Holcomb Sounds Cautious Tone Ahead Of Legislative Session
Whitney Downard
CNHI Statehouse Reporter
TERRE HAUTE – Next month the Indiana legislature will begin its session, convening to pass new laws and revisit long-standing issues that plague Hoosiers related to the economic fallout of COVID-19.
Once legislation passes both chambers, it must win the signature of Gov. Eric Holcomb to become law. But, without concrete language before him, Holcomb this week declined to indicate where he would fall on major issues.
“I like to see the legislation first. I like to really read every word because a word can make a big difference. So I don’t want to prejudge any bill that’s not here yet — whether it’s in draft form or not,” Holcomb said.
House leaders attempted to pass a priority bill, House Bill 1001, in November before the traditional January session start (Jan. 4 in 2022). The bill would force companies that require employee vaccines to pay for employee testing for those who opt out. Businesses must also accept various vaccine exemptions without proof.
Members quickly backtracked after pushback from the business community but refiled the bill and scheduled another committee hearing for Dec. 16.
The federal push to mandate vaccines for large businesses remains tied up in courts.
Holcomb said he would be reluctant to require businesses to mandate vaccines or mandate testing alternatives, saying businesses generally have the best interests of their employees in mind.
Although House leaders indicated an appetite for cutting taxes in 2022, Holcomb declined to support them until he saw the budget forecast, due for release Dec. 16, and the terms of the legislation. The corporate income tax dropped to 4.9% this year, and excess reserves triggered an automatic taxpayer refund for 2022.
“We have overperformed the first five months of this fiscal year to the tune of about $644 million over forecasts,” Holcomb said. “Our other priorities that could have a price tag — like health care, child care, the cost of energy, [etc.] — those are big-ticket items, and what I don’t want to do is act prematurely.”
When it came to potentially thorny topics of the 2022 legislative session, including anti-abortion measures, Holcomb said he wants to read the bills before weighing in. The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on a Mississippi abortion law — expected in late spring or early summer – would greatly influence Indiana’s actions.
“I’m a guy that likes to deal with facts and let the facts guide my next move,” Holcomb said. “Again, I don’t want to prejudge or speculate.”
Drew Anderson, spokesperson for the Indiana Democratic Party, emphasized that the party continued to voice its opposition to any anti-abortion measures similar to Texas, which outlawed all abortions after six weeks, or Mississippi, which banned abortions after 15 weeks.
When anti-abortion lawmakers use abortion rights or pro-choice language, specifically “my body, my choice,” to justify not getting the vaccine, Anderson said that’s hypocritical.
“We find it really ironic that Republicans, within the same breath, are saying that it’s their body, their choice when it comes to vaccines but then that doesn’t mean Hoosier women should have access to reproductive health care,” Anderson said. “The Republican Party’s partisanship is making them turn into pretzels.”
While Holcomb and GOP leaders insist that the Indiana Republican Party is a big tent, Anderson said that Republicans had shifted from the kitchen table economic issues of then-Gov. Mitch Daniels to partisan cultural wars.
“We think it’s become pretty clear that the Republican Party is no longer the Mitch Daniels Republican Party,” Anderson said. “You look at their agenda for this upcoming session, and they want to politicize school boards, which haven’t been politicized in decades; they want to pass really strict anti-abortion legislation that puts the health of Hoosier women in jeopardy.”
Anderson pointed to repeated attacks from the right about COVID-19 vaccines and Indiana’s low acceptance rate for the life-saving vaccine. Indiana is in the bottom 10 of states in terms of fully vaccinated population, according to the Mayo Clinic as of Dec. 5, 2021.
“In a way you kind of empathize with Governor Holcomb because he has been the one person that has really tried to say, ‘Get vaccinated.’ His party’s partisanship is preventing him from doing an aggressive campaign to get shots in arms,” Anderson said.
Holcomb insisted that polarization and differentiations within a party aren’t unique to Indiana or even the United States, and the governor said he’d continue to focus on Indiana’s economic climate: paying down debt, growing the state’s gross domestic product (all goods and services produced in the state) and continuing to achieve record revenues.
Part of that includes tackling issues that plague the state’s childcare system, which had preexisting problems exacerbated by the pandemic.
Indiana’s childcare industry received $540 million from the American Rescue Plan and stands to receive millions more if Congress passes a second human infrastructure bill by Christmas. Because of how localized childcare problems can be, Holcomb said he wanted to focus on community solutions.
“[If] we rely on the federal government … to solve that problem, it distorts the market and doesn’t really get at the core issue,” he said.