- At the outset of the General Assembly's 2024 session, the leadership of the Republican supermajorities in the House and Senate predicted a quote, "Quiet session devoted to fine tuning."

Now I suppose words can mean different things to different people, but I'm reminded of the Reagan-era heavy metal band Quiet Riot, which as underscored by their big hit, "Cum on Feel the Noize," stretched the terms quiet and fine tuning to their semantic and etymological limits.

And some would say beyond.

Hi, I'm Jon Schwantes, and on this week's show, we'll review the just concluded legislative session.

Who won, who lost, what passed, and what fell short.

And perhaps just as important, what does all of that mean for November's general election and for the 2025 budget session?

So grab your earplugs because this discussion could get pretty quiet, if you know what I mean.

"Indiana Lawmakers" from the State House to your house.

(uplifting music) Joining me to talk about the just concluded 2024 session are House speaker Todd Huston, a Fishers Republican, Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray, a Martinsville Republican, House Minority Leader Phil GiaQuinta, a Fort Wayne Democrat, and Senate Minority Caucus Chair J.D.

Ford, an Indianapolis Democrat.

All right, thanks everybody.

Now that you've had time to digest, you'll be able to offer great clarity about what did and didn't pass.

But first I've gotta ask you, Mr. Speaker, quiet, non-aggressive, short, in and out, not raucous.

What happened?

Or is your interpretation of those words different maybe from IFC and Webster's?

- Well, look- - It was a lot more contentious, I think, than it was quiet or fine tuning, was it not?

- No, I felt like it was what we expected it to be.

You know, we came in a little later.

We left earlier, good for taxpayers and accomplished a lot.

But lots of things we worked on together across all four caucuses.

And I think a very productive session.

- And you Senator, thought that I saw in the post session news conference, you talked about it being maybe a little more substantive than you had expected.

- Well, I think, you know, first of all, we had a certain set of priorities.

We got most of those done and, but you know, members are gonna file their bills that are important to them and we're gonna discuss the ones that have merit.

So that's always gonna be the case and people aren't gonna miss an opportunity to bring something that they feel like is important.

So that's why we're there.

But I think as the speaker said, you know what, overall we focused on the things that were most important to us achieved those, we had a pretty large amount of bipartisan cooperation.

And so we feel like it was a productive year.

- And to your point about with every member having an agenda, I mean, especially with an election coming up, what better free media is there than championing a cause, perhaps?

I'm not suggesting that that cynically, that that's the only reason, but I'm sure it doesn't hurt.

Phil GiaQuinta, how about you?

Is it what you expected this session?

I know you came away saying not exactly what you wanted to see.

- Well, I think the speaker and I would agree that we frankly blame it all in the Senate.

(all laughing) It was their bills that frankly caused the most problems.

Would you agree?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- [Jon] No, you know, that's what I call bipartisan.

Agreement.

- Yeah, no, I mean, look, there's some things that obviously we agreed upon and we'll, I'm sure we'll get into those a little bit more.

Obviously the 13th check, is something that was a priority for both of our caucuses.

Happy for that.

Certainly.

- 75,000 pensioners all were gonna send you a, well, I guess they missed ballot.

- Frankly, something should have been done in my my opinion last year.

Happy to see that it got done this year.

Yeah, I mean there, every session, no matter what year, when you go into these things, long and short, it doesn't matter.

There's always gonna be some bills that obviously cause some ire and there are some that happened this year as well, I'm sure we'll get into those.

- Oh, we will.

We'll get into that.

And J.D., let's round it out here.

I mean, what you expected?

- Yeah, I think going into the legislative session, we were kind of promised that it would be a little bit more quiet, which I think for the most part it was, I was really happy and pleased to see that some of the social cultural war bills that normally get filed and get heard weren't necessarily on the calendar this year.

And I really appreciated that.

- Did you look closely, some were filed.

They just didn't get hearing.

- Some were filed, yeah.

- There were greater - That's right, yes.

- restrictions on abortion if there is greater restrictions possible.

And other sorts of things along those lines.

Just to dealt with some of the culture wars.

But again, most did not get a hearing, so I guess...

