Hammond and Shublak: Ensuring our decisions bend toward the common good

January is nearly over, and the Indiana General Assembly is halfway through its short session. As lawmakers debate, we are reminded that the Hoosier state is full of earnest people, abundant opportunity and ambition to do much more than simply keep the lights on while everyone else catches a flight through it.

While coastal cities may dismiss us as flyover, we continue to produce the residents, workers, soldiers, athletes and executives who make the world run. The Hoosier miracle is this: It is a place routinely underestimated that over delivers and then apologizes about it.

In an age defined by speed and disruption, it is worth pausing to recover the older truths that still anchor our public life. When the actions of those entrusted with power are oriented toward the common good rather than factional advantage, they confer legitimacy on the laws they pass and the institutions they steward.

The ancients understood this plainly: The welfare of the people, as Cicero observed, is the highest law. Marcus Aurelius later reminded us that what fails the hive ultimately fails the bee. This is the quiet reciprocity at the heart of a stable republic: Leaders elevate the state, but citizens ultimately give it its moral weight and durability.

This is the deeper lens through which we might view these weeks ahead at the Statehouse. Each legislative session becomes, in its own way, a public test of character: not only of those who hold office but also of the citizens and institutions that shape what success looks like.

The questions before Indiana this year are familiar: how to grow opportunity, how to steward public resources, how to care for the vulnerable without weakening initiative, how to preserve order without stifling innovation.

But beneath every policy debate runs a quieter measure: whether our decisions, taken together, bend toward the common good and how effectively policy advances this aim.

In our judgment, Indiana’s next chapter must be written around economic opportunity and upward mobility that is broad, durable and widely shared. That begins with access to work and the steady cultivation of a skilled workforce, grounded in education that prizes the basics while equipping people to think critically and adapt to constant change.

Indiana continues to receive national recognition for the hyperfocus and increased investment in equipping students with the fundamental skills in reading and math that remains a priority for Gov. Mike Braun and the Indiana General Assembly. Lawmakers are debating efforts aimed at increasing transparency and alignment around educational offerings from K-12 and higher education, which have been hallmarks of Secretary Katie Jenner’s Department of Education.

Investment in health matters just as much—not only so Hoosiers are physically and mentally fit to be productive but also so families can thrive in safe neighborhoods with a reliable safety net for those who falter.

We need not measure ourselves against coastlines or mountains. Our advantage lies instead in embracing innovation, entrepreneurship and the creative energy that new technology invites. Look for lawmakers to continue to explore how technologies of our age may benefit its residents in the realm of artificial intelligence, crypto, autonomous vehicles, data centers and more. Equal treatment, mutual respect and wide access to opportunity are not secondary values—they are the practical foundations of a healthy economic and civic life.

While we face no war, no famine, no pestilence at this time in our history, Indiana is confronted with subtler challenges of a first-world society striving to remain competitive, cohesive and humane.

In recent years, bipartisan progress in areas such as child care, school safety and workforce training has shown what is still possible when practical needs outweigh ideological reflex. The question before us is not whether opportunity is moving but whether we will shape its direction with intention, care, and impact.

Policies in this non-budget session may set the stage for a big 2027 budget session as we wait to see if revenue will continue its upward trend. This anticipated rebound may get policymakers thinking creatively this session around the big budget areas of road funding, education, economic development, and Medicaid.

Pocketbook issues in our relatively low cost-of-living state present continued opportunity to put working families front and center by addressing the complex and challenging issues of costs and access in the realm of health care, child care, housing and energy while maintaining Indiana as the desirable sandbox that it is today.

Indiana does have an open system and an open Statehouse that welcomes the voices of people of all stripes to participate. We encourage you to show up and make your voice heard. And when you’re there, don’t be surprised if you see some big things happen to improve the lives of Hoosiers. But this time, let’s not apologize.•

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Hammond and Shublak are partners in Taft’s Public Affairs Strategies Group. Opinions expressed are those of the authors.