 Thanks to everyone who's joining us tonight. Thank you to our honored guests. We're so happy to have you. My name is Molly Martin, and I'm the director of New America Indianapolis. New America is a non-profit, non-partisan organization. It's based in D.C., but I live here in Indiana. We'll be co-hosting tonight with our partners at the Indianapolis Reporter and, of course, the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus. Very quickly, before we get started, I want to reiterate what Angela said. Please keep in touch with the chat in the Q&A. I will be posting a PDF of some of the statistics about Black economic mobility in Indiana that we're just cycling across the screen. We'll also be taking your questions and comments. If we do not get to your comment or question tonight, we will make sure to reach back to you. We will also be monitoring the conversation on Facebook. Very quickly, I'd like to say that when we hold these conversations that New America and Indianapolis have about the Black community, we always start by saying Black voices are critical to all of our community conversations to our public problem-solving and to our social lives. Systemic racism and bias impact every aspect of our personal, social, and economic lives, including our individual health. We recognize that Black lives matter. We recognize that race and ethnicity are not the same, and we recognize that the Black community is not a monoland. With those principles and ground rules set out, I'd like to hand it over to the chair of the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus, Representative Robin Shackelford to kick us off. Representative Shackelford, I think you're still muted. I'm sorry, we just went through this. Thank you, Molly. Thank you, everyone, for attending. I just wanted to go over and welcome everybody. I wanted to make sure everyone know the purpose of our town halls. This is our fifth year conducting the town halls. There is two folks. We try to make sure that we come out to our constituents personally and let them know what was some of that important legislation that was passed during this last session. We want to get ideas and your feedback for next legislative session. This is a great time and opportunity that we can get this done. I am going to introduce our IBLC members who are here with us today and those who couldn't join us today. I feel it's very important that I go over our leadership positions. Why? Because when you're in a leadership position, you're at the table. You're there making those decisions when they happen. All of our legislative members are in leadership roles. And so you'll know who you need to reach out to, what our members' expertise is. So going in alphabetical order, the members that are present today, we have Representative John Bartlett. He is our IBLC parliamentarian and he's our former Democrat caucus chair. Next, Representative Earl Harris Jr., IBLC vice chair and house assistant Democrat Whip. Representative Reagan Hatcher, IBLC treasurer and ranking minority member for House Courts and Criminal Code Committee. Representative Carolyn Jackson, she is our IBLC chaplain and ranking minority member for the House Select Committee on Government Reduction. Senator Eddie Melton, he is our ranking minority member for the Senate Education and Career Development Committee. Representative Gregory Porter, he is the ranking minority member for House Ways and Means. Representative Cherish Pryor, she is the House Democrat floor leader. And Representative Vanessa Summers, she is the ranking minority member for House Family, Children and Human Affairs Committee. We also have Senator Greg Taylor, who is the ranking minority member for Senate Tax and Fiscal Policy. Those who could not join us today but they're here with us in spirit is Senator Jean Brough. She is the Senate assistant minority floor leader, ranking minority leader for the Senate Health and Provider Services and Insurance and Financial Institutions Committee. She's also the Vice Chair for the Senate Ethics and she's Women Power Caucus Secretary. Representative Vernon Smith could not also make it, he is the ranking minority member for the House Education Committee and Senator Lottie Randolph. He is the Senate Democrat at Minority Whip and he's the ranking minority member for the Senate Judiciary and Public Policy Committees. Then there's myself. I am the IVLC Chair. I'm also the ranking minority member for our House Public Committee and the Vice Chair for the Women's Power Caucus. And I want to make sure we didn't forget our lovely executive director who's the face of our organization when you contact us, Raven Richel. So we welcome you, we are glad you're here. I also want to thank any elected officials, anyone running for office candidates, any former elected officials that have joined us. Please put a shout out in the chat. Let us know you're here. We appreciate you all supporting us and being here for the Town Hall. Thank you. Thank you so much, Robin. Marshawn will come to you. Thank you. And good evening. Thank you for being here with us. The Indianapolis Recorder has been celebrating 125 years of preparing a conscious community. We have partnered with New America on these series of conversations looking at the Black community from the perspective of COVID as well as just being in the Midwest. This is a special treat to have a number of leaders in the Black Legislative Caucus here to talk about both the work that they have done and the work that they have tried to do and then also ideas that they would like to have from US constituents. You're going to hear about criminal justice and economic development, education, health and human services. You're going to hear about important legislation that did not pass. You're going to hear about criminal justice reform and other ideas, health disparities from leaders who are in the fight for us on our behalf. And so with that, what I'd like to do is turn it over to Senator Taylor who will give us an update on courts and criminal code. Senator Taylor. Thank you, Marshawn. And thank you to all those people who are watching this presentation. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through some bills that passed the court and criminal justice round this past section. We're limited in time so I'll keep it to a few of the bills that are in the legislation of interest that was distributed and can be found on the Indiana Black Caucus website. So I'm going to go through a few bills. I'll name them by number but they can also be looked up that way by either the author or the sponsors of the bill. So first of all, as all of us know, in the state of Indiana, we passed expungement law several years ago giving people exceptional opportunities to reclaim their lives and reclaim opportunities in the workforce. We have over the years changed some of the legislation associated with that law and this year we did the same. For example, now speaking of waiting periods for expungement, there was a consideration and a law was passed that said, for example, if you were charged with a level 6 or a Class D felony under the old criminal code and you waited and let's say that you had to wait, part of your sentencing was once the actual, once you passed a probationary period that your then Class 6 felony would move to a misdemeanor, we had some discrepancies around the status to when the time clock for that five-year period would start. So for those people who have diversions from a level 6 or a Class D felony down to a misdemeanor, the five-year waiting period has now been put into law that it starts from the date in which the felony conviction was actually entered. So even if you get charged with a felony and it moves to a misdemeanor, the time for your waiting period does not start when you convert it to a misdemeanor, it starts when you were convicted of that felony, lowering the time period that you're going to have to wait. House Bill 1264 has to do with child care background checks and that bill was sponsored by Representative Chris May and it requires employees and volunteers of child care facilities who are present at the facilities to actually have a criminal, national criminal background check. It used to be that if you were going to be having any interaction with children, that would be the trigger for you to have a background check. Now it's if you're going to be on the premises. House Bill 1313 for Courts and Family Law Matters sponsored by Representative John Young would increase the filing limit to $8,000 for all counties in the state of Indiana. We had changed the limit on small claims court to $8,000 here in Marion County and now that $8,000 limit for small claims is now applicable to the rest of the states. In addition to that, we also provided for child custody purposes, parenting time orders. As you know, we require that you inform the non-custodial parent or the custodial parent was supposed to inform the other parent whether or not they were relocating in a lot of situations that might have been into in town. You move them from one house to another, one apartment complex to another. We have changed that law that says that if you move less than 20 miles away, you no longer have to comply with giving notice to the other parent. So if you are relocating you no longer, as long as you're in less than 20 miles away or less than 20 miles from where you live, you can now forego that and don't have to do it. Last but not least, and again this has to do with jail overcrowding sponsored by Randy Fry in the House of Representatives, House Bill 1346 says that the state of Indiana is going to have an advisory council to conduct a state-level review of the valuation of jail overcrowding in the state of Indiana. The second goal or duty of that committee is to develop alternatives to incarceration and recidivism reduction programs at the county and community level to promote the development and the incorporation of evidence-backed recommendations for county shares and strategies for jail. We hope that that will lead to more alternatives to people being behind bars but give people opportunities to actually develop and hopefully do their sentences without being in the jail system. And with that I'm finished with my portion of the criminal and civil court. Thank you for