't know that we'll ever finish them 'cause it seems like we never have.

It's always something about education.

To your point- - Education reform- - Yes.

- I always say is like the highway improvements.

- Yes.

- If they go a year without it, I'll be shocked.

- There's always something wrong with education needs to be fixed.

So, but I think we also need to see what needs to be fixed and give it more time to actually be fixed, but we have to do something ASAP about the literacy rates in our state.

We have to do something about the retention of third graders, we have to do something now.

But what will it be?

I don't know.

Is science of reading gonna work?

I don't know.

What didn't work before?

(chuckles) I can read fine.

- Well, let's dive into this (Oseye laughs) 'cause a lot of us could, let's say absenteeism couldn't blame Covid, and certainly absenteeism went up understandably, but still higher, even though it's improved post-Covid, post-pandemic, it's still higher than it was before, and it's got people scratching their heads.

- Well, it strikes me with both of these issues that legislative leaders have talked about, both chronic absenteeism and literacy rates.

A lot of this seems to fall, and we'll see what they end up doing.

You just pointed out the science of reading, which is what they did last session.

We haven't seen that start to work yet.

- Mm-hmm.

- That will be playing out over the next few years.

- Mm-hmm.

- So hopefully that will improve the situation.

But it seems like a lot of this is, do we need new laws or do we just need to better enforce or better utilize the laws that are already on the books?

- Or maybe listen to the people who actually do the work more.

- Right.

- Maybe that's where we're falling short.

- But I mean, even if you have agreement, as I presume we do that chronic absenteeism is a problem.

What is it, one in five students fall into the category I think of chronic absenteeism, which is a lot of students.

I mean, even if you have widespread agreement on that, that doesn't mean you don't get into fights over how to solve the problem.

- Yeah.

- To your point because some people I'm hearing, we go back to truancy, like we need to get law enforcement involved.

We're gonna take some parents, and they're gonna pay a price here.

- Yeah.

- In a criminal's prosecution- - Or even in the, well, maybe we'll withhold benefits that- - Right, right, I mean, (Brandon mumbles) there's a punitive approach, but then you have other lawmakers and districts that are saying, it's definitely here, the carrot, not the stick.

It's about encouraging kids, you can go, you have more opportunities for extracurriculars and you can, that you get this bell and whistle, if you show up more.

I mean, where does this come down?

Because some people are gonna say it's, like the whole issue over disciplined schools.

Some people wanna get out the ruler and start whacking, and others just say it's all about, - I think we've- - Peace, love and charity for- - We've gone away from listening to the experts in many instances, and I think we...

The pendulum always swings, and it swings from one extreme to the next.

It doesn't like stay in the middle of what actually works.

I remember when I was growing up, it was open concept.

All the schools were all about open concept 'cause that was the new thing.

And everyone thought that was gonna help kids be better and learn better.

Then it went to, oh, we gotta close all the classrooms now that were open because it's not working.

Worked fine for me, I don't know 'cause that's what I grew up in.

And I think that's what we're constantly doing is going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth instead of figuring out, okay, what actually does work?

There has to be some discipline, some punishment has to be there, but it doesn't need to be overly punitive.

I think there needs to be some rewards and it has to be a balance of reward-punishment.

- Well, and this is not one, and it's not even one solution at the same school, for instance, because- - Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

- And legislative leaders have talked about this too.

If an eight-year-old is chronically absent, it's not the eight-year-old's fault.

- Right.

- Then you're looking at, well, what's going on at home, how can we improve that situation to help make sure that they're getting to school.

If a 16-year-old- - A 16-year-old.

(chuckles) - Yeah, if a 16-year-old- - Yeah.

- Is chronically absent, I'm not sure it's the parent's fault necessarily.

- They may not know.

- But I think this also goes back to another thing they're gonna do that we're talking about the transition from last year to this year.

They tried to remake high school in the last session, which is- - More work or internships- - More work-based - Practical experience.

- Exactly.

(Oseye mumbles) - Exactly.

Yeah, again, exactly.

(Oseye chuckles) (Jon chuckles) But to make it so that if you wanna go to a four-year, go get a four-year degree after high school, we've pretty much set up the education system so that that makes sense.