But that matches your expectation because of what had been said going into this, I presume.

- Yeah, and to Senator Bray's point, you know, I really did appreciate the spirit of cooperation.

I know that we worked very closely with the Republican caucus this session on a lot of different bills and you know, and I think, surprisingly people don't know this, but a lot of the votes that we take, all of us are voting in the affirmative.

So I really do think that, you know, that spirit of cooperation was there this session.

- I don't know if, my diagnosis of you guys, is that you have a short memory or you had bad hearing?

Because I, you're forgetting some of the debates that were pretty contentious just a few weeks ago, but I guess time heals wounds.

Let's go around once, and I do wanna get into the bills and we'll try to deal with them thematically, but what's the one thing that you want Hoosiers to know about this session?

- Well, I think it was a great year for kids, and I think, you know, the Senate had Senate Bill 1, which I think incredibly important Bill that leads on, you know, making sure that we continue to make sure kids that are in third grade are prepared to leave third grade reading grade level, providing all the supports necessary for those kids to get that instructional help.

So I think that was critical.

I think this, the work that we did on childcare was critical.

The work-based learning, we continue to improve that model to make sure every kid has the right pathway for them is super important.

So I think, you know, big winners were kids and the policies to support kids in the state of Indiana.

- We'll keep it going around.

- Well, I think- - Takeaway.

- I think the speaker said exactly that, is that the kids and parents with reading proficiency, there's a little bit of work on truancy and daycare was a really significant pieces.

The other thing I'll pivot to just quickly is that to the tour of the spirit of cooperation, the house had a bill on antisemitism that had the potential to be wildly controversial by the end of the session, between all four caucuses and plus members of all communities in the hallway passed a bill that I think everybody was happy with and supportive of and couldn't be happier about, that kind of cooperation.

- I gotta say, there's that memory again.

I think there are some groups that are pretty vocal and were calling on a veto of that, and in fact, the coalitions, strangely enough, switched because of the, we wouldn't need to get into the particulars, - Well they did- - It was included in the legislation.

- They switched, but once, by the time we got the conference committee report put together, I feel like everybody was in support of that idea.

I mean, it was, the challenging is it went through the process.

- It had support.

- Where it landed is had very broad support than before.

- Yes.

And after they blamed the Senate for everything you just agreed with everything they said?

- We were trying to fix what they were... - Alright.

(all laughing) - He'll patch it, he'll patch it up.

What's the takeaway you want people to know?

- Yeah, I think frankly, the ongoing issue with regards to local control, what local governments do, sort of the state legislature sort of meddling in those type of things.

We saw it again with Senate Bill 52, the blue line.

The fact that, you know, Gary has this continuing lawsuit with gun manufacturers.

- Used to have a continuing lawsuit.

- Used to have puppy mills.

So yeah, so I think we, you know, I've said this before, I would like to see the legislature sort of get out of that business of undoing things that local folks at the city council level have been doing.

- Again, just for those casual observers, the Gary lawsuit was against gun manufacturers, been going on for what, two decades or more?

- 25 years.

- 25 years.

- Basically because the gun lobby is one that- - And that would go away.

And then your point about the puppy sales, I think there are what, 20 some municipalities now that have ordinances that ban retail sale of dogs?

- Right.

- And now there's a preemption that says, sorry, local government, can't do that.

- Well, there's a framework.

I think Jon, that's a critical portion of that discussion to make sure that breeders and the types of dogs are setting a standard right now, to make sure those dogs are bred in the appropriate manner.

It's a better way to provide options for families and people who want to purchase dogs than going through a third party route.

So I think, you know, there's a lot of talk about the preemption, but there's a lot more of that bill around creating a structure that supports I think a better product for customers and frankly, a lot more humane breeding practices for the dogs.

- We'll mark you down for the speaker likes dogs.

- I love dogs.

- All right.

Takeaway that.

The most important thing.

- Yeah, I think Hoosiers advocacy really played a huge part in this legislative session.

I know that, well they were following along with, you know, the bargaining language that was kind of controversial.

Wetlands bill.

I know my inbox was on fire when the wetlands bill was coming through, the puppy bill.