that update. Now we're going to move to economic development and workforce with representatives Earl Harris and Representative Charest Crier. Thank you all for being here. I'm going to cover just three bills. The first bill is House Bill 383 and that bill was actually authored by our very own Senator Greg Taylor in the Senate and it was co-authored by several of the IBLC members including Representative Porter and myself. What the bill does, it requires each educational institution, state educational institutions to submit an annual budget to the state budget agency each year. This is to provide greater accountability for the institutions as it relates to their minority and women business span. So we're very excited about that bill and we're very thankful for Senator Taylor for introducing it. The second bill is House Bill 1009. House Bill 1009, the title of it is Various Welfare Matters but basically what the bill does, it allows a student to earn money and that money not be counted towards the family's ability to receive SNAP, TANF and also if the child is going to school it does not affect their ability to get financial aid. This bill is going to be very beneficial to families that are trying to make it work. However a child maybe the parents don't want the child to have a job because they're scared or fearful that it may take them over the limit. This bill ensures that that will not happen. Also if you are a census worker, this is an amendment that we had added in the bill. If you are a census worker, that income that you earn as a census worker will not be counted towards TANF, SNAP, Medicaid, the student lunch program and it will not be used to determine eligibility for any state scholarships. Again these are measures to ensure that people have an opportunity to earn a little bit of money without them not being qualified for important state programs. In the last bill, House Bill 1143, that bill was carried by Representative Bob Morris, Representative John Barlett who's a member of our caucus was one of the co-authors of that bill and what this bill does it prohibits an employer from requiring a candidate for employment or an employee to have a device implanted or otherwise incorporated into the candidates as a requirement or a condition for their employment. So your employee cannot say for instance require you to have anything input into your body if they want you to become an employee of that company and that is it. All right. Hello everyone. Good evening. I'm glad that you are with us in this new format of our town hall. I just want to talk very quickly about a couple. One that was mentioned earlier by Senator Taylor when he spoke House Bill 1264 about child care background checks. This is something that you know we have to make sure that we protect our young children who cannot protect themselves so I'm glad that we have put a lot of attention into this and proud to be a member of the legislature that passed this to make sure that our kids are safe and make sure that the right people are working in those type of organizations. The other one I want to tell you about real quick is House Bill 1881. This has to do with the commission for supplier diversity. This actually comes came out of a committee that I'm part of. I'm one of the co-authors and then Senator Bro and Senator Randolph were two of the sponsors on the Senate side and what this bill does is it doesn't seem like a lot but it actually is very important. It changes the name of the governor's commission on minority and women business enterprises to the governor's commission on supplier diversity. The thinking there is that it is more engulfing or engulfs more and added to that is it also includes membership scope has expanded to put a focus on veteran owned small businesses. So along with the name change going along with that the thought is that we wanted to include veterans and really cover every area in this. So that's the reason for the change and glad to see that the veterans will get a little bit more focus. So thank you. Thank you both for those important updates. This event is being streamed live on the Indianapolis Recorder Facebook page. At this moment I'd like to acknowledge our community partners including the Urban League, Indiana Black Expo, the NAACP, the Indiana Minority Health Coalition and NO Power. And with that I will turn it over to Senator Eddie Melton who will talk about some updates on education. I'll be going over a few bills regarding education. I'll be going over House Enrolled Act 1002, 1065 and 1066. And I'll try to get through this as quickly as possible. Enrolled Act 1002 removes the requirement for corporation annual performance evaluations plan must be based on objective measures for student achievement. Just kind of give you a little bit of background. State data shows that 98% of Indiana teachers are rated effective or highly effective by their administrators. The whole harmless measure that was in this bill is a key priority for our educators, our teachers, organizations like AFT and ISTA across the board. So this was something that we were very supportive of as they moved forward. In a reversal of what some of our colleagues may have wanted to see, they showed overwhelmingly support for no longer requiring test scores to be a significant part of a teacher's evaluation. The state legislature is actually nine years behind in making this decision. This is something that should have been done several years ago. Test scores don't always reflect the quality of instruction because there's no significant way of outside scores to be determined. So going to 1003 and 1002 just so you'll know in a Senate passed 49 to 1 from a roll call perspective. 1003 just to give you a snapshot of what this bill is and if you have the booklet of the various bills that we're going over, it provides a state board of education shall determine the timing frequency and the method of certain teacher training requirements, including whether the training should be required for preparation programs. So a little bit more background on this. The Act House of Enrolled Act 1003 will let schools apply for waivers from anything that doesn't involve safety, collective bargaining, budget, and test scores. This act also directs the state board of education to examine how long and how often teachers have to go through training on topics from bullying all the way to epilepsy. Teachers must undergo training on nearly two dozen topics. So this gives you an idea of the significance of this pieces of legislation. When we talk about House Bill 1003, it also allows any school to wave almost any statue within Title 20 or 511 dealing with the administrative codes by applying for this through the state board of education. I want to go to House Bill 1065 and this was an extremely controversial bill. I'm sure many of our educators that are watching today remember House Enrolled Act 1065. It deals with a lot of tax issues but one of the most important pieces that especially impacts communities of color, black communities, brown communities, low income communities across the state, that it allows school corporations, traditional public school corporations, if they're going that it will allow them to share their referendum dollars with charter schools. For example, local school board needs $10 million for the property tax payers. They will possibly have to ask for $11 million to satisfy one of the local charter schools that's requesting. This was the last minute amendment in this bill. The original bill itself did not carry this language but we thought it was extremely important that you knew the impact that it could have in terms of some of the dollars into our traditional public education institute. So on that and learn more in your local communities about what this involves and the engagement that the school corporation, the school board plays in terms of moving that forward. They have to agree on that. So just so you know, you'll be armed with the correct information. Again, that was House Enrolled Act 1065. I want to talk about House Enrolled Act 1066 provides that a school corporation shall accept transfer students who does not have legal settlement in the school corporation if the school district has the capacity to accept it and the student's parents is currently employed of the transfer preschool corporation with an annual salary at least of $8,000 or $3,000 earned due to being included as an employee. So I know that's a lot, St. Paul. Let me give you kind of a synopsis of what they're saying. The state board of accounts submitted a report that found that two school, virtual school corporations, I'm sure many of you have heard about this, Indiana Virtual Charter School and Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy collected tuition reimbursements for thousands of students who never attended those schools as well as the fees for those students. So what we're talking about here is transparency and accountability within the virtual charter school realm. I know both in the House and the Senate, both the Senate and the DMs fought for legislation for more accountability of the resource or virtual charter schools and that was not acceptable in our amendments. This is something that we will continue to fight for as we look to make sure that public dollars are used appropriately and accountability is tied to that. And with that, that concludes my presentation tonight on education. Thank you, Senator Melton. Important updates for the community to be aware of. We will now go to Representative Robin Shackelford who will update us on health and human services legislation. Thank you, Marciaan. I just want to remind people that this was a short session that we just went through, so you won't hear about too many bills to impact the budget. This upcoming session, that's where you will hear about more bills that has an impact on our state and anything that you want requiring money or funds. So just keep that in mind. I'm going to go over about five health care bills that did pass through the health committee, whether it was on the Senate or the House. You may recall this was a session that we were trying to reduce the cost of health care costs overall and also pharmacy costs, prescription costs for consumers. The first bill in Senate Bill 241 is called