- During this year's Legislative session, one of the most frequently uttered four-letter words is one, I can say, vote.

Used as a noun, verb and adjective.

Now that the session has concluded, another only slightly more vulgar four letter word has come to the fore, it's veto, which if you think about it, is a natural successor to vote.

After all, you can't spell veto without vote or vice versa.

Hi, I'm Jon Schwantes, and on this our final show of the 2024 season, we'll look at the public policy battles that begin anew once legislation is sent to the governor's desk.

Get that soap ready to wash out our mouths.

It's "Indiana Lawmakers" from the State House to your house.

(majestic music) At first blush, the veto might seem like a pretty straightforward policy tool.

The governor doesn't like a measure that lawmakers have adopted and poof, with the stroke of a pen, he or she makes it disappear.

Well, that's true to an extent, but you have to remember that Indiana's veto process is different from most of its counterparts across the country.

Now, all 50 governors have some sort of veto power.

In some states though, governors can exercise a so-called pocket-veto and effectively kill a bill by doing nothing.

In Indiana, if the governor does nothing within seven days, the measure becomes law anyway.

Aside from calendar considerations, vetoes can take several different forms.

In many states, governors have the ability to issue a line-item veto, that is, strike a general provision from a piece of legislation.

Governors with reduction authority can delete a particular budget item, and those with amendatory authority can revise various sections of the measure.

Indiana is one of just seven states that limit their chief executives to two basic options, take it or leave it.

What really distinguishes Indiana, however, is the relative fragility of the gubernatorial veto.

In most states, a veto remains in effect unless two-thirds of lawmakers vote to override it.

In Indiana, in contrast, a veto can be cast aside by a constitutional majority.

That's just 26 votes in the Senate and 51 in the House.

In the parlance of political science, Indiana's veto power is weak.

In recent days, Republican Eric Holcomb issued the eighth and final veto of his two-term tenure in the governor's office.

House enrolled Act 1002 was a compromise measure, intended to define and proscribe antisemitism in Indiana schools.

In vetoing it, Holcomb said the legislation contained confusing language that could inadvertently expose Jewish students to discrimination and harassment.

Four of Holcomb's seven previous vetoes were overridden, but none of those bills had reached the governor's desk with the near unanimous support enjoyed by House Bill 1002.

Well, we've closed the book, turned off the lights and reached the end of the road.

The buzzer has sounded, the plug has been pulled and the last out has been recorded.

And yes, the chickens have hatched and for the most part been counted.

Why then do I feel as if we're just getting started?

Here to weigh in on the just-concluded 2024 session and/or set the stage for the coming budget session, are Brandon Smith, state house bureau chief for Indiana Public Broadcasting, and the host of "Indiana Week in Review," Niki Kelly, editor-in-chief of the "Indiana Capital Chronicle," and a longtime panelist on that same show, and Dr. Laura Merrifield Wilson, associate professor of political science at the University of Indianapolis.

Thank you all for being here and I hope Brandon, you realize the baseball fan that you are, I included that one cliche, - I appreciated that.

- Just for you, so, I know that was the price of admission for you.

But let's go around once and give me a label.

We're gonna talk about vetoes, we're gonna talk about that sort of drama that came after the gavel came down, sine die, 'cause there was a little bit of drama, in many ways, surrounding the governor's actions.

But before we do, looking back on the session, Brandon, let's start with you.

Give me a label.

- Well, I know Niki and I disagree a little bit on this.

- That's good, that's what this is all about.

- In that lawmakers, before the session said, "Oh, it's gonna be quiet, we're not gonna do that much, "small tweaks to existing policies."

- Fine tuning, yeah.

- And I think, you know, Rod Bray said it at the last night of session when I asked him about it, which was a lot more heavy lifting than he thought there was gonna be.

But I think you have a slightly different view on how the session went.

- Yeah, I found it kind of boring.

I mean, there were two or three sort of significant bills that were contentious and drawing some ire, but other than that I thought it was mostly sort of smaller, low-impact stuff, so.