If you don't wanna do that, if you wanna go directly into the workforce or just get a certificate or something like that, and I say just, but if you wanna get a certificate or something like that, is the education system best set up for those students?

And maybe not, and that's what they're trying to work on.

Well, that gets to chronic absenteeism too because they wanna continue tweaking that system to make- - Yeah.

- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

- More of those opportunities.

If you can make school more relevant- - Mm-hmm.

- For someone in high school because I think a lot of kids will sit in a classroom and go, why do I care about what I'm hearing right now?

How is this gonna affect the rest of my life?

And if you can't make that relevant to them, then why do they wanna be there?

And so if you do create more of those work-based learning opportunities.

If you do say, okay, this is why we're teaching you this, because as soon as you want to, you're gonna go out there and start earning money.

That I think could help a little bit with that problem.

- Well, I just wanna interject, how many times we listen to actual kids say what they want versus us adults thinking what kids want and what they need?

- Well, they're not in school, so nobody knows where they are.

(laughs) But it's exactly, you can't answer.

- That's true.

- If you can find that- - That's true.

- Then you could ask the question.

- Well, maybe we should go to their homes, maybe that's where they're at.

- Yeah, I think that's a really good point, finding out why aren't kids showing up?

- Yeah.

- And try to address those problems.

- Well, and you pointed out, this is not a one-size-fits-all problem, it sometimes varies from building to building.

And let me ask you this.

When you look at these issues, like inadequate reading skills at the third grade level or chronic absenteeism, again, it's not, you can look at the data and the percentages and so forth, but it's not a blanket approach.

And it so happens that people of color, English learners, people from lower socioeconomic segments are not reading as well.

Surprise, surprise.

And are not showing up in the classroom for any number- - Mm-hmm.

- Family responsibilities- - Mm-hmm.

- Looking out for siblings.

- Disengagement.

- Going to court.

- Yeah.

- How much does that complicate it because it...

Does that open the door to this notion that it's not, this is not just a education regulatory issue, this is an issue about parents- - It's a multipronged issue- - And society.

Does this open the door to culture wars and a different sort of back door to it in a way?

- I don't know if it opens the door for- - The haves versus- - Culture wars.

- The have-nots or that- - I would hope it opens the door to maybe learning what 'cause it's not a one-size-fit-all, it can be different from district to district, it can be different in the same district.

From like you said, different building from different building depends on your population, and what their needs are.

And I think one of the things lawmakers have to do is a one-size-fits-all approach.

I mean, that's just kind of, we have to make laws to fit everyone, but there needs to be hopefully some ways to customize it for what your needs are because my needs in my school district may not be the same as your needs in your district.

And I think that's where the problem often lies because you have suburban schools fighting with urban schools because there's different needs there.

And we often see that tug of war and that tension because- - Which also means it's not an our versus the issue- - Yeah.

- Sometimes it's rural versus urban.

- Yeah.

- Other things that are likely to come up, if not even at (chuckles) the, over the frustrations and objections of caucus leaders might be, you saw... You were quoted recently at a panel as saying, you were 1,000%, that's a lot of percent- (Oseye chuckles) - Sure that LGBTQ or anti-LGBTQ issues- - Yeah.

- Are gonna come back.

Elaborate on that.

- I mean, there's a huge difference between bills being filed, and bills moving in the General Assembly.

There are a lot of bills filed every year on both ends of the spectrum that just seem crazy.

Like that's never gonna happen in a million years.

So I'm 1,000% sure that there will be anti-LGBTQ bills filed.

I don't know whether they'll move, but I mean, history tells us they probably, there is, we have Republican supermajorities.

They are coming up in an election year, and while you might think that that would mean, "Oh, they don't wanna go to anything too extreme."

Well, they're not playing to a general election audience anymore- - Yeah.

- They're playing to a primary audience.

- They're more extreme, even... And it doesn't matter if something's accomplished.

We've talked about this before.

- Right.

- If I appear to be, I'm out there tilting at windmills, it doesn't matter if I've got a sharp sword, and that that windmill is our enemy.

- Right.

- You're still getting credit.

- I 1,000 % agree that it's gonna be a 1,000%- - Make it 2,000%.

- I'm gonna say 2,000.

- I wanna have more agreement than he had- - I was gonna say 2,000.