Pharmacy Benefit Managers. During our summer study committee last year on prescription drug prices, we learned that a lot of the inflated costs that consumers were experiencing were coming from a middleman like the Pharmacy Benefit Manager. Their role basically is to negotiate the prices between the manufacturer and the insurance company. By the time we got through our study, most people just wanted to get rid of the Pharmacy Benefit Managers, but we decided to go with a more conservative approach. This is Indiana. So what this bill does, it requires Pharmacy Benefit Managers to get licensed by the state's Department of Insurance by December 31, 2020 this year. They have to now submit annual reports on their revenues and adhere to annual audits. So that was one step forward in trying to regulate the Pharmacy Benefit Managers. The next one is Senate Bill 255, Insulin Drugs. We know insulin has been overpriced for years in causing diabetics in their families, economic hardship, and trying to purchase these drugs. Although this bill doesn't go far enough, it does help to reduce consumer costs. It is a small step in the right direction. The bill removes the requirement for prescription to purchase insulin, which will allow people to purchase directly from the pharmacist. This type of insulin runs about $40, so removing that barrier will help you get that insulin directly from the pharmacist. We will still fight and continue to fight and make sure there's a cap on insulin because we think that will directly affect lowering that cost to consumers. Senate Bill 275, School Concussion Recovery Protocol. In order to ensure that a policy was drafted statewide and to protect our students who have concussions, this bill requires the Department of Education to develop and distribute by July 1st, 2021, a protocol who has received a concussion or a head injury to return to classroom work. All schools, public and private will have to comply with the requirements that the Department of Education come up with. Next, House Bill 1004. This was one of those large bills. It was one of those other bills that we thought it was going to really reduce the healthcare costs for consumers, but it got watered down. It got a little messy. So about time we got done with it, there is one good piece in here that remains to help directly with consumers. It is the good faith estimate requirement. Starting July 1st, 2021, healthcare providers have to provide a good faith estimate to individuals of the price for non-emergency services to be provided. So you would no longer have that sticker shock of once you go to the hospital, get a surgery and you're getting various bills from the hospital, from a doctor, now they have to give you a good faith estimate. This will give more power to consumers to have ability to shop around because you will have that estimate in hand. So what was one of the benefits that came out of that bill? Lastly, House Bill 1207, Formacy Matters. This was another big pharmacy bill where we were trying to reduce the cost of prescriptions, drug costs. It was actually authored by Representative Davidson who is a pharmacist who's been trying to get this legislation passed for years. I'm going to go over four key points that came out of this legislation that helps you and that will help our consumers. So one, it requires a health plan provider may not require, may not require a pharmacy or a pharmacist to collect a higher co-payment for a prescription drug from a covered individual than what is covered by the plan. So a provider or pharmacy benefit manager can't say collect $100 for this script, but the insurance company is only covering $50. That can no longer go on. Second, allows a prescription for a patient to be transferred electronically by a pharmacy to another pharmacy. Previously, your provider office would have had to authorize this, which delays you getting your script. So now that pharmacists can do that transfer electronically from pharmacy to pharmacy. The third one is it requires a health plan to establish a procedure under which the amount paid by a covered individual for covered drug purchase outside the plan is counted towards your deductible. So for example, if you pay $100 a month for a drug that is subsidized by a drug manufacturer because you're on their program, previously your insurance plan was not counting at $100 towards your deductible. Now this bill says they have to count at $100 towards your deductible. This is a step in the right direction. What we would like to see is that whole amount is paid by you and the manufacturer of the drug get counted towards your deductible. Lastly, it requires an insurer when removing a prescription drug from the insurance formulary are changing the cost share requirements. Now they have to give the insurer a 60-day notice and they have to provide an appeals process. We heard from a lot of people that they were taking a drug, then it came off their formulary. They didn't even know it, so they went to try to get it or go to their doctor. Now the insurance company is going to remove that. They have to give you a 60-day notice and let you appeal. So that is it for healthcare. Thanks everybody for listening. Outstanding. Thank you for the updates. Now we're going to move to representatives John Bartlett and Carolyn Jackson, representative Carolyn Jackson to talk about miscellaneous legislation. Thank you. Okay, who's going first? Want me to go first? Yes, you can. Okay, very good. In miscellaneous legislation, of course I'll thank you all for going to the post that you're here to vote and being a part of this process and supporting the Indian blood let's say the profit. The hospital 1070 is a bill that's under miscellaneous legislation and it's a distracted driving bill that I voted against by the way, but you can no longer hold a handheld device in your hand while driving. They won't start taking points off your license until July 2021, but used to you could text or read the text while driving. So now you can no longer hold that handheld device in your hand and we need to make you aware of that so that the police can now stop you. It gives them another reason to stop you if they see you holding that handheld device in your hand. I was opposed to it because the fact that a lot of us use our phones for GPS and a lot of young folks don't have late model cars so they don't have a vehicle with the GPS system in their radio so they do use their phone for GPS. So I did vote against that bill but it did pass. Second thing I like to talk about is House Bill 10-06. House Bill 10-06 came from a human trafficking task force that I started in 2017 and we've been keeping it going and I don't think our state does enough to educate us on human trafficking. There are four parts to human trafficking. There's the sex trade, slave labor trade, the human organ trade and also along these posts now they're kidnapping young girls, greeting them and selling the baby and we keep it hush hush. But from that task force was born House Bill 10-06 used to the age to consent to marry in the state of Indiana was age 15. We wanted to move it to age 18. We couldn't sell that so 16 and 17 is now the age you can consent to marry but there's a process you have to go through to marry at 16 or 17. First off the 16-17 year old individual that's getting married cannot marry someone more than four years their finger. That was okay with me because if I'm a senior in high school and I'm 18 years old and I'm dating a freshman who's 14 years old I graduate start working and we continue our relationship. I'm now 20 feet 15 that's four years if we get married or I'm 21 and 17 but we yet have to go through that court proceedings and the process. The 16th 17 year old has to be emancipated through the court system and that's huge because what was happening was we would have older folks marry younger people and traffic them abuse them and if you're not 18 years of age or have not been emancipated then you cannot move out and rent an apartment you have to be 18 years of age also if you want to file for divorce from that individual if you're 15 16 17 years old you cannot hire an attorney because you weren't 18 years of age but once the court system emancipates you then you have all those those rights so you can leave your mate you can rent an apartment it's a hiring attorney and there are several other rights and things that persons have to go through the court system qualify through the court system and wait 15 days before they can apply for a marriage life and with that I'll stop but please read out 10-06 thank you. Okay thank you so much everyone for being here I'm gonna just quickly go over House Bill 1265 which is a bill that requires all schools in the state of Indiana to test for land that bill was authored by myself Carolyn Jackson and co-authored by Representative Earl Harris and one of my senator sponsors was Senator Lonnie Randolph. We initially thought this was the Lake County issue but as we proceeded on with the bill we found out it was not just Lake County but it was an entire state issue so what this bill does with requiring every school in the state to test for lead in the drinking water if they test for the lead and they found out that the lead that the water has over 15 parts per billion of lead in it what the school will have to do is remediate it currently there is funding available through the Indiana this finance authority and what it will do is it will pay for the lead testing as well as it will provide those individuals at the school with step-by-step plan on what needs to be done to remediate the property also in that bill with regards to Lake County. Lake County will have to test the drinking water in the schools after 2023 every two years to ensure that the drinking water is safe. Now the 15 parts per billion it comes from the federal government that is the requiring now one of the things that was not in the bill that we will work to get in the in the bill next year will be for those individuals who are in nursery schools preschools and in ministries those as you know are the are the most at risk for the lead poisoning but this was a big success I feel because so many children throughout the state were going to schools and we found out some of them had 8000 times more than what was