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Controversial language targeting homeless Hoosiers, regulating marijuana-like products and cracking down on illicit massage parlors perished late Thursday — even as Indiana lawmakers crammed changes to a new property tax reform package into an unrelated agency bill to end the session.
And despite big health care reform talk, few fixes survived a breakneck session marked by a dismal revenue forecast.
Three things on our list that didn’t make the cut, and one that did
The time of death was 10:12 p.m.
That’s when House Speaker Todd Huston announced a package of technical corrections would be the last to make it through a critical procedural step.
Community advocates celebrated the defeat of shuffled-around language they maintained would have criminalized homelessness. Sleeping or sheltering on government property would’ve been a Class C misdemeanor.
One version would have required local law enforcement to consider emergency detention, offer transportation to temporary shelter and contact crisis intervention specialists before making an arrest — an attempt to connect homeless Hoosiers to help, supporters maintained.
But the original, long-dead bill only provided a legal defense: no nearby shelter. It was the work of the Cicero Institute, a Texas think tank pushing such policies around the country.
“In these times of economic volatility, the most vulnerable Hoosiers and the community organizations who serve them can sleep a little better knowing their elected officials chose not to force local law enforcement to fine and jail people just for not being able to afford a place to lay their heads,” Prosperity Indiana policy head Andrew Bradley wrote in an early Friday news release. His organization was among the proposal’s fiercest opponents.
Some lawmakers joined in, too.
“I worked hard to ensure this legislation never became law,” Sen. Ron Alting, R-Lafayette, said in an early Friday statement. “The solution to homelessness is not incarceration.”
The General Assembly also snuffed out a contentious set of regulations for marijuana-like products, after seven rounds of substantial edits failed to ease concerns.
Products with legally low concentrations of delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol have proliferated in Indiana, alongside those containing delta-8 THC and other isomers. Although lawmakers have repeatedly failed to regulate the nascent industry, they seemed poised to do so this session through Senate Bill 478.
But it never emerged from closed-door negotiations over a final version. Critics, including Indiana’s attorney general and anti-marijuana groups, maintained the language would expand existing loopholes instead of closing them.
“I just think we couldn’t get to a place of agreement, you know?” Huston told reporters early Friday. “… I just don’t think we were ready yet.”
Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray said it was “tricky” to “get it absolutely right,” adding, “We just wanted to be certain that we didn’t move forward in a way that wasn’t in the state’s best interest.”
Lawmakers had hoped to “get some small piece of that across the line,” like a 21-plus age restriction, he told reporters, but “ran out of time.” He cited young children who may rely on cannabidiol, a non-psychoactive anticonvulsant, to treat seizures.
“We’ll come back, I can promise you, next year, and get something passed,” Bray said.
And one legislator’s attempt to fight human trafficking in massage parlors — following arrests in his district — was stripped out of an awareness measure.
Rep. Wendy McNamara, repeatedly dubbed the detailed regulations appended to House Enrolled Act 1416 overly “prescriptive” before cutting them. McNamara, R-Evansville, is an influential force in criminal matters and was among the co-authors.
Sen. Mike Bohacek, R-Michiana Shores, vowed to find another place for it in comments to the Indiana Capital Chronicle. But he admitted defeat — for now.
“This is something I’m going to continue to work on through the summer and into the next session, so we get some good language around this,” Bohacek said on the Senate floor. “The practices that are happening there (in massage parlors) is something we need to address for human trafficking in the future.”
One concept that did cross the finish line? A ban of mysterious origin on government-supported “obscene performances.” And “any person” could seek injunctive relief.
Indiana already has detailed obscenity laws on the books, and no one gave any examples of problematic performances being paid for by government.
It was first spliced into legislation cracking down on child sex abuse materials, with the lawsuit provision inserted on the House floor. Then, as the end of session loomed, it was wedged into House Enrolled Act 1014, which previously focused on misdemeanors.
“Your shoulders have to be really aching from all the water that you’re carrying on this bill,” Sen. Rodney Pol, D-Chesterton, told sponsor Sen. Sue Glick, R-LaGrange.
He and other opponents feared the language would have little practical effect, instead “chilling” activities some simply may “disagree with” and putting local governments at legal risk.
Trailer language walks back pieces of property tax legislation
Republicans also made eleventh-hour changes to a Department of Local Government and Finance (DLGF) measure, baking in trailer language to a contentious property tax bill that passed — and was signed into law — a week prior.
The final version of House Enrolled Act 1427 approved by the House and Senate in the last hours of the session deletes an increase in the business personal property tax exemption for 2025 that was previously approved in Senate Enrolled Act 1. Instead of jumping to $1 million in 2025, the exemption will remain at the $80,000 in current law and rise to $2,000,000 starting with the 2026 assessment date and beyond.