- That's why we have three guests, so we can have a tie breaker.

- Yeah.

- It's all up to you, no pressure.

- Well, I'm gonna have to side with Brandon on this one.

But I don't disagree with Niki.

There were two or three really contentious issues.

It just happened those were really contentious.

- And they were very high profile and they got national attention.

- They were.

- In many cases, the antisemitism bill, certainly, for example.

- Absolutely, and same in terms of Senate Bill 202, with regards to tenure and faculty.

And I don't think these- - Intellectual diversity on the college campus, sort of- - Yeah, you didn't necessarily have to have this.

They didn't, they could have had a nice, quiet session, right?

That was a choice.

And it might be one that they regret, but that was obviously what we had.

Even though it was a short session, to me it was fairly exciting, even if it was just a couple of issues that really took up most of the time.

- Well, let's agree then we'll come to terms, that it was a session that ended up, started supposedly quietly, ended up with a lot of heavy lifting that turned out to be boring for some or that - A loud whimper.

Is that a loud- - Look, I'm just saying, if there's only two or three like, bills that are really causing the ruckus, that's not an exciting session to me.

- What can we take away from leadership?

Because, super majorities, I've often said that heading a super majority is not the easiest job in town.

It may be the toughest job in town, certainly tougher, arguably than being the head of the minority caucus when you only have a very small group to serve as the loyal opposition.

The fact that it didn't, wasn't as quiet, and as much fine tuning as we thought, what does that say about leadership?

Now there are two ways to look at that, I suppose.

I'll answer my own question.

One is they didn't read the room and they didn't anticipate how much pent up demand there was for some of the special interest legislation.

Or you could say, if you look at the bills that were filed, there were a lot of bills that never got a hearing that would've made the contentious bills we talked about look like chopped liver.

- Well, but at the same time, I mean, I would say if there's two or three really contentious or high profile bills, it was certainly Senate Bill 202, but it was House Bill 1002 antisemitism, Senate Bill One, Reading.

So, I mean, two of the biggest bills of the session were two of their top priorities.

So leadership was saying one thing, but then they put, I mean, you said it a a lot, Jon, early in the session when we were talking about this, yeah, lawmakers said it would be quiet and then they made one of the most controversial geopolitical conflicts in history, certainly one of the most hot button, House Bill 1002.

So the, on the one hand, yes, they didn't do as much across the board.

- Right.

- But they, I mean, the big stuff, they didn't shy away from making those their priorities.

- Would it have been without leadership, would we have seen, there were, we didn't get much attention, but there were additional abortion restrictions.

We didn't see those get a hearing.

- Yeah, there was a lot of stuff that- - And that's but for leadership.

- Didn't get a hearing.

- We didn't have a fight over the word gender in the state that- - Which was another bill that was certainly introduced.

- Would have been a big one.

And yeah, you mentioned the, and I'm conceding the two or three big bills, but- - I think you're backing away from your earlier assessment.

- I'm not- - I think you're reaching.

- I'm not at all.

- I think you're coming around to their point of view.

- We can be, usually, we have 10 priority bills- - Yeah.

- Yeah.

- From them.

We had three or four from each in the house and the Senate, and we had a lot of like little skirmishes here and there.

- Although I'll say maybe the most impactful bill of the session, and the one, that could have had the greatest impact, also a senate priority bill, didn't even make it past the- - Halfway.

- The first half of the session, which was the Senate bill that would've dramatically overhauled prior authorization in health insurance.

That could have been, I mean, one of the most impactful things this legislature has ever done and any legislature has done, in terms of health care costs and transparency.

- And that would be a bill that seems to fly in the face of a prediction of a quiet session.

- Absolutely, but- - Because that would, anything but fine tuning.

- But to almost prove Niki's point, which now I'm arguing against myself a little bit.

- Wow, this is- - But to prove Niki's point- - It's a salon here, we're having- - To prove that would've been not been made things quiet, but it couldn't even get past the Senate floor.

