Reading, ballot initiatives, sex ed: 7 takeaways from the 4th week of Indiana's 2024 session

Another week of the 2024 legislative session wrapped Thursday at the Statehouse. Lawmakers are facing down deadlines early next week to get their bills out of one chamber and into the next.

Meanwhile, they've been hearing loud feedback from constituents over the Family and Social Services Administration’s plans for addressing the Medicaid budget shortfall ― a plan that involves cutting a paid family caregiver program for children with medically complex conditions.

Here are seven takeaways from the fourth week of the legislative session.

Republican priorities clear the Senate, except for one

Senate Bill 1, the third-grade reading bill, passed the Senate largely intact. It adds more reading testing for younger grades, summer school options for students falling behind, and it codifies retention policies for students who fail the standardized tests, with exceptions.

Four Republicans joined their Democratic colleagues in opposition to the bill, concerned about the impact of mandatory retention on students both socially and academically. Sen. Eric Bassler, R-Washington, shared a personal story about his concerns with the retention part ― he said he didn't learn to read until the fifth grade, and he overcame that obstacle without being held back. Sen. Jim Tomes, R-Wadesville, echoed Democrats’ concerns that schools haven’t yet had a chance to adjust to the science of reading legislation from 2023.

“I don’t even think we let the ink dry on the one we had last year,” he said.

The key child care bill, Senate Bill 2, had a much easier time, with a nearly unanimous vote this week.

But Senate Bill 3, the prior authorization bill, appears to be dead. It aims to drastically cut down on the process of getting insurance approvals for health services or drugs ― something that drew passionate discussion last session in the midst of the healthcare cost debate.

The bill didn’t make the deadline for passing a committee.

FSSA fight heats up

As one of several cost-cutting measures to address the massive Medicaid budget shortfall, Gov. Eric Holcomb's administration decided to discontinue the program that allows parents to earn an hourly wage while caring for their children with medically complex conditions.

This week, Holcomb's second-in-command, Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch, who is running to replace him, called for a pause to the plan.

Then on Thursday, state lawmakers sought to address the issue in a series of amendments on an FSSA agency bill; rather than have the debate on the floor, the bill’s author, Rep. Brad Barrett, R-Richmond, declined to call up the bill, effectively killing it.

House Speaker Todd Huston said his caucus is working with FSSA on the issue, but that trying to fix it hastily with legislation wouldn't be the answer.

"You have to be conscious of what you do and don't put in the statute, and what the consequences are of what you do and don't put in the statute, especially in a situation where there's a significant fiscal impact to it," he said. "We want the conversation to be broad and not pigeon-holed."

Democrats force a vote on citizen ballot initiatives

In the months since Ohio voters approved legalized recreational marijuana and protected access to abortion, Indiana’s House and Senate Democrats have renewed a push for citizen-led ballot initiatives, a process Indiana basically does not have.

Ballot measures can only appear on ballots in Indiana if the state legislature changes the state constitution by passing the same language two legislative sessions in a row. That’s a tough sell for Democrats in a Republican supermajority at the Statehouse.

But Sen. Minority Leader Greg Taylor, D-Indianapolis, said at the start of the 2024 legislative session that Democrats would likely try to force votes to make clear where lawmakers in both parties stand on citizen ballot initiatives. That’s what happened on Tuesday.

Rep. Sue Errington, D-Muncie, proposed an amendment to House Bill 1265 from Rep. Timothy Wesco, R-Osceola, that would have directed Indiana counties to place an advisory question on the November 2024 ballot about citizen ballot referendums. The amendment failed along party lines on a 27-66 vote.

Truancy takes second-chair to reading

For months leading up to January, lawmakers expressed concerns about chronic absenteeism among Indiana students. Nearly one in five Hoosier students during the 2022-2023 academic year missed about three-and-a-half weeks of school, according to the Indiana Department of Education.

While the topic did not achieve nearly the prominence of third-grade reading this session, it did make a brief appearance.

Senate Bill 282, from Sen. Stacey Donato, R-Logansport, Sen. Linda Rogers, R-Granger, and Sen. Jeff Raatz, R-Richmond, originally turned to juvenile courts to impose fines on parents and community service on students declared “habitually truant.”

But the version that came out of committee this week lost that punitive component. The bill now requires schools to develop truancy prevention policies and to meet with the Department of Child Services and the state attendance officer once a year to discuss their efforts. It also creates a task force to study truancy and chronic absenteeism in Indiana schools.

Wetlands bill proceeds despite concerns from regulators

Indiana Department of Environmental Management regulators have a different opinion than their agency heads on a key wetlands bill progressing through the legislature this year.

While House Bill 1383 has been depicted as a compromise between regulators and the building industry, which has been pushing to deregulate environmental law, state water regulators told IndyStar this characterization is a “facade.”

The bill comes on the heels of previous legislation that cut down on wetlands protection in state law.

The hotly debated bill passed committee Thursday and heads to the Senate floor next week.

Is a Senate bill on sex education redundant?

That was a central question of a hearing in the Senate’s Committee on Education and Career Development on Senate Bill 128 from Sen. Gary Byrne, R-Byrneville, Sen. Jeff Raatz, R-Richmond, and Sen. Chris Garten, R-Charlestown.

The bill would give Indiana school boards authority to approve sex education instruction and materials and require that schools post information, such as the gender makeup of sex education classes and the instructor's gender on their websites. Byrne told the committee his legislation gives schools more guidelines for sex education and prioritizes local control and parental rights.

But several lawmakers and representatives of education groups on Wednesday pointed out existing state codes that already address language in Senate Bill 128.

Raatz, the committee chair, told a person testifying that state law currently requires school curriculum to be approved by school boards. So did Terry Spradlin, executive director of the Indiana School Boards Association, who spoke in support of the bill, saying it is “not new territory” for school boards.

John O’Neill, of the Indiana State Teachers Association, also highlighted existing state laws for school districts on sex education and said “there is no indication” schools are not following those requirements.

The Senate education committee passed the bill on an 8-5 vote. It now heads to the Senate floor.

Water bills die, but IEDC oversight bill lives

Two Republican lawmakers from Tippecanoe County, Rep. Sharon Negele and Sen. Spencer Deery, wrote companion bills that would create a permitting process for large water withdrawals ― a direct response to the public outcry over the Indiana Economic Development Corporation's plans to pipe water from that county to their new industrial park in Boone County, the LEAP district.

Those bills didn't get hearings, because Republican leaders said they'd prefer to wait to take legislative action until a series of water studies ordered by Gov. Eric Holcomb can wrap up.

But Negele and Deery got a shout-out from Sen. Ron Alting, R-Lafayette, during floor debate on a bill to add some legislative oversight onto the IEDC board. The bill passed the Senate 44-5 on Thursday.

"These are baby steps," Alting said. "It will happen in your district. We have a water shortage in Indiana, and it's coming to every single one of you."

Contact IndyStar's state government and politics reporter Brittany Carloni at brittany.carloni@indystar.com or 317-779-4468. Follow her on Twitter/X @CarloniBrittany.

Contact IndyStar state government and politics reporter Kayla Dwyer at kdwyer@indystar.com or follow her on Twitter @kayla_dwyer17.

Call IndyStar reporter Sarah Bowman at 317-444-6129 or email at sarah.bowman@indystar.com. Follow her on Twitter and Facebook: @IndyStarSarah. 

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana General Assembly: 7 takeaways from fourth week of 2023 session