the requirement for the lead in the drinking water and just the bill alone it requires a lot of schools that heard about it they immediately turned the water off and ordered the children to bring water to school so this was a good bill and everybody voted for it I think it passed unanimously out of both houses so I think those individuals for their support and for those who view who came down to testify. Thank you representatives Bartlett and Jackson for that important update and for continuing to fight for us I see our audience has grown my name is Marshawn Wally I am a columnist of I'm just saying with the Indianapolis Recorder we are partnered with New America a national foundation we are hosting the Indiana black legislative caucus who has been providing us updates on bills we need to know about fights that they've won challenges that they've had to overcome maybe some fights that they'll have to revisit over time we've talked about courts and criminal code economic development education health and human services as well as miscellaneous legislation ranging from updating the marriage age and lead now we're going to get into important legislation that did not pass I would be remiss if I didn't recognize our community partners the Indianapolis Urban League Indiana black expo NAACP Indiana Minority Health Coalition and with that I will turn it over to important legislation that did not pass representatives Greg Porter and representative Vanessa Summers thank you Marshawn good evening everyone I'm so glad that you are here I see that there are quite a number of people that joined us on the watch party on Facebook and I'm really glad to see you I'm only going to talk about a couple pieces of my legislation we had extreme lot of legislation that did not pass did not get hearings in what we do with that legislation is we keep trying to take care of it year after year one of mine is implicit bias in medicine and any of us know that if we've ever gone to the hospital it's kind of more it's difficult for black and brown to get their health care needs taken through the emergency room or any other in the other type of hospital setting and we know that they think that our skin is tougher they think that we can take more pain and those things just are not true so we have got to figure out some way to stop the bias in the medical field the other one is we are hopefully will be able to do some study on violent crime as a public health issue it is of it was ahead of its scare ahead of its time a couple months ago right now I do believe that we all have PTSD from the things that we have gone through and the things that we have witnessed and watched in the last couple of months so those are a couple of the important things that I'm hoping to be able to take here again I didn't get here I really didn't ask for hearings because I really wanted to have those pieces of legislation in the long session in 2021 but I did introduce them only other thing that I probably would like to bring you um information about is uh representative Shackleford's Shackleford's 1406 expungement of juvenile records so of course we know what the expungement is and another one that we could not get through the process but we will continue to work um on those issues I'm going to stop there and let representative Porter go from here thank you representative Summers and again we're all grateful for each of you for being here with us this evening you know this session was a session from my perspective the bills that were not uh passed were missed opportunities and there are about 18 pieces of legislation and you've heard from three of them representatives Summers that was important to the black caucus and the and they were bills that the black caucus authored so I'm only going to hit on two or three other bills that did not get hearings in regards to this past session one was senate bill 387 which dealt with scholarships for healthcare for minority students we know the student that healthcare is the healthcare disparities are is there is real and it's alive so we need to have more individuals of color that go under the healthcare area and that was presented by senator ging bro and he did not receive a hearing and probably because it was a non-budget year but she put it on the on the table they had some conversations this upcoming session uh house bill 1018 uh that were represented Harris uh and uh he looked at uh an issue regards to hunger and homelessness uh regards to students you know that that there's a factor out there with students that are homeless that are in college and are in high school and they are living food desert and the student homeless a study committee was a committee that we're trying to get started so we can look at that when you look at student debt the average student debt in the state of indiana is 29 the $30,000 that's the average most of our students of color have debt over $50,000 so this is important for us and we hope to have that looked at again next year representative chakra for also talked about tenant rights that we did not get a legislation passed on and that was looking at landlord tenant legislation and looking at tenant rights and as you all know with the COVID-19 where we are you know we're we're really got our knuckles but there in regards to looking at where we're going to be when people are will begin to be evicted from their homes and and the tenant legislation that's important to all of us um house bill 1167 is a piece of legislation that I had dealing with anti-bullying legislation um traditional public schools have had to report bullying in their schools those there are three institutions of education that do not have to do that uh non public schools don't have to report bullying uh charter schools don't have to report bullying and choice uh schools don't have to report bullying uh if I believe that they receive uh state dollars that they should report that uh we we charter schools give about 200 million dollars uh choice schools get about 180 million dollars and we feel that they should have to report bullying in schools um also last piece I'd like to talk about very briefly is racial profiling uh by by lips and prior um it is an ironic that we are where we are today in America in regards to racial profiling this was house bill 1178 and she was a various male along with the black caucus and trying to move that forward and hopefully we will continue that fight we will not uh tarry from what we need to take care of African-Americans or people of color or poor people in general and I thank you again ladies and gentlemen so we just received an update on important legislation that did not pass from representative uh Greg Porter and representative Vanessa Summers we're now moving to legislation of concern that did not pass um this is uh maybe our rallying card potential for next session we'll see uh we have representative uh Reagan Hatcher who's going to give us a quick update hi everyone and thank you for being on tonight uh there are a couple things that I like to go over first we have house bill 1279 that was the indigo bill and the problem initially the indigo bill started out talking about the northwest indiana regional development authority um and things that were going to happen with that project but they tacked on at the end a 10 requirement for indigo to give back to um the fiscal body of maryon county and so what this did was caused a lot of problems with how maryon county public transportation would be used um it will probably cut funding which would be uh another problem so that was 1279 um it did not pass and we're glad that it did not pass um house bill 1355 that was a bill that I authored and put forward it's called a marital violence victim bill many times when spouses separates they come together uh usually in the same household if one spouse moves out then the other spouse should not have any kind of control over the property that the spouse moves to and that's all it said it just separated the residences of both spouses before the initial court hearing uh it's definitely for domestic violence victims people who may have had to have a protective order in place or some other kind of restriction for one spouse to another and finally we have the senate bill 449 uh we had a big outcry on this bill we had a number of people come to the state house to lobby against this bill and what it said was that it reduced the age to 12 of a juvenile that could be found guilty of murder and then that juvenile will be tried as an adult which is really scary because um what we know now especially through the scientific world agrees that your brain is not fully developed until you're about 25 or so 24 25 so they are in this bill they were trying to treat 12 year olds as an adult and put them in the department of correction with other adults and so this was a bill that did not pass um that we're very happy that did not move forward thank you thank you for that updates uh we are uh continuing to see our audience grow keep the comments and the questions coming at um later on in the program we will have a robust uh q and a of our panelists we are with the indiana black legislative caucus the community partners include the indianapolis urban league ibe nwa cp indiana minority health coalition and nl power at this point in the program what we're going to do is have more substantial updates on um idl scene justice reform agenda as well the as the health disparities minority task force and then also an update on uh response rates to the census the 2020 census and so with that i will now turn it uh this over to senator eddie melton thank you like it was mentioned earlier through representative porter that we he not only as a nation but here in indiana have been dealing with and fighting against racism police brutality and a variety of other issues in our systematic policies throughout this nation in state uh it was important that the black legislative caucus here in indiana came together and to issue a direction on what direction the governor but not only the governor but the legislative body should take to make action on the issues that we've seen that has caused so much unrest in our nation today so we want to thank everyone that have shared their thoughts and input uh the list and the things i'm going to share