Many of what representative GiaQuinta mentioned.

And so, and I would disagree with the speaker in terms of, you know, in terms of the children in our state, we did see a little bit of a rollback on regulations with the childcare, particularly 1102.

I know our caucus put a lot of amendment support to put some guardrails up on that as well as the child labor laws.

You know, we're kind of rolling back some of those regulations in order to meet some of the workforce needs.

So I would disagree slightly with the speaker on that.

- You talk about the involvement of Hoosiers following closely and burning up your inbox, as you say.

But the two examples you cited didn't do any good.

I presume that most of your constituents were, didn't wanna see the preemption on retail sale of dogs, and I'm guessing they didn't wanna see some of the others, the wetlands and the others you wanted.

- Correct.

But it allowed me to- - So I mean, where does, when does the public input you say it's great to have, and I think it is in a democracy, but, did it really make a difference?

- Maybe not, but you know, at least allowed me to, you know, kind of print off those emails or take those emails to my colleagues and say, hey, maybe we should slow down.

Maybe we should pump the brakes on these particular issues.

Unfortunately it didn't work, but, you know, but I'm glad to see people are paying attention to what we're doing in the legislature.

- Alright, we're gonna jump into some of the bills now, but we're not, we got 918 filed, nearly 175 passed, believe it or not, we don't have time to talk about all of 'em.

So I thought we could do this thematically, and you've already talked about a few of them, just stealing my thunder as usual.

But education, clearly, it's no longer 50% of the budget.

It used to be, it's down to 48%, but still seems to be the dominant issue in terms of generating legislation even in a short session.

You mentioned some of them, you talked about chronic absenteeism, you talked about third grade literacy rates and retention.

Others weren't necessarily, there were some other more contentious bills, sex-ed, which didn't, you know, oversight of sex-ed with more parental involvement and input.

You know, you had different issues about everything from school safety and fire, or should say intruder drills, armed intruder drills.

I mean, it wasn't just literacy, read and write and arithmetic here, but you feel good about where education K through 12 overall landed?

- Absolutely, and I think, you know, we did touch on a number of different things, not just literacy, but school safety, a number of different programs taking, again, modernizing the type of education our kids receive.

So, you know, look, it's always gonna be a big issue to us as you know, almost half the state budget goes into that.

And, we have a million plus kids that we're serving in Indiana schools.

So I don't only expect that any session will go through without a strong conversation about what's taking place educationally.

- And it wasn't just K through 12 that was generating a lot of legislation this year seemed to have a fair amount of high profile, higher education.

The bills, you already mentioned, one of them, certainly the antisemitism bill, which picked up a lot of attention.

And another one had to do with perhaps restructuring depending on how this is interpreted or how it unfolds.

The notion of a tenure system that's at the larger research institutions in our state, in the quest apparently or ostensibly for a diverse array of opinions that are taught in the classroom and maybe more transparency, the sponsors would say, and authors would say around a DEI, diversity, inclusion and equity programs.

All necessary, do you think?

- Well first of all- - I mean that was not on any, but that last second one, the antisemitism was certainly a priority bill at the the start of the session, but the other one seemed to kind of come outta nowhere.

- Well, you know, it's Spencer Deery, Senator Deery is, he lives in the West Lafayette area.

He's associated with Purdue University.

- He was with Mitch Daniel former president, former governor of 11 years, I think as chief of staff, or deputy chief of staff.

- And so he recognizes some challenges that higher education has right now.

And everybody knows that one is the cost is a concern for everybody produced on a fantastic job of fighting that over the last decade or so, but also the atmosphere on campus and whether it really is a place that's teaching critical thinking or if it's just trying to teach a certain political perspective.

And so the only thing that Senator Deery's bill did was try to say, let's make sure that we insert intellectual diversity there so that campuses are a free flow of ideas, which is what a liberal arts education is supposed to be about.

And the idea that he is trying to get rid of tenure is the antithesis of what his bill was, frankly.

Because, you know, tenure is the idea that is protective of a professor that's on campus that's doing research that might not be approved by everybody.

But you want that intellectual and academic freedom to do that.