I definitely think there'll be bills filed, whether they go anywhere or not, but I definitely think we're gonna have the conversation again 'cause it's not over.

And I agree about playing to a different audience.

We're not... We kinda want radical now.

You kinda want things to be, I guess, what's the nice way of saying "radical"?

(chuckles) - Yeah.

- That's kind of what you're planning to now is we wanna see, we want that now, you're planning to win, it's not planning for compromise anymore, it's not a plan for...

It's a plan to for my base, we want to win.

And I think that's where we're gonna see some more of the LGBTQ issues come up.

- But also these things, like everything else, these things don't happen in a vacuum.

When these bills come up in Indiana, it's not like Indiana created them.

- Right.

- Mm-hmm.

- Right.

- We've seen them all over the country in- - Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

- Different Republican-led states.

- Mm-hmm.

- So I mean, the clues to what are they gonna do next here is what are they doing elsewhere?

- Well, and sometimes what's happening in neighboring states becomes the argument for or against another measure.

And I'm gonna give you an example, marijuana reform.

We've already heard people, it's a priority for Senate Democrats as it has been in the past legalization, or at least decriminalization of marijuana because, and I've heard Senate, Greg, the Taylor, the head of Democrats and Senate say, "We got the neighboring states, we're gonna get left behind essentially."

So that doesn't keep issues like that, even though the governor's already said until federal, it's not gonna happen while he's in office.

- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

- But that's not gonna keep people from bringing up marijuana reform, kratom reform, which if you really wanna get into the subcategories, I'm just proving I- - I'll say this.

(Oseye laughs) - I know what's going on.

- I do wanna say this to your point about, I agree, Governor Holcomb has made it clear, without federal action, he doesn't want Indiana to do anything, that seems unlikely to happen in the next year.

So while he's governor, it seems unlikely.

But I don't think that's a reason why lawmakers at the Statehouse won't do something because they don't really care that much what Eric Holcomb thinks about a lot of other subjects.

- Hmm, not at all.

- I mean, he's vetoed seven bills and had been overridden I think four of those times in office.

So to a certain extent, they don't care that much what Eric Holcomb thinks about a subject, if they wanna do it- - Mm-hmm.

- And he doesn't.

- Mm-hmm.

- It's a matter of, they don't wanna do it at this point, but they are in danger of being left behind.

- I think, yes, left behind, there's a lot of money out there now, and we're missing money.

I think this happened with gambling, it happened with selling liquor on Sundays.

We finally caught up to where people want us to be.

And this is a thing for me about listening to your constituents.

If people are telling you they want marijuana legalized, why are our legislators legalizing marijuana?

What's the problem now?

It's not because we care so much about Sundays or (chuckles) the lottery or gambling 'cause we've shown that when there's money attached to it, we'll go ahead- - You're making a good point.

If lawmakers just read (Oseye laughs) the polls and did what the polls said, it'd be a lot of different- - Well, I will say this though.

I mean, and because this is a question we get, the audience engagement tools that we use at IPB News, which are terrific.

We get this question a lot, which is clearly overwhelmingly Hoosiers want marijuana legalization and decriminalization.

Why then don't lawmakers do it?

It's because when people go to the polls, that's not how they're making their decisions on who to vote for.

- That's true.

- Well, the session is short, unfortunately this discussion on that session is short too.

I didn't even get to ask you if we're finally gonna get a state official sandwich, but maybe we'll do a web exclusive on that (laughs) where that we saved the hard-hitting stuff.

Thank you, both of you, I appreciate, it's gonna be interesting.

- Thank you.

- And you've given us a much better perspective on what we can't expect in the coming months.

Again, my guests have been Brandon Smith of Indiana Public Broadcasting, and Oseye Boyd of Mirror Indy.

Next week on Indiana Lawmakers, we continue a Hoosier tradition, our annual conversation with the General Assembly's caucus leaders.

Well, that concludes another edition of Indiana Lawmakers.

I'm Jon Schwantes, and on behalf of commentator, Ed Feigenbaum, who I should point out called in sick this week, WFYI Public Media and Indiana's other public broadcasting stations.

I thank you for joining us, and I invite you to visit wfyi.org for more Statehouse news.

Until next week, take care.

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