- Is it, one of the conventional, bits of conventional wisdom, is that these sessions, because of elections looming and primaries right at not too far away on the calendar, people want to get out of town, and go back and campaign.

My contention is for a lot of lawmakers, this is the best free media they can get.

And if they can come up with a proposal that they know isn't gonna get so much as a hint of a hearing, still they can trumpet that.

They can say, look, dear constituents, I fought this fight.

I mean, how much of that was at play here?

- Oh, I think a lot of it.

This was pre campaigning.

And especially when we notice in Indiana, more of the competition is happening in our primary elections than the general election.

Right now, it's the end of March.

You've got a really short timeframe before the election actually comes up.

And especially with early voting, like, voters are making their decisions very soon.

I think this is the opportunity for those legislators to really take a stake, especially on social issues, and when they're competing in the primary election, to be able to say, look like this is what I did.

This is what I supported.

I also always think it's a really effective campaign strategy to say, "Look, I introduced it, it didn't pass, "but if you reelect me, right, next legislative session."

And there is an aspect of legislative attrition.

We've seen it here, Sunday alcohol sales, so many different things.

Maybe the antisemitism bill reintroduced yet again, next legislative session, where you make tweaks, your audience changes, the legislation changes and eventually it doesn't pass one session, it might not pass the next session, but eventually it does get passed.

- Well, and a lot of the most potent issues it seems, tend to be when you get people opposed, no voter like an angry voter, in terms of motivation.

- Yes, absolutely.

- And it seems if there were an overarching theme, it's a lot of anti fill-in-the-blank this session, anti-regulation, anti Indianapolis, anti, let's not just stop at Indianapolis, anti local government.

Is that an over statement of a lot of antis here?

Anti regulation?

I mentioned regulation, we saw certainly, childcare regulations dialed back a little bit.

- Yeah.

- Because there is a crisis, but at the edges, dialing back.

Wetlands protections dialed back, more preemptions in terms of local government for the Gary gun lawsuit, which had been in the works for 25 years, pulling the plug on that.

Or puppy sale, retail sales.

- Well, but I mean, that's one way to frame 'em.

If I put on my Republican hat for a second, I could say all of those things are not anti, they're pro.

They're pro freedom, they're pro consumer, they're pro, it's dog sellers and consumers and it's pro et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So I mean, there's always the flip side to most of those things.

The anti-Indianapolis one, I don't know what they're pro, but I think it's important to note though- - You're pro everything else.

- Yeah.

- Is I think the way it's framed, right?

- But I will on that though, we saw, for the first time in a while, I would argue, Indianapolis really get a win here, in that the legislature either came up- - An 11th hour win.

It didn't look good at some points.

- Yeah, it came up either with compromises in legislation itself when it comes to some of this stuff, like the the the downtown taxing unit.

- It was a fine, yeah, - Or they- - Which they, over a year ago, they'd gotten the permission to use, right?

The state.

I mean the city Indianapolis- - One year turnaround, but, or they came up with a compromise outside of legislation when it comes to the blue line where- - [Laura] Yeah, Senate Bill 52.

- A mix of dedicated lanes versus not dedicated- - Which it's hard to construe that as anything.

I know technically it would've involved, the moratorium, would've been, involved other cities with mass transit.

But as a practical matter, this was all about- - Well, and actually as legislation before it, before it was shelved entirely, that legislation only applied to Indianapolis because of the concerns of other communities that, so again, I don't know how you say pro anything on that one, but on the others there's always the flip side.

- Is this always simply because it's a Democratic-controlled city?

I mean, is that overly naive, just to say it's as simple as that?

The super majorities of- - I mean, obviously the stuff in Indianapolis- - The House and Senate are Republicans don't- - Indianapolis, a lot of that is, but you can see in the Puppy Mill Sales Bill, whatever you wanna call it, depending on which side you're on, there were Carmel counselors showing up saying, we passed this ordinance, too.