And that's frankly what his bill does, is provides that and tries to make sure there's intellectual diversity for the kids that are spending their money in those schools.

- And you hear that sort of approach, an argument, we heard it during the session, then you have professor associations and groups which were up in arms.

We saw a lot of coverage across the country in higher education press about this.

Which is it?

Or is it, is the sky falling or is this something that everybody can take in stride?

- Well, I think, number one it's another example as I talked earlier about local control.

I mean, we should let- - [Jon] In this case local is the university.

- The universities, number two.

I do think it's gonna be an issue going forward with regards to trying to attract professors to our state.

You know, when any time you start putting these, especially coming from the legislature, which is political, and you have these ideas as to what, you know, someone is gonna be watching you as to, you know, are you making sure that you're, you know, talking about both sides, did I do that right?

Those type of things.

I mean, that's something that the universities, I think should be able to govern on their own and not have the legislature involved.

And then one of the, a couple of things real quick on child education, we do recognize that we have an issue with the regards to third grade reading and the test scores.

We've been advocating for a long time now to, let's let's have a robust pre-K program.

Let's start on the front end instead the back end.

I think mandatory retention is gonna be something- - You're worried about, a population explosion.

- That, and then, - Or maybe summer school spiking.

- I love the idea too of more summer school, but it's, you know, we had an unfunded mandate, so there were some issues with that bill.

- How about this notion of loosening of regulation, and what some would say is an antipathy, not only toward regulation, but regulators in terms of the expertise that you see in certain agencies, like the Department of Environmental Management now.

And this would really be getting into the weeds if we talk about the consolidation of administrative law and appeals and so forth.

But suffice it to say, it would be less onus or burden on the experts and more on a consolidated and potentially more in the hands of the general assembly.

Do you see a theme there?

Is that something that A, you see as a real trend, and where do we go from here on that?

- Yeah, I mean I think there's some bills that were filed and discussed that still had a lot of heartburn left over from what the governor did during the Covid era.

But you know, I think hopefully that's kind of- - Putting a bill limiting gubernatorial powers in emergencies.

- Yeah, that's correct.

And I'm hoping that that's kind of, we're gonna move away from that given the fact that we'll have a new governor potentially this year.

So I'm hoping that that's, we're gonna move away from that.

- Well, how about this- - There should be actual tension.

I mean, you know, first of all, I mean, I think most of these proposals are common sense.

I mean, when you look at the wetlands proposal, it's a common sense proposal.

Let's call, let's make sure wetlands are wetlands.

And, that was a bill worked in concert with IDEM to make sure that we found the right balance.

I think we've we accomplished that.

- There were some people within IDEM that says, hey, the experts were consulted.

- I can't speak to that.

I can tell you the commissioner of IDEM, who leads IDWM was supportive and testified to support the bill.

You had other bills in which, you know, I mean, I think, you know, we're the elected representatives and they're in important regulators or important people in agencies, but we take the feedback that we get from our constituents and apply it.

And I think, you know, most of these things that have been talked about, we're just getting back to common sense, you know, policies that, you know, kind of reign back in when the administrative branch goes a bit too far.

We've had a great partnership with the administrative branch, but occasionally, you know, it gets a little bit ahead of itself and our responsibilities is to pull it back in.

- And also, - Oh, go ahead.

- I wanted to just make a comment about the governor's emergency powers bill.

I mean, you know, I hope that, I know that the governor, I've said this to him, this is not an attack or critique of the governor and his handling of that in the history of the state of Indiana, we've never had an emergency, declared emergency go past 60 days except for that Covid emergency.

And you know, what we're trying to do with that is learn from our experience and we've got a new governor coming in.

We're not trying to cut the wings of this governor or even any future governor.

We're just trying to recognize that, as the speaker just said, when you have an emergency, statewide emergency that kind of puts the state in that kind of condition that it was in.

The general assembly needs to have some seat at the table.

And the Governor Holcomb did that.

We had the speaker and I and other folks had lots of opportunity to talk to him, but we're just trying to learn from that experience, adjust our laws to that experience.

And that's what we're trying to do.

