Local lawmakers preview legislative session which kicks off today

The state legislature is in for a session like no other, and local lawmakers say they aren’t sure what to expect yet.

The Indiana General Assembly reconvenes for the 2021 legislative session today. This is the first time the entire 150-member state legislature will meet since the coronavirus pandemic emerged last March. The 2020 session ended March 12, just before Indiana saw a rise in COVID-19 cases, and Gov. Eric Holcomb began using his emergency powers.

Lawmakers will meet in person for the entire session, which is set to end in April. But these meetings, from House and Senate sessions to committee hearings, will look different to accommodate COVID-19 safety precautions.

What will get passed this year is also unknown. The state’s two-year budget and redistricting are the only items that legally have to be finalized before the end of the session.

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The state legislature typically sees a couple hundred bills each year, but Rep. John Young, R-Franklin, said lawmakers were asked by leaders to limit the number of bills they filed this year. There are a limited number of committee rooms available for bill hearings, and the session may have to hit pause if too many lawmakers are forced into quarantine and cannot vote. So, the faster the session can wrap up, the better, he said.

"They sort of asked us, don’t file everything you can this year," Young said.

Socially distant meetings, no set plans for quarantined members

Although there is work to be done, safety will be lawmakers’ No. 1 priority. Legislative leaders put hours of work into ensuring state lawmakers could conduct business safety at the Statehouse for the next four months, said President Pro Tem Rodric Bray, R-Martinsville.

The 50-member Senate will continue to convene in the Senate chamber at the Statehouse, but all senators will be at least six feet apart. To do that, 30 senators will be seated on the chamber floor, and the remaining 20 will sit up in the gallery balcony, which is normally reserved for the public.

Plexiglass is placed between legislative staff and senators, as well as between the podiums up front for debate. Two microphones were also added to the balcony, so senators don’t have to come downstairs to speak or debate, Bray said.

Legislative staff will rotate every other day to limit the number of people inside the Statehouse as well, he said.

The House will not meet in its regular chamber, though. All 100 members will convene in a large conference room in the adjacent Indiana Government Center South building, Young said. The room is set up with space between all representatives, and a digital voting system has been added as well, he said.

Committee meetings — small groups of lawmakers assigned to hear bills for the first time and the public’s opportunity to comment — will also look different.  These meetings most often take place in small, crowded rooms throughout the Statehouse. Now, the meetings will be held in much bigger rooms, including the Senate and House chambers, Young said.

Lawmakers on the committee will convene in one room, and members of the public who come to the Statehouse to testify on a bill being heard that day will do so from a separate room via video chat, said Sen. Greg Walker, R-Columbus.

The public will still have access to the session via online livestreams, or visiting the Statehouse where additional monitors were added inside to allow people to watch session or committee meetings without being in the actual room.

Despite careful planning, there are still many unknowns. It is difficult to predict if there will be problems with lawmakers or legislative staff getting exposed to or contracting COVID-19 heading into the session. 

Lawmakers or staff exposed to or diagnosed with COVID-19 will follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for quarantining. But if there are too many lawmakers out at once to prevent a quorum, where at least two-thirds of the members have to be present, then the session will have stop momentarily. 

Lawmakers have to vote in person, so holding session virtually is not an option, Bray said.

"It’s entirely possible we will be in a position where we will have to take a break and do something else for a little while, and then come back," he said. "It’s a little difficult to know exactly what to expect."

Masks not required

Face masks must be worn inside the Statehouse by legislative staff and the public, but lawmakers declined to extend the face covering requirement to themselves.

The majority of members will wear one. On Organization Day in November, the first official meeting of the state legislature, all but two lawmakers — Reps. John Jacob, R-Indianapolis, and Curt Nisly, R-Milford — wore masks.

Walker and Bray said they will wear masks while conducting business in the Senate, and all other senators will wear them as well.

"As far as I’m concerned, it’s required," Walker said. "It just shows a deference of respect to people when I don’t do that."

Young and Rep. Michelle Davis, R-Whiteland, are also committed to wearing masks in the House.

"We’re going to lead by example," Young said. "We are going to wear a mask whether there is a mandate or not."

The reason lawmakers did not make masks a requirement amongst themselves is because state lawmakers do not have "a boss," apart from the people who elected them, Walker said. They do not have the power to tell each other what to do, he said.