- 21 communities, I think- - Yeah.

- Had passed that.

- Yes, and so it wasn't just Democrat on that one, certainly not.

And so for the Indianapolis ones, I do think it's largely because the Republican super majorities don't like what the Democrats are doing in the state's largest city.

But for the other ones, it's a bit of a mix.

- I will say that I think a lot of it is the political party aspect of it.

But I think there's also a sense of lawmakers end up spending a lot of time in Indianapolis and they go, well, "I don't like that and I don't like that, "and I don't like that, so I'm gonna do something about it."

- "I don't wanna sit here and not be able "to turn right on red."

- Yeah, genuinely, genuinely.

We heard that from out of lawmakers mouths was, well, why do I have to sit there at the light when there's nobody walking and there's no traffic coming?

- It feels like there's a big difference too, between Indianapolis and the rest of Indiana.

And it's like Cleveland versus the world.

I do feel like that, it's such a large city in comparison to what is otherwise a very, largely rural, with some obviously notable exceptions- - Well, in Indiana statute, it's defined as a first-class city- - It is.

- Which sort of has a loaded term, I guess you could read that as you want.

- The only first-class city, right?

- Only first-class city.

They could have, they changed that- - Insert punchline here.

- Yes.

No, I think like, there is that natural attention.

I don't know that it would matter if it was a Republican-dominated city and a Republican Supreme, super majority, right- - I'm old enough to remember when it was a Republican-dominated city.

- Right, and there was still that conflict.

So I think that tension might not just be partisan.

- Yeah, well, it'll be interesting to watch in the future.

'Cause that's seems to be one theme that barring- - Never goes away.

- A dramatic change in the makeup of the general assembly or the makeup of city government, neither of which I'm guessing is gonna happen soon.

- Well, I mean, and and in terms of talking about the future, I think the conversation about transportation in Indianapolis, and the rest of Indiana, is a gonna be a big theme in 2025.

- Oh yeah, road funding and all that.

- Where speaker Todd Huston is still banging the drum on.

He wants the state to look at taking over the two big cross streets in Indianapolis, which is Washington and Meridian.

And I talked to the House transportation committee chair briefly about that, Jim Presel, and he's not quite on board with his speaker on that one, because- - Funny how there's sometimes divisions within large, super majorities.

- Yeah, his argument is of course that, well, if we take over two streets in Indianapolis, then every other community in the city's gonna go, well- - That consistency stuff, come on- - There's this big road that's important to the state.

Why don't you take that away from us and we don't have to worry about filling those potholes anymore.

- Well, as long as you're talking about road maintenance and who's gonna control, what about the police department, and other things.

I mean, we've had those discussions in the past.

I promised a discussion about vetoes, and that did create some drama during the session.

And it wasn't just at the end, like the Wetlands bill, which dramatically scaled back a lot of the protections of those parcels of land, which we had already been dramatically reduced because of earlier legislation.

But that doesn't mean there wasn't certainly a lot of people saying, knocking on the door, figuratively, saying, "Please let that happen."

Then we saw sort of a lull as we often do until the end.

And that's when a whole pile of bills shows up on the governor's desk.

And that's when there was yet, sort of the session after the session, where you have the same sorts of constituencies and coalitions that were there in place during the session, sort of take a deep breath and say, "Here's our last chance to either prevail "or kill something or see something prevail."

Certainly the surprise, well, I won't say it's a surprise, but the one that got the most attention, in part, because it was the only veto, was the antisemitism.

- Okay, I'm gonna say, and I'm gonna back you up in this, it was a little bit of a surprise - Oh yeah.

- Before we talked to Eric Holcomb.

- [Niki] Yeah.

- The week after session.

So the Thursday, so lawmakers wrapped up on a Friday, the following Thursday we went, the governor did a bill signing at a local bar in Indianapolis, because we, Happy Hour is back in Indiana, come July 1st, for the first time since the mid '80s.