today is not complete this is our starting point uh for example tonight is an example where we're looking for your thoughts and feedback as we continue to build on policies that we feel that's going to help change the direction of especially the policing situations we have in the state but i want to be clear members of this caucus everyone on this call have been and have filed legislation on these issues for a number of years and i think we have to acknowledge that and make sure that's clear but as we move forward we wanted to look at it from a two-phased approach we're in phase one right now we wanted to give some direction and urge the governor to make some action steps number one that action step is to issue an immediate executive order to ban law enforcement from using the chokehold restraint or other means of restraint that cut off the ability to as a means of affixiating an arrest in Indiana this order must include specific repercussions of officers that will face for violating this ban now we must make sure whatever policies we set forth there is accountability attached to those things so we have to make sure that that's in place number two if the governor does not act on this uh this rule or the executive order we urge any out of mayors city councils and chiefs of police to immediately establish a local policy that does the same thing that all laws are used at the chokehold restraint if the governor does not move forward additionally we urge these entities to immediately implement the use of body cameras for all patrol officers it requires them to be on at all times if not again a penalty should be assessed we also urge the governor to immediately establish a statewide criminal justice commission that's permanent not just for a moment but also making sure that they include a diverse appointment of civilian representatives from the communities across the state that are african-american and that have experienced criminal justice in various fashions and have seen how it can treat us in a disproportionate way but the objective of this commission is to look and study the existing laws that have historically oppressed communities of color and that have shown systemic racism over the years and prepare that for the 2021 legislative session so again these are steps immediately that the governor can take they can move us forward and we urge the mayors and city councils and chiefs across the state of indiana to immediately establish an independent civilian review board with members selected by the local community now this is something different that we've seen in other communities where they're appointed politically and we're urging local communities establish a method or process to select these board members in a very open and inclusive manner to review public complaints on police violence now those are the phase one immediate action steps we're well aware that many organizations like the urban league like the NAACP and can't wait for eight and a variety of other organizations have policy recommendations which we're going to talk about the ones that we have now so we're looking at all those things we want to be as inclusive and strategic as possible as we move forward but some of the bills that we're looking at as a black caucus is again recommending the statewide criminal justice commission that will offer up legislative action items in addition to this but the statewide use of body cams and dashboard cameras local wide special prosecutor for police misconduct used to fatal and excessive force we think that's extremely important as we look for transparency in these special cases public reporting a lethal force involvement of law law enforcement one of the key things that we're seeing across this nation is the lack of collecting data and the fact of sharing that data and making that data when it comes down to law enforcement and in a misconduct of law enforcement we need a statewide public database for citizens and complaints against law enforcement to be made public in that fashion it was mentioned before we know that representative Porter said this but also bills has been filed by senator greg taylor for anti-racial profiling laws also enhanced penalties for officers involved in shootings we're looking at inclusive hate crimes legislation we know that last session it was a session that we dealt heavily with the hate crimes law and it needs to be strengthened and there are some areas that need to be improved for us to be one of the states that have a very comprehensive hate crimes piece of legislation on the books but one that's also controversial and i think is going to be helpful and we put this down as a caucus ensuring that the fop contracts are public record and requiring a public hearing for this will give a very clear transparent process for the public to participate especially when we talk about how an officer may or may not be reprimanded or held accountable for any actions of violence or death of a citizen reviews for police officers another recommendation legislatively confidential whistleblower complaint process for officers and ur officers to use their influence while on the job to help deescalate and intervene when there's a situation that arrives with their colleague and again implicit bias training dispute resolution and deescalation training is something that we have to fight for again these are just examples of the legislation that have already been filed things that we're going to be filing again and adding to that list but the purpose of tonight is to listen to take in more recommendations as we prepare for the 2021 session and that concludes the presentation with tonight with that thank you that sounds like a robust agenda things that you all have been working on the things that you all have been thinking about in response to everything that's happened more recently i want to make sure that we encourage our participants who are participating in this event to ask questions and be prepared to get those questions into the chat or to send them in the q and a section so that we can have a robust conversation and get public input on the information that the iblc is presenting to us it is always important to hear from our leaders and they are doing what they're supposed to do by coming to the community informing us empowering us and giving us an opportunity to provide some information and so with that what i want to do is turn over to um help to talk about health disparities and the minority task force uh go back to representative robin shackle sir thank you thank you march on uh just to piggyback on what eddie was saying when you do send in your ideas and concerns we will be expanding that legislative plan not only to include social justice but we will be including economic empowerment education and health so we know that is just a piece of what needs to be fixed and we need to look at some of these preventive things so feel free also to send in your suggestions for some of those other pieces that we'll be working on speaking of health disparities due to covet we learned pretty early after we asked for race data to be released the state department released that data and we saw that blacks were 20 more likely to test positive and to die from covet 19 one of our call to actions was to set up an immediate task force to look at these health disparities and come up with a corrective action plan by june 30th while the governor did hear our call we set up a task force the conveners were the any other minority health coalition the state department of health office of minority and health the interagency of state council and black and minority health and imhc did a large part for doing that hosting the committees being our navigators throughout the committees we had eight committees that we form one was incarceration and detain that included the prisons the juvenile detention centers sheriff and local jails etc we had the immigrant migrant population also included undocumented the un and the underinsured the frontline workers nursing home and long-term care assistant living facilities and 65 and older we had a committee called underlining conditions and this is the committee that i set on we looked at pregnant women chronic diseases and homelessness we also have a committee on communication and education of comprehensive campaign and then lastly we put together the special interest clusters which included groups like imhc the federally qualified health care centers faith-based organizations community-based organizations and the area on aging they were all in one group the last committee met today that was the committee on incarceration each committee met twice this committee felt they needed another day to meet so they met three times all the committees will have to submit their notes by this friday we will then have external editors to review it we have asked dr kevin bram from iub and dr beth mierson so they're going to be our review team and editing then i will take a look at it along with some of my colleagues from the iblc we also included reports from best practices so that will be included in there so we just want to make sure that people also know that people want this committee to be going ongoing after we submit our report june 30th we will present it to the summer study committee so they can look at these options so we can act upon this and give funding to it and we will try to keep this committee ongoing because as you know we have been fighting health disparities for years this is going to take years to get us through so we will continue to find a way to keep this task was going so we just wanted to make sure that you got an update that we are working our requests are being heard and that was one of them that did get implemented thanks for listening thank you for the updates again let's make sure we get our questions in this is a unique opportunity to have so many illustrious leaders within our general assembly coming to us providing updates and seeking input and asking for reactions to some of the ideas that they are presenting that is in fact a hallmark of great leaders that they listen and they seek input what we're going to do now is move to a quick update on response rate to the 2020 census we know that there's been a little bit of controversy relative to how the you know 