things are heating up at the state house.

>> Indiana lawmakers have filed over five hundred bills for this short legislative session.

We'll dove into the bills getting attention including a total ban on cell filled cell phones during the school day and anti doxxing bill and several bills to modify executions for the death penalty in Indiana.

We'll get into those and more along with your chance to talk and text directly to your elected representatives right now on prime time.

Hello everyone.

Welcome to Prime Time.

I'm your host.

Edley on the short legislative session is gaining momentum as the General Assembly works towards a January twenty six deadline for passing bills out of committee.

Some of the laws being discussed include everything from requiring paid protesters to register with the state to allowing terminally ill patients to self medicate to end their own lives here to give us their insights and to speak to you about their legislative priorities are from Senate District 14, the assistant Republican caucus chair, Senator Tyler Johnson and from District 18 the assistant Republican caucus chair for the House Representative for the House Representative Dave Abbott.

>> Welcome to prime time gentlemen.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

So Governor Braun just delivered the state of the state.

Among his priorities were let's call him pocketbook issues.

Right.

Affording affordability for housing and health care.

Do you see that being reflected in the bills that are being discussed in this session?

>> Yeah, very much so.

You know, I think priorities on both sides are trying to deal with the cost of delivering health care.

The cost of housing through you know, helping through overregulation and getting rid of some of that and so yeah, I think both sides of the chamber are really working on those kind of things.

>> Representative, what do you find most impactful that you're hearing in the House for most impactful for for families and for justice to take from what Senator Johnson said hospital ten to one does exactly that.

It addresses our need for affordable housing and we kind of define affordable housing so that we have a better idea that is in relationship to your your income so that people can afford a house.

It's not three hundred sixty thousand dollars hospital ten to one.

What it does is it relaxes regulations and some of the dollars that are involved with permitting and delays that drive up the price of a home in Indiana as much as 25 percent a fourth of what the house retail stores absorbed by the buyer.

>> So is that is that impacting the builders then for new housing?

>> Yes.

We have such a shortage in housing now I figure what the numbers are nationwide is like thirty one thousand homes.

I believe that we're short and that translates right down into Indiana too.

So yeah, that's one of the main things I hear from CEOs of large corporations when they want to bring in migration into the state.

We can't find a place for them to live that's affordable.

So I want to invite our audience into the conversation.

Our folks our phone lines are open right now for your questions and comments at two six 00 (969) 27 two zero.

You can also text your question or comment to two six oh (969) 27 three zero if you're texting us we asked that you give us your name and where you're texting from again that text number which is new for us two six oh (969) 27 three zero four text Senator, are you have you written some bills that are being discussed in committee?

>> Yeah, we we have five bills and a short session and so I have four my five pieces of legislation being heard.

One is a health care reform bill where we try to define what a nonprofit hospital is a little bit better and then in that same bill we're trying to balance between the insurers and the health care providers on on their billing and coding which gets kind of technical.

That is difficult.

Yeah, but it but it helps the patient out quite a bit limiting delays and making sure they don't get any surprise bills.

How about you, Representative?

Well, I tried to take it a little bit easier.

The speaker says less is better.

So that's what I did.

I've got I have a couple of bills ahead annexation bill which was carryover from the year before and that's a major development that was happening in Kosciusko County and we were trying to extend utilities.

We're taking a pause on that and it's not going to get hurt.

I also got a wakeboard bill wake surfing.

It's a it's a public safety bill to so everyone can enjoy and be safe on our lakes.

It's a major new sport that's out there.

So we want to be able to share the lake with everybody safely.

So what does it do?

What does it say about well riding a surfing boats are unique because unlike ski boats they do their best thing about ten mile per hour.

>> Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Three or four feet high at the night in nighttime that's dangerous.

Plus they are in an elevated position with the bow of the boat very high.

So you've got people in the water that could be hit.

We've had close calls.

I've had a number of those.

So what we're doing is just saying let's have a wake surfing and speed boats play by the same rules.