And so he wanted to celebrate that bill signing, but obviously we also got a chance to talk about 'em, about the bills that were left out there that he had not decided on yet, or at least that he hadn't publicly decided on.

And we talked about two or three or four.

And on almost all of them, he sounded like he was ready to sign them and then, and he ended up signing them.

But boy, oh boy, that was, it wasn't the first we realized something might be going on with that bill getting signed, but it was the first time where I think a lot of us were like, "Oh, this is really gonna be-" - Well to your point, I mean, last week on this show we had caucus leadership in, and Roderick Bray said, "Oh, we reached this great compromise."

And I said, "Are you sure there's no?"

"No, it's pretty much-" - All four legislative leaders- - Session ended- - So what happened?

Take us inside the behind closed doors.

- And then we're talking to Holcomb, and he says, "The compromise is crumbling."

And all of us were like, "It is?"

I mean, I think that was the general thing.

And basically it sounds like they started hearing from people outside of Indiana, I think, and how we would look by not involving these contemporary examples that the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance has.

And I think he started seeing some pressure from that and just maybe the compromise wasn't as good as possible.

And also I think he realized that there were a number of states who had gone the proclamation or executive order route.

And if that was gonna satisfy people, then wow, we could have saved a lot of headache, right, during the session, because at the end, he signs a proclamation and everyone, including the House, who really wanted the bill, says, "Great, everything's great."

And man, that could have saved us a lot of effort.

- Well, that's the thing.

I mean, he talked about in his message filling the void.

- Yeah.

- We don't want this, it's confusing language could have unintended consequences in terms of harassment of Jewish students and so forth, but I'm gonna fill the void.

I mean, it has no practical bearing, does it, I mean that proclamation?

- No, not necessarily, but it does, it puts a standard.

- Well, the message.

- The message matters, right?

And even the law itself didn't have language in terms of what would happen if, so, it was still the stand, I think It's fascinating to me, like, when you saw the House propose it, it goes through no problem.

The Senate guts it.

It feels like there's a compromise and suddenly there isn't.

Like you think of how you mentioned earlier, sometimes leading a super majority isn't that easy.

Like, those are the entanglements between, within the party and then also those outside forces that I think really came into play in this one.

- This was the governor's eighth and final veto.

The others of those seven, four had been overridden- - Right.

- Two had been sustained, one never was brought up.

Which category does this fall into?

- Oh, I think they'll just, I think they just won't deal with it now.

- Yeah.

- I think they're all- - Because we've- - I mean the House, to your point, the House is who was the champions of this in the general assembly, they seem happy with the proclamation.

The Senate, who really didn't want any piece of this thing, can now say, well that's fine, the governor's taking care of it for us.

So no, I don't think you'll see any hide nor hair of that again.

- And if in fact, the theory is right, that he caved because of public perception from outside our borders, whether it's, talk about perception, you won't be able to recruit, people, it just is a bad, but didn't seem to resonate with him there.

And you could probably find other bills, public access counselor, probably not a national issue, but still the optics of doing away, not doing away, with limiting the autonomy- - [Niki] Yeah.

- Of the public access counselor who works on behalf of Hoosiers to say, "Hey, that piece of documentation "that probably is public-" - Or you know, if two members of a subcommittee decide to have a secret meeting in a coffee shop, that should have been an open meeting.

You're making policy behind closed doors.

But apparently some people have a problem with that.

- Well, and that's one that wasn't really vetted throughout the whole session that came up right at the end.

So there arguably would've been reasons that the governor might have said, "Okay, that's something I can, "besides I don't have to answer to anybody, "I'm done, I'm a lame duck."

- Look, that was an easy veto for him on public access.

- So what happened?

- Not only were there policy questions, but the process was just a mess.

And so I was a little shocked that he didn't veto that one, especially- - That would've been your bet- - Since he waited for it until the last minute.

Like you said, it's his last session.

He doesn't have anything to really be worried about or afraid about.