45 was trying to use the census to do some things we're here now and so what we got to do is figure out how to you know get counted so with that what I'll do is turn it over to representative Earl Harris thank you I want to give you some information you know we know we knew walking into 2020 that elections were going to be one of our largest issues up there pretty close to that was the census just a reminder everyone counts in the census it doesn't matter your age so if you had a baby that was born a month ago they count doesn't matter your place of birth meaning if you were born here in the United States or not does not matter the census is something that is required by the constitution and by law all responses are confidential again I want to repeat that all responses are confidential your personal information cannot be shared with any law enforcement agencies so there are three ways to respond one of them is new this year you can actually go online and respond at 2020 census dot gov again that's 2020 census dot gov back in March April the census started to send out mailers to people that they could have responded that way so by mail is one way and if you're not comfortable with those you can also call in and they can take your information over the phone if there is no response from your household starting in August people will be going to those houses where they did not receive a response to get your information from your home and connected to that I want to let everyone know there are job openings with the census so if you're interested in being a person that goes out and tries to get that additional information there's there's multiple positions you can go to 2020 census dot gov forward slash jobs again that's a place you can get hired they're part-time jobs they work great if you only work the weekends you only work evenings whatever the situation is they have adjustable schedules for you to do why the census matters I'm going to give you three main reasons those reasons reasons are funding power and intelligence so we'll start with funding the census data directly affects how more than five hundred eighty nine billion dollars per year in federal and state funding is allocated to communities for neighborhood improvements this means public health hospitals education transfer transportation and more that is that equates to five trillion over a 10 year period so again this is important for your community in terms of knowing how many people are there and how funding will be distributed when you talk about power it affects our us house of representatives there are 439 seats in the u.s. indiana currently has nine so depending on your populations you can lose or gain seats so this is something that you really want to be involved in to make sure that we get out we continue to keep nine if not gain by population more seats as years go by it also connects to our legislative districts our school district assignments other things that are related to govern and then the last one is intelligence this really gives us a snapshot of what the community is and what it needs so when you talk about services for the elderly where do new roads need to be built schools where our job training located that's connected to the census in terms of nonprofits and for-profit businesses where they decide to locate is connected to that and so when you talk about nonprofit and for-profit businesses you also talk about jobs so you want to make sure that you get counted so that there's a show of need in your area and the possibility of bringing more nonprofit and for-profit businesses in there just want to remind you of some things so because sometimes people try to scam people and get information and act as if they're involved with the census when they're not the census will never ask you for your social security number that would never ask you for bank account or credit card numbers nothing to do with your political party money or donation so I just want to keep you informed about that I know that I and I believe representative prior to me have been someone else we created legislation a couple of years ago and put it in in preparation for the census unfortunately those bills did not become law and there really has not been what we believe should be the proper amount of funding in Indiana because I don't believe there really is any funding put into the census and making sure this happens so what has happened is there's a lot of community groups and areas that have gotten involved with this so I'm glad to see that so when you talk about the numbers Indiana's self-response rate is 65.6% so we're kind of in the middle we're not at the bottom we're at the top we're in the middle 50.5% of those responses have been done over the internet so it's good to see the people using the online part nationally the national rate is 60.9% so we are above that and then the national internet rate is 48.9 so we're above the national but we want to make sure that we raise this number and get it hiring again people will be going out if you have not responded and again I want to please urge you if you have not responded to the census respond and remember that everyone in the states everyone that lives here comes thank you. Thank you for that update I recall that the black response rate in Indianapolis American County was of some concern I think it might have been as low as 30 something around there so what I'd like to do now and since we are a little bit ahead of schedule our elected officials did an excellent job of being concise I didn't have to stop any of them so that that's great so kudos to our elected officials I'd like to someone's like they practice this and we're prepared that's awesome so what I like to do is take a little bit of time and do some education just in general on you know what is the black legislative caucus as far as you know why do you do these things when did it start I like to go to Representative Porter real quick and talk about maybe the beginning of the of this because I think maybe you might have been familiar you know when it happened and then go to Representative Shackler to talk about like the future so we'll go to Representative Porter if you don't mind and then go to back to Representative Shackler for the future. Thank you thank you very much Marshawn and I'm going to get my partner in crime Representative Summers because she's been around about a year or so longer than I have but I feel as a leader back in the day President Hurley Goodall back in the back in the 80s started Indiana Black Legislative Caucus Representative Crawford and Julia Carson and people like that and the whole point was it was there were only like five or six legislators at that time and and their whole goal was to begin to position themselves to make significant change in regards to committees they sat down and strategize what committees to be on in order to address the needs of the african-american community and no income individuals and over the years we were grown we have right now 12 13 members of the black caucus now we have some more members that have grown come come this in 2021 and we're very excited about where we are not only here in Indiana but also nationally we are black the black caucus has officers are national black caucus state legislators and we are beginning to impact this whole nation so I yield right now if you allow me to represent a Summers who father also and represent Summers I just want to add that um along with Representative Hurley Goodall my father's the late Joseph Summers and we're going to talk about the late Bill Crawford all formed or had parts and become of the IBLC becoming an entity they also had a hand in getting the national black caucus state legislators together so as they were organizing that organization they were also organizing the state of Indiana um they have always been able to at least tell what we were you know tell what we're doing tell our story um and how it affects and how it affects us as a whole and so we just we know we stand on the shoulders of greatness and we just want to make sure that we make them proud of us making sure that we take care of the constituents in the state of Indiana thank you for that bit of history we I'd like to go to Representative Robin Shackleford who is currently the servant leader of the IBLC I've noticed um so first I think this is the first time you all have done a Zoom town hall is that correct and I know that you all have done town halls in the past I've also noticed um statements I know you maybe have done statements in the past but I've noticed them more frequently um there's there's a lot of energy right now amongst black organizations and black leaders and um there's definitely energy within the IBLC can you talk about that energy that you're seeing and maybe um what you think the future direction might look like of the IBLC particularly as a partners with the community so I'm excited to see that energy I think now because of everything that's going on everyone wants to partner with IBLC they see us as the lead when it comes to policy for issues that affect our community whether it's corporate America faith-based a lot of our youth so we want to grow so we can help represent our community we also want to grow our programming as we're hearing the community needs one of the things we want to start doing is a youth advocacy or advocacy boot camp for everyone people have explained they want to learn how to advocate they need to learn to process the players we usually put in an advocacy piece when we do our town halls but we're going to make that virtual and set up that advocacy piece and then also we heard from the youth they would like to see some type of IBLC youth government council we do have a governor's council and we have a mayor's council but nothing at the legislative level nothing that is specifically targeting our youth so they are excited right now we're excited they're excited so what we want to do is put these programs in place as we build the future and try to grow our caucus and try to grow grow input from the community one of the things I appreciated about one of the giants who shoulders everyone is standing on senator glenn howard was that oftentimes he operated within the minority so when he was in the city county council um he was