Nothing on night don't scare wake surf at night and on small lakes that really weren't made for high speed running you're not able to do that on small lakes unless you get a speed exemption which a lot of a lot of the lakes have done that's allowed.

>> So it still gives them an opportunity.

Right.

We both talked a little bit about the idea of the short session.

I think our our audience might be interested in knowing how a short session affects you as the as the lawmakers.

>> Well, I can tell you everyone seems to offer about the same.

I think we've just just a little bit over 700 it's gone up to seven hundred twelve between the House and the Senate.

Yeah.

Yes.

So I think we have a little around five hundred or so for anybody and what happens is you know they all load up the committees.

Everything goes fast.

You have you have your bill handed down on the first reading committee.

>> You have the meetings.

It goes right into second reading with the amendments and you're trying to do that in a compressed session already and then it's even compressed more because of the two weeks we lost.

>> Same same in the Senate.

Yeah, I'm I'm definitely the the newer to the chamber than Rep.

Babbitt is here but it's been a whirlwind this session so far.

You want to be cautious that you're not pushing things too fast and make sure you know what you're getting in legislation so sometimes Bill will get the breaks pumped on it just for that reason alone and actually that's a good thing in the legislative process to make sure we get it right in addition to affordability, there seems to be kind of a mixed bag on some of these other bills and I'm kind of struck by why there's there are multiple bills centered on on the death penalty and executions.

>> Any idea why that's kind of popped up this year as a as a as a put a you know, an issue ?

Yeah.

I mean there was the death penalty is carried out by the federal government and the state government in Indiana and you know whether you're for the death penalty or not, it does happen here.

And so one of the issues has been around medications availability for executions and I know there was an ask from the federal government at one point to to be able to carry out executions by firing squad .

Right.

It's been a really tough conversation to be honest.

I think a lot of people that even they're for the death penalty struggle with the firing squad method and in discussion.

And so we have been deep in that conversation on our side of the the state house so far and I don't even know where it's going to land at this point right.

We don't have firing squads now SB eleven you know that brings in firing squads HB eleven nineteen adds nitrogen hypoxia as a as another method and then there's there's another bill that that has its HB twelve eighty seven that requires members of the legislature to be part of the execution team.

>> Yes.

exactly.

>> Yes.

And and I think the point on that was if are we willing to do that ourselves, we're not willing to do it ourselves, why would we initiate that for someone else to do it and it's got to do a sanctity of life and I think there's some real concerns about are we doing the right thing with and it's been requested by some inmates to be sure.

>> Yeah.

Execution by firing squad.

>> But it does really make you search for what we don't have the mechanics down of how that would work.

Right.

And it's not even directly in the bill now.

You know, there's places that carry out executions by firing squad so it's not a new thing but we really haven't worked that out yet.

>> Senator, I'm kind I'm curious you as a doctor, how do you feel about that?

>> Yeah, this is it's an odd odd place in in where my daily life intersects with the legislature and I try to have separate to when I have to make decisions and this is one area where the oath I took as a physician makes it really difficult to even participate in the conversation.

And so as a legislator I've got to have a policy objective in this discussion and coming up with what the right answer here can be can be difficult.

I do personally believe the government has the ability to carry out executions when it's appropriate but the question of when it's appropriate and how those are really tough questions.

Well, there's another bill that I want to ask you about as well as with your doctor hat on in a minute.

But we have a text that that's come in from James that's related to nuclear power and he said the quote The text is where are we at with nuclear power in India?

>> James from Fort Wayne .

Well, right now we with data centers coming in, there's a high demand for electricity very high.

It's been told we need to almost double our output of power in the next five years, which leads us to know that renewables are not going to do it.

They're not going to add a couple to three percent at most and coal and we're phasing goes out and it's really too expensive to bring those plants back online anyway.

So small modular reactors are what we're looking at.

They're very small miniature reactors that can be put placed around the state relatively inexpensively.

So that's that's what's on the horizon for us.

>> How soon before those can come online?