- He's not running for anything right away, anyway.

- I would think erring on the side of public access would've been the obvious choice on that.

Obviously, I may- - Hadn't he, vetoed, I remember one of us, maybe his first veto was a- - Yep.

- A deal bill dealing, if memory serves, with the price that's - Yep.

- That the state can charge for copying records and accessing records- - Could have easily just said, you know what, if you guys think this is the right process or the right policy, let's go back, start it, do full vetting.

- Yeah.

- And if that's what still comes out, then fine.

But that's not what he did.

- Laura, any surprises on the vetoes?

- I'm not sure if there were surprises, necessarily.

I think the interesting thing, as we mentioned, like, he's not running for anything immediately.

That one I would've thought was, would've been eligible for veto, right?

But again, this was supposed to be a short, easy session.

And if you're standing from Holcomb's perspective, you're finishing out a lame duck term, right?

You're trying to cement your legacy.

I think he's had more surprising vetoes, especially in some of the previous decisions he's made.

And some of those really contentious legislative sessions than what we necessarily saw here.

- But you can't think that he necessarily was worried about currying, I mean he's already alienated- - Yeah.

- A lot of the people, they're never gonna warm to him.

I mean we saw that with the emergency powers.

COVID's been gone, well it still lingers, but for the most part, as a public safety concern of the level it was.

There's still a lot of ill will about the way he handled that and overreach.

So what's his point of trying to be nice- - I mean not just- - to these people- - Yeah, and not just by the way, in the legislature, although could be because we saw again, I mean three years after we went through this entire session-long debate, over emergency powers, there was litigation over some of that the legislature lost and then it kind of went away and now suddenly it's back again.

They've come up with, I guess the governor thought it was okay, which is now, the governor can only declare a statewide emergency for, instead of 30 days at a time, indefinitely.

It's now 60 days at once, but you can't renew it unless the legislature comes in and says, "Sure you can renew it."

That seemed like- - That goes into the anti category I was talking about earlier.

- Yeah, but I mean, we're also hearing this on the campaign trail.

I mean these gubernatorial debates, the questions and even their statements, it's like, it's still a potent anger.

- You had- - [Laura] Until he says why- - He had his own lieutenant governor and his running mate, who was saying, this is basically full-throated- - Yes, yes - Support of this.

- Suzanne Crouch definitely supported that.

She tweeted out, I did wanna note at the time, when I read it, I was like, well, I don't remember her requesting a special session publicly back then.

I mean, she was lockstep with him then, but now she's obviously trying to separate herself from those decisions.

- A lot can happen in an Indiana- - Campaign cycle?

- I was gonna, alright, very much off-script, but I like that.

For those who watch "Indiana Week in Review," They'll indulge me in my little inside joke there.

Let's look ahead, spiral forward.

What we talked about, sort of the surprises, the, what sucked the oxygen out of the room in terms of publicity.

When push comes to shove and we look at next year's session, which legislative leadership has described as monumental, no lowering the bar.

Like this year we're lowering it, next year we're raising the bar.

Budget year is always a biggie anyway.

What has the most lasting and profound impact of what was done this year, either done or not done this year, in terms of the upcoming session?

- Oh, that's a great question.

Oh man, for budgeting, I mean obviously, the nonbudgeting duties were mostly social issues, but I do think you still see some of those social issues rise.

- I think it's safe to say that social issues will be back, there is- - They'll still be there, right?

That felt like an easy answer.

- Oh, it's the- - We'll have a new governor, right?

And not all the state legislators will return, some of them will have challengers and will lose.

There are some open seats.

In terms of specific issue, I think it's a great question I'm not sure of, but I do think there's gonna be a lot of revisiting of- - And certainly we've already saw that the, sort of the pieces, being set with an eye toward the budget - We saw that- - Oh absolutely.

- The billion dollar gap, shortfall- - That's what I'm, you wanna talk about something that didn't happen this session?

- Yeah.