in the minority when he went to the senate he was also in the minority and right now um you all sit in minority positions within the the house and the senate but the important thing to know about senator howard the late senator howard is he never had a minority mentality there was an expectation that you all would work to maneuver to pass legislation and I've appreciated watching the battles that you all have won and even the fights that you picked in part and I'd like to see you all could talk about that I know hate crimes has been a long battle I know that there's also been some battles with ethnic studies and things of that nature can can you all talk about some of those long-term battles that you've had to have on behalf of the community with the persistence that has occurred because of that well all this of my other speak other members speak I'll give them a chance because I know we have a lot of battles that we've been working on especially hate crimes food deserts so someone else want to speak on that um I guess the hate crimes first of all let me give credit to my colleague gray porter and you've talked about the other people who fought for that issue well before I was a member of the general assembly um I can tell you uh that fighting for issues in our community not only do we have to fight uh the upward battle of getting that legislation her but then we have to fight what I call the ugly battle of making sure that language stays the same and over the years I've learned one very important message that that bill crawford taught me which is you can take no pride in authorship especially when you're in the minority and but one of the things that I too take pride is when I submit language and somebody takes it and changes it to totally contradict what I'm saying it offends me and that quite frankly Marshawn that's what happened in the bias crime situation I don't know but I'm pretty sure that none of the members on this call members of the general assembly on this zoom actually voted for what we now call hate crimes legislation in Indiana um so it's very frustrating it's very cumbersome um ethnic studies I ended up getting a uh sponsor which was senator Cruz I know that shocks a lot of people but I sat down and talked to him and he said sure let's get it done uh now I wanted to start it back in elementary school but uh you know every small step leads to a bigger step in my opinion and we started in a high school so now every high school offers an uh ethnic studies course so it just depends on the issue and I think that it's it's we've got a great team we've got people with expertise in all areas and that is a benefit to me because we could pass off things that we know more about than the other one so it's still it's tough but it's getting better we want to make sure that we get to guest questions uh but I did want to give representative Porter just a couple minutes to talk about his fight on hate crimes that's one of the the marquee battles that I have seen in my short time being on this earth watching someone go since I was a page for you when I was a little boy that's one of the the fights that I've seen that really mattered and so after representative Porter goes I'ma bring in Molly Martin who will kick off our Q and A with um the the guests thank you thank you Mashaun and uh Senator Taylor I want to thank the whole entire Black Caucus family um when I talk about hate crimes and where we are now and I talked about I we started this fight in another century it was the 20th century we started this fight in regards to bias crime hate crime legislation and now we're in the 21st century uh Glenn Howard and I was the first ones that started back in in the in in the 80s and we you know we we really worked hard on that I think was 90 97 I believe I'm sorry that we worked on that and uh Glenn carried it I had it and we just kept going and you know when you when you're about to write and you know you won't be on the right side of the issue you you you continue to fight and people say you know why do you keep doing it because because you know I want we wanted to be the right and we're not happy that uh the governor thinks he can check a box and get off a list because our list is totally incomplete and there's another missed opportunity for our state and it comes to bias crime legislation but we are no ways tired we will continue to fight we will amend we'll always look for opportunity to amend a bill to to uh take us to the finish line thank you thank you for that and now I'd like to bring in my co-moderator molly martin new america thank you so much march on and thanks again to the members and everyone tuning in if you're just now tuning in my name is molly martin and I direct new america indianapolis a partner with the indianapolis reporter and the black legislative caucus in this conversation we're getting a lot of questions a reminder that if we don't get to yours we will make sure to reach back to you and that these get in front of the members but I want to leap in everyone with a question about um all of the talk uh of police reform and combating state violence there is a lot of interest in the chat and there have been many questions about whether or not you're supportive of what they call defunding but what we know of as restructuring police forces having folks reapply for jobs restructuring and using a more community based model for establishing police and safety forces think of camden new jersey and other models would anyone like to speak to their interest or support in that idea i see representative summer's nodding would you like to go and i think you're muted so she's got go ahead cherish where representative fire you do you're going to say what we all say yeah i think um i think the term defunding is is a term that's used but it's not necessarily the true definition of what people are meaning obviously we do have to have a police department um if kids come up missing if there is domestic abuse things of that nature so we do have to have a police department but i think that there is a need to look at how police departments are funded um and where that money goes to for instance the police officers really need the the military tanks um and all the equipment they are receiving from the military do they really uh uh need all that and making sure that we're putting more money into preventative services if you look at the budget even locally here in maryon county um anywhere north of 80 percent of the local budget goes to public safety now that includes the judicial system as well as the police department but that's a lot of money that's going just towards criminal justice and public safety so i think that we do support looking at those budgets and making sure that money is spent properly um and you know there are a lot of reforms that need to be made in the police department um from fop down to any number of major any other type of items so the word defunding is something that we realize that it's not necessarily the best word maybe a major surgery uh in a facelift is a much way much better use of the term as it relates to the police department in the funding of it thank you representative fryer and i would say to all of the members of the caucus there's a lot of support in the chat for the ideas uh earlier about independent community review boards and being very cautious about how that membership reflects the community and is chosen uh would anyone else like to add to the defunding point before the next question representative harris i just want to add one real quick thing and this was actually something from a conversation that representative porter and i had earlier today you know there's a lot of times that the police are called out for things that really should be covered by somebody else when you talk about social services if you're talking about a situation where there's a homeless person or a mental person not a mental person but a person that's having an issue when you talk about kids those are not things my guess is most police officers want to be called out for so when you talk when we talk about restructuring things we need to look at putting in those social services to help people that police should not be the front line person to come out there there should be other people that can help them other counselors etc that can help people instead of the police and putting the police really in a situation that they should not be in that could lead to something bad thank you representative harris we've actually just had a question come in that relates less to the point of detention or arrest and more to the point of being in jail or being in prison and that's the issue of cash bail so would anyone like to speak to priorities related to cash bail is it on the table to end cash bail in indiana well i'll just speak to a break i think that kind of defaults to me under the criminal uh session okay okay now go ahead i was just going to talk to somebody else but their hand actually go ahead this is more your expertise oh okay well okay well my internet connection is kind of unstable so here's what i say about cash bill and people need to understand um every jurisdiction in the state of indiana has a different cash bill uh standard in other words you could be one county over and your bill would be at a different amount depending on the what what we call what the judicial system calls their bail schedule and we need to be more standard in that just to start right off the top the second piece is what does cash bail do does it ensure someone showing up for court and if it does then why don't more people show up for court so the standard first and then doesn't achieve the objective the last part is do we know that the bail system actually favors those who have resources it doesn't help with the equity and justice that we're looking for what it does is it creates winners and losers from poor people to wealthy people to middle class people and the judicial system is supposed to be about justice not we need to look at the whole system the first step however is to have parity across the state and make sure that everybody is under the same system so that you know where you go whether or not you're going to be charged a certain amount for depending on what you're charged with thank you so much i'm