Even Bray, the Senate leader, does not have the power to enforce rules on other members, he said.

“Every senator is an elected official. I don’t have the ability to say, ‘OK, senator, you can’t come to the floor to vote because you don’t have a mask,’" Bray said.

Lawmakers understand they need to keep themselves safe to do the job they were elected to do.

"We need to be able to do a lot of important work here. If we start losing senators from having to go into quarantine, we can’t do that," Bray said.

A tight budget, legislation to watch for

The main priority of the General Assembly is to create and pass a balanced two-year budget for 2022 and 2023.

An updated forecast from December shows revenue is up for fiscal year 2021, despite expected losses from the economic impact of the pandemic in 2020. And overall, the new forecast showed lawmakers can expect to have $34.9 billion in revenue to use for the next budget, which is essentially the same budget as last session, but with an increase of $360 million.

This revenue forecast could have been worse, and Bray is optimistic about the recent forecast, he said. The budget will have little room for big increases, but they won’t be forced to make cuts.

"I was really concerned we would have less money," he said.

Funding for K-12 education is still a top priority, as it makes up half the budget every year, and if there is room for an increase in any department, that will be priority No. 1, Bray said. A possible increase in public health funding will also be looked at, he said.

Besides the budget, redistricting Statehouse and Congressional districts will also be done this year. The district lines will be redrawn based on new population data from the 2020 Census.

Walker worked on redistricting issues for the past few years, and although he is not in charge of it this year, he said Indiana will likely not have an issue with gerrymandering because it is rated as one of the least gerrymandered states.

Gerrymandering is the practice of manipulating the drawing of district lines to benefit one party. Indiana is consistently a Republican-majority state no matter how the lines are drawn, so gerrymandering is not as big an issue in Indiana as it is in other states, Walker said.

"Indiana is probably less diversified than other states. No matter how you slice and dice Indiana, it pretty much looks the same," he said.

Another top priority of both the House and Senate is passing a law to protect businesses and organizations from getting sued for coronavirus-related reasons. For example, someone could not sue a business if they catch COVID-19 while there, and the business was doing its best to follow safety precautions.

"Part of that is so people can have the ability to get back out there to work and into the economy," Bray said.

Another bill going through the Senate would impose a rule that local health departments cannot enforce emergency orders for more than 14 days without getting approval from a city or county elected body. For example, the Johnson County Health Department can fine businesses now for not following the state mask mandate, but under this bill, the health department would have to get approval from county elected officials to continue fining businesses.

Bray said the bill is not meant to restrict health departments’ powers, but instead allow the public to have more of a say — through the officials they elected — in what the department does.

"There’s some movement to try and put a little bit more accountability to our citizens for that. Bringing that a little closer to some of our officials who are actually elected is an idea circulating around here," Bray said.

A number of other bills filed address non-pandemic related issues, including lowering health care costs, penalties for people convicted of rioting, training teachers to use handguns and allowing the sale of cold beer inside convenience stores.

Walker, in particular, is working on legislation that will address election security, and hopefully better prepare local clerks for an influx of mail-in voting if it happens again in the future. The 2020 presidential election saw unprecedented voter turnout, and thousands more votes were mailed in than usual, which overwhelmed local election officials and sparked claims of widespread fraud.

"With the crush we had with early voting and mail-in voting, we’d like to try to do some things to help out clerks to deal with that volume of paper ballots," Walker said. "I’m hoping we can further put in checks and measures to increase voter confidence."

Davis ready to learn, listen during first session

Davis replaced longtime Rep. Woody Burton, who retired last year, after she won the District 58 election in November.

As a new member of the General Assembly, Davis will spend her first session listening and learning from veteran representatives.

Davis, whose background is in education, will serve on the House Education Committee and Judiciary Committee, which she is excited about, she said.

"As things come up, I will do my due diligence and my best on representing all of us," Davis said. "I will definitely be more comfortable in the education committee because that’s my world … the judiciary committee will be a learning experience, but I’m looking forward to it."

In addition to her work at the Statehouse, Davis is starting a Hardworking Hoosier award for her district. Each week, she will recognize a District 58 constituent locally for the work they do, she said.