- And before we leave the subject of loosening of regulation, and several of you have mentioned this already, but daycares, unlicensed daycares will be able to have greater number of children for longer hours.

We've seen it with child labor, law is teenagers will be able to work later.

- By way, aligning to the federal law.

- Oh, right, that was strict.

- It's not like we're any, we're just aligning ourselves with the federal law.

- Comfortable with the easing up of this.

Is that common sense, is the term you heard, or.

- Yeah, that Bill, you know, went to the Senate.

They had conference committee.

I think we worked out a pretty decent compromise there.

But, you know, with regards to some of the issues we've talked about, I think one, the one that hasn't been mentioned, really, with regards to government and transparency and the access counselor, and, you know, to me again, it's kind of going, it's becoming a little more political, obviously- - Well, let's, before it was somebody who served regardless of what the governor thought of him or her.

Now the governor could say, you're out.

- Right, right.

Which again, makes it political.

And now, you know, is that gonna influence the decisions of the access counselor?

Obviously it probably will.

- You know, the thing we need to point out there is that, that bill did nothing to change the public access laws.

Not one thing, every, all the requirements for public meetings, to give notice to public meetings, all those things are identical.

They didn't change at all.

And the only thing we did with the public access counselor, two things.

One is that serves at the pleasure of the governor.

He already served a four year term.

So it would've been about a year after this new governor could have made a change if he or she wanted to when that happened.

But now it serves at the pleasure of the governor, which most agencies do.

And the other thing is, it says that public access counselor must follow Indiana law and active case law.

That's really not a very unreasonable stretch.

- Well I would just argue that it was working fine the way it has been for a number of years.

There's really no reason to change it.

- Well, I wonder if there's also, in politics, oftentimes optics, I mean, is there an issue with that sort of saying, clipping the wings, if you will, if in fact, even to the degree, minor degree, I guess it's open to debate about how that's perceived.

Well, I think it was unabrasive, right?

He just reinforces using statute and case law to make the decisions.

I don't see how that's controversial.

- Alright, another topic, I'm calling this one, this is not your father's or mother's legislative session.

And, for those of you who had fathers and I'm pointing for those on radio.

I'm pointing to two people at the table who've had fathers in the general assembly.

And I'm talking about things they never would've imagined dealing with.

Artificial intelligence, you know, digitally altered revenge porn, the use of AI to concoct things that your political candidate didn't really do or didn't really say, but I go out, there it is in the commercial.

Things like Department of Education, new requirement, that they have to have a, you know, internet safety policy, cell phones in the classroom.

What, is this the new normal?

- Well sure, artificial intelligence is here to stay, obviously.

And it's not hypothetical.

We watched a phone call from purportedly to be from President Biden that was not from President Biden.

So the technology is there and it's actually out there.

So you wanna make sure that we try to stay on top of these things.

It's really difficult for government to do because that technology moves at such a fast pace.

And then government, just by definition and how we're structured with 150 people making policy, we can't move at that pace.

But, so we have to make sure that we try to put some guardrails around that when we can.

There's two challenges.

First of all, as a state, this is really probably a national issue and difficult for us to do things as a state because you don't want 50 different policies on certain artificial intelligence ideas.

That's super challenging.

- The states been out on this.

- Well, because congress - Because congress - isn't doing anything - has been unable.

- and that's gonna be the case.

The second thing I wanna make sure that everybody understands, with regard to artificial intelligence, you know, we've had technological advancements certainly since the industrial age of the 1890s.

And the benefit to all of that, those technological advances are, it makes productive, or makes workers more productive, which means that they are able to earn more money, which brings them into the middle class or even above.

So artificial intelligence probably continues to do that.

There'll be different jobs and our professions will be different as a result of it as we move forward.

But I think it stands to be a wonderful benefit, but it also has some real challenges and threats to our society that we have to be cognizant of and try and create some policy.

- Of course, they'll never replace legislators.

- Of course not.

- Artificial intelligence.

Again, states have been ahead of the game.

Last year, you all did something with data privacy and again, was sort of out front on this.

Is this enough?

Are we keeping up with the wave?

I mean, maybe it's an impossibility.

