Legislation

This bill, which was originally focused on scanning ballots, was amended to cut early voting nearly in half — from 28 days to just 16 days.

SB 76, now the primary immigration bill still moving, combines language from the other immigration bills and would expand enforcement by tightening “sanctuary” restrictions, mandating stronger cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), blurring the lines of state and local enforcement, and escalating penalties for anyone who doesn’t comply.

While these bills are framed as protecting faith-based organizations, prospective foster parents, and prospective adoptive parents from “discrimination,” they could prevent the state from making placement decisions based on child safety and welfare.

House Bill 1343, disguised as a routine veteran affairs bill, would expand the Indiana National Guard’s role into civilian law enforcement by establishing a “military police force,” then granting the governor broad authority to activate it with police powers anywhere in the state.

SB 182 targets the transgender community in Indiana in a number of ways. It would impose rigid definitions of “male” and “female” based on reproductive systems – without regard to gender identity. It also prevents Hoosiers from being able to change the sex listed on their birth certificates, unless they have “a medically verifiable disorder of sex development.”

SB 236 would escalate Indiana’s abortion ban by cracking down on abortion-inducing drugs and creating a lawsuit-driven enforcement scheme targeting these medications and those accused of distributing them from outside the state. The bill adds a new chapter to the abortion ban that broadly prohibits manufacturing, distributing, possessing, prescribing, mailing, transporting, delivering, or otherwise providing abortion-inducing drugs to or from anyone in Indiana outside of the state’s narrow exceptions. It specifically covers common abortion-inducing drugs (e.g., mifepristone and misoprostol) as well as off-label use.

As amended, this bill adds the Ten Commandments to the state’s current list of “protected” historical documents, which would allow schools and teachers to post the text or parts of it in classrooms freely.

These bills would make it a crime to camp, sleep, or shelter on public property. They specify that law enforcement officers give anyone who violates this law a warning and offer to transport them to receive services or stay in a shelter. If the person does not move in a specified timeframe, they can be charged with a Class C misdemeanor (48 hours in the case of SB 285, 24 hours in HB 1431).

This bill would create sweeping restrictions against people from countries that have been deemed as “foreign adversaries” by the federal government (including China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia), as well as any other country designated as a threat to critical infrastructure by the governor.