As the first two weeks of the session pass, expect a transition in legislative focus to health care concerns—raised in loud choruses to lawmakers in conversations back home. Unlike
A top legislative priority for House Republicans faced some push back this week from the very professionals lawmakers believed they would be helping with the measure.
According to Gov. Eric Holcomb’s prepared remarks, Fiat-Chrysler will invest $400 million in its Kokomo facility and hinted that an announcement will be made on Friday from Toyota in Princeton.
Legislators returned Jan. 6. Even though, as of that morning, only 11 House bills had been filed, committee hearings were underway in earnest (especially in the Senate, where the file list topped 200 bills).
Like Gov. Eric Holcomb, Indiana Senate and House Republicans are focused on health care, education and spending one-time dollars on capital projects this year. But lawmakers have slightly different views on how those surplus dollars should be spent.
Republican Eric Holcomb has said he would wait for recommendations later this year from a teacher pay commission he appointed in February, but he told reporters Monday—on the first day of the legislative session—that might change with state tax revenues growing faster than expected.
Much of the 2020 legislative work will be directed to helping shape (and immunize against) election debate and making a head start on some of the tougher, long-term issues that will be ripe for resolution in 16 months.
The law, which passed with bipartisan support in April, created funding plans for most of a $360 million renovation of Bankers Life Fieldhouse and the construction of a $150 million soccer stadium for the Indy Eleven by diverting millions of dollars in annual state tax revenue to the Capital Improvement Board.
Republicans hold a supermajority in both chambers of the Indiana General Assembly. But the leadership support doesn’t make the bill a slam dunk.
State lawmakers might choose not to address some education issues in the upcoming legislative session, but they are likely to loom over Indiana politics in the election season.
Top Republicans touted “record investment” in school spending in defending themselves as thousands of teachers turned out for a Statehouse rally this past week calling for a bigger boost in education funding. But it’s not that simple.
Rep. Woody Burton has helped push for property tax relief, bullying prevention programs and increased accountability in the child welfare system.
The move comes after Republican state Sen. Jean Leising, of Oldenburg, introduced legislation this year that required the state Board of Education to adopt a program that’s administered nationally.
Central Indiana elected officials want to create a formal organization that could combine regional resources to pursue transformational projects.
Some state lawmakers want to require paper tickets, but event organizers say they can easily be manipulated and duplicated. Digital ticketing reduces fraud, they say.
With vaping on the rise, Indiana lawmakers are set to launch another debate about whether to impose taxes on e-cigarettes and e-liquids like they do on traditional cigarettes, cigars and other tobacco products.
Young is out front nationally on a key anti-smoking platform: Raising the minimum age for buying tobacco to 21.
A Republican state lawmaker is resigning from his seat to take a job with Community Health Network in Indianapolis.
The proposed 17% increase would bring the premiums paid by companies to a level recommended by the federal government, which is meant to prepare the unemployment fund for the next recession.
Indiana startups might soon have an easier time attracting out-of-state investments thanks to a change lawmakers made this year to an instrumental tax incentive program.