- No, I think you're spot on.

It's, things are moving very quickly.

I think it frankly, a good time for, during the summer for legislators to really look into this topic and kind of keep up to date on what's happening.

So it is difficult to stay ahead of the game, if you will.

And I'm glad we were able to kind of do some things, but you know, I mean, we like to think ourselves as sort of up on what's happening, but it moves rather quickly.

And, as much as we want to say that we are up to date on these things, it's tough.

And so, as I said earlier, I think it'd be kind of good idea, this summer, to kind of have a summer study committee that keeps looking at these things and we'll take a look at it, I'm sure more going forward in the launch session.

- Well, I'm using the summer to get my MySpace account up to up to speed.

Lastly, we're almost outta time, but we have elections looming.

Primaries and then general election in November.

We gotta, what everybody says is gonna be a monumental session with the budget next year.

A lot of things colliding.

How does this session set the stage for that, do you think?

- Yeah, I think, you know, obviously, this year is gonna be a very big year for many folks.

A lot of good candidates on the ballot will have a new governor, we'll have a new US senator, have new members of the legislature.

But thankfully I don't have to be on the ballot this year.

I can kind of sit back and watch other folks do it.

But certainly working to help people, you know, get across the finish line.

But certainly that'll set the stage for next year.

- And the budget negotiator, the budget architects are already working, are they not?

- Sure.

They never stop.

- They never stop.

All right.

All right.

We are out time.

I appreciate, I feel like we, some of those conference committees in the final hours cramming everything in here.

But again, thanks again for your commitment to public service to the state of Indiana and for taking time out to sort of assess the session that was, and look ahead to the session ahead.

Again, my guests have been House speaker Todd Houston, a Fishers Republican, House minority leader, Phil GiaQuinta, a Fort Wayne Democrat, Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray, a Martinsville Republican and Senate minority Caucus Chair J.D.

Ford, an Indianapolis Democrat.

Still not sure what to make of this year's legislative session?

Well, on the next Indiana Lawmakers our final show of the 2024 season, we'll hear from some of the state house's most respected reporters.

And time now for my weekly conversation with Ed Feigenbaum, publisher of the newsletter, Indiana Legislative Insight, part of Hannon News Service.

Ed, we covered a lot of territory.

I'm sure we left off something.

What did we leave out?

- Oh, something near and dear to our hearts, the happy hour bill, Jon.

We- - Our livers, not our hearts.

Yes, that's been a, we haven't had that in the state since probably the nineties.

- Our college days?

No, no, earlier.

- Yes, that me be the reason they had to institute a ban.

I'm not sure, but you're right.

- So yeah, the governor's signing the happy hour bill and we will have a change in alcohol regulation in the state.

You know, we've seen how this has progressed basically over the past decade or so in terms of loosening a lot of the alcohol regulations.

- And young, and people, I think 18 to 21 will be able to serve alcohol perhaps and ring it up in the cash register.

So some other changes in that regard.

I know you've talked a lot about the notion of administrative law and about the role of agency expertise.

Do you see, did that all unfold the way you thought it would this session?

- Well, there was a lot more change toward the legislative end here and giving legislators more of a voice in the process and citizens really helping citizens.

And I think last year we saw the legislature try to impinge on some of the agency's abilities to make rules to promulgate regulations.

And this session we saw that move from the agency rulemaking process to the agency adjudication process.

And they made some changes in the way that agencies handle challenges to their rules, to their decisions.

And they really changed things so that the consumer, the businesses that are challenging these decisions will have a little bit more of an advantage and may have an opportunity to collect some cash if they're correct in challenging the agencies.

- And I'll end with the same question I ended with them.

What does this do to set the stage for the next session?

- Oh, big heavy lift.

We left all the major issues and some of the minor things.

- Anything with a price tag, right?

- Absolutely.

- Alright, Ed, thank you very much.

As always, appreciate your insight.

- Thank you Jon.

- Well that concludes another edition of Indiana Lawmakers.

I'm Jon Schwantes, and on behalf of commentator Ed Feigenbaum, 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 State House news.

Until next week, take care.

(uplifting music)