I've heard estimates there's probably at least five years there's there's work being done right now and I think some test ones but that's that's got to be proven out and then they would be produced in more more.

>> But the data centers are here, you know, an and the need is is is immediate.

Yes.

And that's those are they take as much electricity probably as what we we produce for the whole state when we get up to speed with how we do get online how many these data centers.

>> Well one of the bills that has passed out of committee the State Judiciary Committee is a bill targeting doxxing.

>> Can you explain what doxxing is head doxxing?

It's kind of an online phenomenon where you take somebody's home address or their phone number or their place of work and you basically try to launch it out on the Internet to either get them in trouble or to have harm come to them and it's pretty easy to say that that that malintent is inappropriate and one of our colleagues brought a bill in the Senate to outlaw the act of doxxing.

Now defining it is really hard and judging intent is really hard.

So it'll be a difficult thing to find where we can actually get to the point putting a final bill together in passing something out of our chamber to make sure that one your rights are protected for speech which is always a difficult line when there's where there's crimes involved.

But it's clearly wrong to try to cause harm to somebody whether you're a public official or a private individual, it's clearly wrong and this applies to everybody or is it to a particular group?

>> I'm not sure how far the bill extends.

I know it's public officials but I don't know how how long it is partly because I thought I had seen that it's public officials.

>> Have either of you had to struggle with that?

Not myself.

But I've heard stories of a number of legislators that have been caught swatting to the call 911 one report some kind of a crime that's going right at home that's been very that it's not there's no crime when there's no crime going on, right?

>> Yeah.

No, I have not heard much on the doxxing.

We have another text coming in from John.

Let's see what that one's about.

What will you do to curb rising grocery prices on goods like milk, vegetables and especially meats like pork?

>> That's John from Wayne Dale.

Yes, I think the best thing that we can do is have responsible government don't overspend.

I think a lot of the inflation you see along grocery prices has been been part of the issue but also fuel costs are a big part of that.

And so when we're talking about nuclear things like that so power to produce and those kind of things all the way into that but I think the federal government probably has a lot more weight on some of those prices than we do here in the state.

But we try to get as much regulatory burden out of the way so that people have access to low appropriately priced even low priced foods.

>> Yeah, the the train of trickle down savings takes a long time.

>> People are suffering now and and wages don't always catch up right away to inflationary prices.

That's kind of where we just were and thankfully we're coming out of it somewhat now but it's a problematic phase for sure.

>> There was a bill to send a bill to six seven that requires political influencers and protesters who are being paid anything over five hundred dollars to register with the state.

What what what is that intended to curtail?

>> Yeah.

So when when you have controversial topics it is interesting to sit as a legislator and see and something some of my family members even noticed like the same people showing up at different times at different locations and even during the redistricting debate it was interesting to see and we have very good laws about lobbying and who can lobby and who can influence legislators and we would just want to be really careful that there's not undue influence from certain campaigns no matter which side you're on.

We just want daylight on all of that so we know who's trying to influence what how do you track somebody you know whether they're being paid five hundred dollars or more?

>> I mean it seems like that would be a nightmare to to administer the answers.

Yes, it will be a nightmare.

Prime Minister, most of the time it's an after the fact kind of thing you did something else wrong and this is something that you did wrong to right.

But really it's the principle of it more than anything.

>> Right.

But if you're an activist that just happens to be showing up because you feel strongly about that that's that's a First Amendment thing and it's in the bill speaks to that we just want to be we want to be cautious.

You never want to cross a line to prevent anybody from saying what they have to say and what they believe.

And I think that's actually really, really important.

But that's a long stretch from somebody who's a paid actor in the space.

And so there are two very different things.

So we want to protect First Amendment rights while making sure there's not undue influence in a campaign I might add to when you're paid you're not just a protester, you can be an activist and that could lead to harm and aggressive behavior.

So like you say, when you catch them when they get incarcerated ,then you have that knowledge and you want something different.

>> You're saying yes, yeah, you got it.