“One of my biggest concerns with our initiatives this year was the movement with business personal property tax, and I know that the $2 million exemption is for the 2026 assessment,” said Rep. Chris Jeter, R-Fishers, hours before the end of session. He discussed the trailer language, briefly, in the House Rules Committee.
“What I’m hoping for, as we get closer to that point in time, is we’re going to take a real hard look and get some local runs to see what that looks like for our local communities,” he continued. “My district is very heavily reliant on business personal property. This is kicked down the road a little bit, so we can’t really see a lot of trouble in the runs now. But going forward, as we get closer … I would hope that we would be able to talk about what those runs look like as we narrow in on that time.”
The property tax legislation already sign by the governor also created an exception to allow certain new depreciable personal property placed in service after Jan. 1 to avoid the 30% minimum depreciation floor. The trailer bill walked that language back “if property tax revenue that is attributable to the depreciable personal property is pledged as payment for bonds ,leases, or other obligations.”
Under House Enrolled Act 1427, the agricultural base rate in Senate Enrolled Act 1 additionally will not apply for the January 2025 assessment date for land that is considered “inventory.”
Another part of the legislation deals with disabled veterans. Although Senate Enrolled Act 1 repealed traditional property tax deductions for veterans and replaced them with local credits, trailer language repeals those new local credits and reinstates the traditional veteran deductions that existed previously.
Huston maintained early Friday that post-passage changes to Senate Enrolled Act 1 weren’t the result of a rushed legislative process on property tax reforms.
“One of the reasons we wanted to move (Senate Enrolled Act 1) was to continue to get that feedback — and we’re glad we got the feedback around the business personal property tax. We still have the long-term vision of it. We just want to make sure in those areas where it’s being bonded against, those bonds are protected,” he said. “And then on the veterans credit, I think there’s a little miscommunication with what the policy is, and with the veterans organizations. We want to make sure we’re listening to their concerns and adjust to it, and we’ll have that conversation again next year. I imagine it was probably not the last time we’ll talk about that topic.”
But Senate Democrat leader Sen. Shelli Yoder, of Bloomington, said additions in House Enrolled Act 1427 were needed, in part, because lawmakers moved too quickly before the state’s April budget forecast was released.
“The Senate Democrat caucus has been saying to slow down. Let’s make sure we get this right. Let’s not get to a place, especially when we’ve had real concerns. But when we got that budget forecast — and all of a sudden, we’re having to do some serious back-stepping — no, this was no surprise,” she said.
“What we did quickly see is sort of wide-eyed like, ‘Oh gosh, what did we do? How are we going to fix this, and maybe slow down the rollout?’” Yoder added, referring to Senate Enrolled Act 1. “But again, no matter you know how you spin it, it was kind of a bait and switch. It was a shell game for Hoosiers. You know, here’s property tax relief that never really came as relief.”
What about health care?
After years of targeting Indiana’s health care prices, Indiana lawmakers started the session by introducing several comprehensive reforms — but where did they end?
Many new laws will follow in the footsteps of their predecessors by requiring more reporting and transparency. Whether it’s the 340B drug program, the average cost of hospital services or disclosing ownership ties, health care providers across the spectrum will have more paperwork in their future.
One of the biggest packages was reversed after the initial effort was criticized for setting “price caps” on five nonprofit hospital systems. Violators would lose their tax-exempt status with the state.
Now, such a move wouldn’t occur until 2029 at the earliest, following a state-sponsored study to determine average prices. Numerous studies have already done such analysis only to be dismissed for being slanted to one side of the debate or another. Authors hope that having a state agency perform the calculations will bring clarity.
One particular disappointment for health advocates was the decision to slash funding for local public health departments from $100 million annually to $40 million.
“Indiana has had abysmal health care rankings over the years … that was the whole idea of finally putting some money behind doing something,” said House Minority Leader Phil GiaQuinta. “ Now just to basically take the rug out is, I think, just not the way to go.”
But Bray rejected the notion that such a cut undid that previous work.
“Absolutely, unequivocally, no,” he said. “If you look across the counties of the state, there was about 45% of those funds that went unspent. Not because they weren’t using it correctly or anything, but because they were … rolling out program and trying to develop them.
“Everybody’s left this budget wanting a little bit more,” he continued. “But this still continues to fund public health projects. And it is our hope that in a couple years, we’ll be able to fund that at a stronger level.”
Another big strike to the state’s overall health: curbing enrollment on Indiana’s Medicaid expansion program. The Healthy Indiana Plan serves low- to moderate-income Hoosiers and, like similar programs across the country, has increased access to preventative care services and decreased emergency department visits — though such progress could be derailed if a significant number of Hoosiers lose their health care coverage.
Gov. Mike Braun indicated his support for many of the measures above, naming health care as one of his core targets ahead of the 2025 session. But he said that there was more work to be done.
“I think we got a good start on it,” Braun told reporters on Thursday. “I think health care will be a big agenda item for next year.”
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