- We'll have to yeah.

- That's gonna be a big thing that happens next session is this Medicaid shortfall/attendant care issue, where these families, a couple thousand families, we're talking about a couple thousand families, who are at risk of losing the care that they desperately need for their medically complex children.

And lawmakers threw their hands up in the air and said, "Well, it's fine.

"The agency rulemaking will take care of it."

Which is the first time that any- - Except you can't have an agency- - That any Republican lawmaker in the state- - They hate agency rulemaking unless they can take the heat.

- Agency rulemaking is the right way to go in a long time.

- Well, and that was an optics question, too.

'Cause the parents of those disabled children who were receiving those benefits, happened to say, "Let's show up when the celebration "of the Happy Hour bill signing and say, "'Okay, that's great, but what about'"- - While I was a little thinking this one was boring, next year, I'm so excited about, it's gonna be fascinating on so many different levels.

Obviously, the budget is one.

And I don't think lawmakers are going to be able to avoid making real decisions on Medicaid.

And yes, this was a shortfall, and they've covered it in the meantime, but the overarching question of how do we provide aid for our poor and disabled Hoosiers, in a sustainable manner.

Because the percentage of the budget that Medicaid is eating up is growing and growing.

So there are parts of Medicaid that are more optional than others.

And so there's gonna have to be some decisions made about whether we scale back some of those optional services.

- I don't see any way lawmakers don't make cuts to the Medicaid program.

- Yeah, they're gonna have to.

- Well, and Medicaid is so big now.

We always used to say it was almost just a Pavlovian response when you talk about the budget.

Well, education makes up more than half of the budget, now it doesn't.

K through 12 is under 50%.

- Just under, yeah.

- It's largely because, just under, because of these.

- And then two other big topics that are gonna be massive in a year when the budget and Medicaid are already big, is road funding that we've had.

We're still going through a study committee, kind of thing, to look at how we continue to fund our roads as gas tax revenue fluctuates.

And then we've had this two-year study of tax reform.

And so I- - That has the potential to do some things, yeah.

- So I agree when they use the word monumental, it's gonna be massive.

And not only should we cut taxes, but which taxes, how, are there replacement dollars or- - [Jon] If somebody gets hurt, every cut, locals or something.

- I will say this, I mean there's so much to tackle in that session.

- Wow.

- There's so much to tackle.

I'm starting to wonder if the tax cut thing is gonna be relatively small.

Like, they've taken two years and gone.

And I think you could come out of it legitimately.

And we've sat through those meetings.

We've heard what all these experts have said and the vast majority of 'em have said, "Your taxes are already pretty low, pal."

- A lot of taxes have already been cut in and retooled.

- And you need money to provide services.

- I mean, that's a great point, important work.

- And so I do wonder if that's gonna be a little smaller, the outcome.

- How much- - If so, that's a bad move because they built this thing up.

- Yeah, they did.

- Oh, you guys need a special session just to talk about this, 'cause we were out of time.

My nominee, K through 12, we spent 10 years trying to figure out school vouchers and school choice, so why not throw the whole thing out and have a system where the dollars follow all students, right.

- ESAs, yeah.

- All right, alright.

We'll see who's right, who's wrong.

I know we are always gonna be right.

That's just the way these things work.

Thank you, again, my guests have been Brandon Smith, of Indiana Public Broadcasting, Niki Kelly, of the "Indiana Capitol Chronicle," and Dr. Laura Merrifield Wilson, of the University of Indianapolis.

Well that concludes another edition and another season of "Indiana Lawmakers."

I'm Jon Schwantes and on behalf of commentator, Ed Feigenbaum, and a lot of extremely talented and dedicated professionals here at WFYI Public Media, including producer Scott McAlister and Aric Hartvig, director, Brad McQueen, animator, Sam Oliver, director of video content, Kyle Travers, and the rest of our crew, I thank you for joining us and I invite you to visit WFYI.org for more State House news.

Until next year, take care.

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