You know, you brought up the the redistricting.

There's been ramifications since then.

>> Is it impacting the rest of the session?

Interestingly, it hasn't so much on our side we've been able to separate that for the most part and that's a good thing.

It was a very tense, awkward debate to be honest.

I think as the year goes on you'll feel that tension a little bit more.

Every session gets a little more tense as it goes on and so hopefully that doesn't affect our work.

Yeah, but I think the colleagues that I've worked with so far there's been very little mention of it and we've actually worked very well on some very difficult issues so far.

>> Have you found that and I agree yes.

We were very close on both sides of the aisle anyway and this was a tense time and there was you know, I just you know, it passed out and it filled the House and passed in the Senate.

But we're friends.

We still talk.

My my thought is we concentrate on the future but we want to do if we want to have a balance of power and fairness in the Congress, let's get the vote out.

>> That's my position on it.

Let's get the vote out and people there well there's there's a there's one bill SB fifty three that is trying to prohibit that from ever happening again the kind of a mid amid census vote for redistricting.

>> Yeah, I would actually say to that if we set up good ground rules and we followed those rules I'd be for that.

You know we can't really the whole goal the redistricting discussion is we've got to play by same rules everybody else does.

My many of my colleagues disagreed on that but it really comes down to if we're going to set up ground rules across the country and we can all play by the same ground rules, I'd be all for .

>> I'm all right.

We have another text that has come in, gentlemen.

This one related to tariffs.

This is it says What are Indiana Republicans doing to ensure that tariffs are not a burden on Hoosier consumers?

>> Yeah, it's much more of a federal issue than we typically deal with there.

But I live in farm country and we have one of the largest steel producers in the the country in my district.

And so it's it's extremely important to me and where I have influence and letting our fellow federal delegation know we need to have a good balance there.

It's clearly had some good effects and some bad effects though.

And I think that's another thing where timing really matters.

Right.

And so where you're at in the time frame of that and what the response is really matters in that discussion.

Right.

I have a resolution number nine I've working with the governor and the CEO of our ports and what we're trying to do working with Canada Quebec City is to increase the shipping on the Great Lakes.

They want to deal with us.

We want to ship with them that's tariff free and we're going to develop Broun's harbor in the northwest Indiana to take right now they they ship about three million tons of cargo in and out through that port every year.

We're one of the deepest harbors in the Midwest and it's a it's a very good location if we increase shipping from nine months to twelve months, that's an economic boom.

It helps avoid tariffs and we all of our eight states and two providences on the Great Lakes, we want to increase that type of inner inner with Canada and America that shipping and it can be done in a way that we can really benefit.

That's exciting especially since we've heard that Canada has tried to, you know, basically pull back a lot because of the because of the tariffs.

Yes.

Yeah.

All right.

Here's a question that came in from on online.

Jeff asks What do you think about redistricting bill that was voted on and why did you vote the way you did basically, you know, inquiring about your vote?

>> Yeah, like Representative Abbott said, you know, we passed out of the House and came over to the Senate.

I voted for the bill.

I felt it was appropriate given the timing.

I got a little bit of a pass because I wasn't here for any of the redistricting discussions before I got there and so this is my first swing at it and so I felt it was appropriate to make the maps as fair as they possibly could be and that would having equal congressional delegations as much as we could.

>> So having the districts mirror each other as much as possible and I did like that about the map.

Right.

It was you know, it was a specific and representative of it.

You voted for it as well.

He did it.

It was something I didn't want to vote for .

I felt that for the balance of power in our midterms are so, so critical and yes, it was gerrymandering and yes, it was a political reason which is illegal.

A lot of people think this is illegal.

It's one of these steps.

It's a dramatic step and what we're trying to do is maintain fairness in Congress.

Yeah, there was a lot of , you know, accusations about other reasons but that really was what it was about and I'm still I stand by.

Let's just regroup and let's get people to vote.

>> That's how we need to do it.

So yeah.

All right.

