Hoosier lawmakers, utilities and water policy lawyers in recent years have begun to look more closely at supply and demand. Legislation passed by the General Assembly in 2019, for example, ties certain funding sources to evidence of effective water study and communication. Meanwhile, some of the state’s biggest utilities have begun efforts to increase collaboration so that water resources might be shared.
In a ruling that reminded Indiana of the need to protect the integrity of the voting process, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the state from kicking individuals off the voter rolls based solely on a match in the Crosscheck database.
A federal appeals court has confirmed that Indiana’s attempt to cleanse its voter rolls by using the controversial Crosscheck database violates the National Voter Registration Act. The ruling upholds a lower court ruling in a suit brought by a national public-interest group.
Legislation that took effect last month is providing offenders a new option to offset their court fees. Rather than incarceration, the new law would let people struggling to pay their court costs work off their debt through community service or volunteering.
In the same day a federal judge blocked an Indiana law that would have banned a second-trimester abortion procedure, a conservative United States Supreme Court justice agreed not to hear a similar case from another state.
Indiana’s attorney general says the state’s school districts are free to use extended stop arms to prevent other vehicles from passing school buses.
Two new Indiana laws are taking aim at people who post intimate images from previous or current relationships online without consent. The laws separately provide criminal charges against those who post “revenge porn” and civil remedies for those victimized by it.
Commissioners in northeastern Indiana’s Allen County have voted to implement rules that would prohibit swingers clubs and other businesses involving live sex acts.
Several new state laws take effect Monday, from a required high school state government test to allowing wrongfully incarcerated individuals to collect $50,000 a year.
A new chair has been chosen to lead the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council’s Board of Directors following an election that took place last week.
The Supreme Court of the United States on Wednesday struck down a Tennessee law that makes it hard for outsiders to break into the state’s liquor sales market. The ruling also could have implications for Indiana’s liquor distribution laws.
The following enrolled acts, followed in parentheses by their corresponding public law numbers, take effect July 1 unless otherwise noted below.
Although the $34 billion budget dominated the session, legislators introduced and considered more than 600 bills each in both the Senate and the House. The ones they passed covered a variety of matters, including hate crimes, hemp, gambling, foster parents, electricity generation and, of course, electric scooters.
Not every bill introduced gains the traction needed to get to the governor’s desk. Many times, a proposed new law fails to get a committee hearing, or it stalls once it reaches the floor. Other times, as a measure progresses through the Statehouse, it ignites disagreements that are ultimately too much to overcome.
The idea of revamping the state’s administrative law system has been floating around the Statehouse for years, but during the 2019 session, the reform effort finally gained broad support that has resulted in a new law proponents say will bring independence and transparency to the proceedings.
Holding her infant foster daughter, attorney Kiamesha Colom explained in simple terms a 13-page bill that revamps parts of Indiana’s foster care system. Come July 1, she and her husband, like other long-term foster parents around the state, will be able to have more of a say in the care and protection of their baby.
Muncie-based First Merchants Bank has settled a federal lawsuit, following U.S. Department of Justice allegations that the bank engaged in lending discrimination by redlining predominantly African-American neighborhoods in Indianapolis.
A victims rights bill inspired by a mother attempting to protect her underage daughter from a sexual predator’s grooming tactics was ceremonially signed Wednesday by Gov. Eric Holcomb, with support from the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council.
Indiana is considered a leader in the red flag law movement that allows firearms to be confiscated from people deemed dangerous. But with language that some experts considered overly broad and potentially unconstitutional, the Indiana General Assembly revisited that legislation, known as the Jake Laird Law, during the 2019 legislative session.
Months before the FBI raided the office and hotel room of Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, investigators were examining the flow of foreign money into his bank accounts and looking into whether the funds might be connected to a plan to lift sanctions on Russia, according to court filings unsealed Wednesday.