Can we move on to a few other bills because you know, I'm really fascinated by some of these laws that are that are you know, as a doctor there's a bill that's proposing that that it's HB ten 11 allowing terminally ill people to get medication and self medicate to end their lives.

Thoughts on that?

>> Yeah, I actually have a real problem with doing that.

I actually had a resolution two years ago condemning that itself as a doctor once you kind of cross that line and you're no longer willing to treat a patient and you just kind of support ending their life , it makes it really hard to value life and that's a big part of our job and you know, it's I don't know where you would draw that line even so you can't even have that discussion now I understand very much I take care of terminally ill well, the medical the ratification would have to come from a doctor somehow.

>> Right?

Right.

And we struggle with online ordering in that kind of stuff now.

So I don't want that that stuff out there.

And you look at places like Canada now it's one of the leading causes of death in Canada is is you know, physician assisted suicide.

They call it Medicaid medication aided in dying I think is what they call it.

It makes it sound very much a calm, nice thing to do and no one reason for doing is depression.

I don't want somebody who's sad to go take their own life and it's what I really do in the emergency department most of the nights downtown here Fort Wayne is talk to people who are in trouble and try to talk through that with them and try to provide some compassion so that they value their own life as much as we do.

And so it really would be a sad state of affairs to ever get to that point.

Yeah, and I've seen family members die and you see how they suffer and they're out of pain.

But up until that moment you don't want to see them die.

It's really hard to do that and I completely agree with Senator Johnson.

>> Right.

Well, this would give agency to the the patient you know, the terminally ill person.

>> Yeah.

Yeah.

There's also a bill that would basically mandate posting and displaying the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom and library.

Does that go a little far?

Do you think in terms of the entitlement clause or the you know, I don't think so.

>> We're not violating church and state.

We're not establishing a state church.

We're displaying what our country was based on basically .

And I think it's just if you're not in a religious position is historical.

So I should be right should learn this.

>> Would that be would that also go towards you sacred texts from other faiths?

Would that how would you feel if other faiths were also displayed like that?

>> I would just I believe that we were bounded we were created in this country on Christian backgrounds.

So in the schools or it's a state established school but we're not trying to favor one or the other.

I just think that since it's a historical thing it should be from the United States and we represent the Christian values.

>> All right.

We have another text this this is about power costs and the data centers which we've talked a little bit about.

What's the deal with power costs and new data centers?

>> This this viewer maybe didn't didn't hear your previous answers.

>> But it is it is it is a burning question here.

Very much so.

And part of that is we don't want the the citizens to bear the burden of these data centers.

People definitely want them because they want to use their phone in their their tablet to do I and search and it's very power consuming and so we want the data centers, these large companies to bear the burden of that and so making sure we set up state law to mirror that and make sure we protect the average citizen, that's the way it should be done.

All right.

We're coming towards the end of our time.

Final thoughts for your constituents.

What would you like to tell them as the session rolls along?

>> I think our session right now is really dealing with cost savings for our citizens as far as ten to one with the housing ten or two we're dealing with just consolidation of government and it goes on on utilities our rate we're putting some parameters to get our rates down with our utility companies and some school issues that are top four priorities.

And I think these are we want to make our schools good.

We want to cut down these cost, streamline our government and stay out of the way.

>> Yeah.

Yeah.

To that same theme we're really looking to protect the taxpayer dollars in the Senate and that's whether it's through waste, fraud and abuse.

Many of our priority pieces of legislation are looking to just make sure we protect those dollars so that they're there for people that right.

Yeah.

SB one is one of them, correct.

Right.

Yeah.

Well I want to thank you guys both.

>> You know, I hope you come back.

I hope we have time to bring you back during this session.

I want to thank my guests from Senate District 14 Assistant Republican caucus chair Senator Tyler Johnson and from District 18 assistant Republican caucus chair for the House Representative David Abbott.

Thank you, gentlemen.

and Ahmed León, I thank you for joining us and we'll see you next time on Prime Time