gonna hit the back oh i'm sorry did i just hear someone no no i want to make sure everybody heard me my connection is terrible no worries so um question about and this looks like a question about housing so um the community in general along with an effort headed by the who's your housing needs coalition has asked governor governor holcomb to appoint a housing stability lead to coordinate all state federal and philanthropic resources to deter an occurrence of mass evictions that could possibly occur after the deadline moratorium on evictions set on uh june 30th what resources and health is available for both renters and landlords to prevent a housing crisis and cause even more of a rise in the homeless population and vacant housing in our communities president shackley thank you march on i'll just touch a little bit on that since i did have one of those um anti eviction bills this past session for as far as health uh there's not enough help out there for renter uh we're not given enough renters assistance we haven't studied it so that kind of commission setup will be great if you have a mortgage if you're a landlord we have resources out there that will pay up to six months of your mortgage whether it's because your renter can't pay or you can't pay so that's what the heart is hit fun and i think it'll pay up to 30 000 of your mortgage but it's for six months of that mortgage we don't have that same type of help when it comes to the renter side once the moratorium ends we need to be doing something else to help out the renters to get them through to the year to end of the year to next year and to this crisis is over and people can go back to work and robin when we met with the governor we did share that with the governor that we do didn't need that to happen for our renters when the uh moratorium was over so that uh they could not be evicted at that time and we did put that in the governor's last yes represent and also i think um for now people should look at um the township uh trustees office particularly here in miriam county um that can help pay may be able to help pay uh as well and if people have or have any problems with your utilities there is also uh assistance as well with the nanny housing um coalition um to help people pay for their uh pay for their utilities as well i think that's our weapons and the reporter with her hand did you raise your hand yes yes i did um and i i just wanted to talk a little bit about the fiscal perspective of it um as we have met with the governor you've heard my colleague say we still have 2.4 billion dollars that we got from federal government and it cares that and we should be able to use some of those dollars we we've only expanded as the state 300 million dollars of that of that 2.4 billion and there are some there are dollars out there uh that this governor can take and move toward addressing uh the the potential tsunami of evictions that will happen uh in in the month of june in uh i mean july and august thank you question that kind of that came up uh COVID-19 related are you all comfortable with the state opening to stage four of COVID of the COVID reopening plan uh and the questioner points out that indiana positive cases per turtle per total tested is 11.8 percent and they say that that's still high and we're in the bottom 10 of 50 states on numbers tested per 1000 so they're saying our positive cases are pretty high and um we're not testing as well as other states and then road island by comparison has 173 people to 1000 indiana has 48 to 1000 the national average is 69 to 1000 citizens tested so they just wanted to get your sense should we be reopening to stage four senator melton yeah i'll just share some thoughts on that myself i believe that uh for me personally it is moving a little bit too fast i know here in gary we've seen our numbers are triple uh in in the number of cases uh when we sat with the the governor as a caucus we also urged him to collect the data per zip code and extremely uh the extreme importance of that in terms of the resources that representative porter mentioned on how to distribute and disseminate those resources testing treatment and etc but with the cares act we need to make sure that there's an appropriation of those resources where those communities have been most impacted by covid-19 i know a lot of municipalities will be applying for funding because of expenses related to covid-19 but there's a variety of other areas especially in the black communities where we have the higher rate of of attracting the virus so i think we we're going to see more and more issues that arrive and i think 20 21 legislative session is going to be packed with a variety of issues as covid-19 related as race relations related it's a budget session and it's going to be extremely engaging uh controversial and that's why it's important that folks that are watching today and not watching that they pay attention on how the indiana germany similarly moves forward on these issues any other representative jackson and then here's your unit representative jackson thank you i would just like to piggyback on uh senator melton's comment i am his neighbor hamon right next door and right next door to me is the state of illinois and when we open up and illinois has not opened up we get a rash of individuals from illinois over here and it's very concerning especially when here in lake county hamon has the largest number of covid-19 cases so not only do we have in our city um the casino but you've got stores that are opening up and everything all kinds of businesses and in illinois the big is closed so what you're getting is you're getting people from illinois coming over they're wearing no mask they have no protection on and we're definitely afraid that they're going to cause our numbers here in northwest indiana to skyrocket so those comments have been addressed with the governor and i'm guessing that is why he put us on the the schedule to open up behind everybody else but we're still opening up in front of illinois thank you for that representative i believe it's here to have something yeah and in representative jackson you hit on what i was going to talk about when you talk about representative hatcher and senator melton that are gary residents uh jackson and hamon that i'm in chicago we do we get a huge influx of illinois people which you know it's been great when they go to our grocery stores and they spend money but in this case it's not so great um when you know again as representative jackson talked about things opening up we have beaches gary chicago hamon have beaches if i'm not mistaken it was a lot of people coming over the state line when our beaches opened up so you know we are the second largest uh we have the second largest number behind maryon county here in lake county a positive test uh positive test deaths etc and so it's a real concern for us on how this happens because those numbers you know where we're staying in other parts of the country that those numbers are starting to go up we have a huge concern of that here and as senator melton said we're going to have a lot of legislation that's going to be related to the effects of covid coming in 2021 um so that's something that's going to be with us for a while representative schackelford thank you march on i just wanted to add on here in indianapolis especially on the east side the far east side we got zip code 46218 we have not had enough blacks tested we haven't had enough testing sites in our black communities uh eastern star had a testing site temporarily for two weeks so a lot of our people don't know if they have covid if they had it a lot of them don't understand the antibodies tests what does that mean uh thinking that they may be immune from it so with the lack of education and the lack of resources there's no way that we can say in our communities that we should be opening fully in july until we can address some of these issues and also address our underlining illnesses issues that make us more susceptible when we do get covid whether it's obesity diabetes high blood pressure some of those diseases that we already have and then when we get covid it makes it even worse so i see that representative pears wanted to add on and then i'd like to go to mawai so she can move to the next question i just wanted to add real quick one of the things and we started questioning this when you talk about the indian this uh department of health there wasn't a free testing site in the area um so i believe a couple of days ago it opened up in marriville it would you know we would have appreciated if it was in maybe gary or chicago or ham but at least there's something in the vicinity but it shouldn't have taken questions starting to pop up on why there wasn't a a site in the area before one popped up thank you for that and now i'm starting to go with some molly martin sort of thing i do want to acknowledge everyone who is submitting questions both on facebook and via zoom they're separate platforms but we do see you and if we are unable to get to it on the air we'll make sure that you get a direct answer i do want to go to a facebook question about whether or not there is legislation pending or legislative action available to raise teacher pay oh wow oh wow right no um i'll i'll i'll start off and and serena milton i think he had legislation dealing with that um yes uh we have been talking about teacher pay for a number of years uh we just have to have the will to do it um the former speaker talked about he had a teacher's task force over the summer with individuals and for last 18 months we've been talking about teacher pay uh there's been numerous pieces of legislation proposed uh but it just hasn't i'm articulating and gotten lead legs yet um so and we do have the money uh to to uh have teacher pay to get teacher pay we do have the dollars thank you yeah we absolutely have the resources when we look at what took place uh about two sessions ago when um you know many teachers may have seen a slight bump in pay in certain parts of the state but that was a temporary fix and what i believe they're representing a port is saying a port 100 because we've all supported the legislation to do so is that the state has to invest adequately in education we look back in uh represent a port if i'm wrong what 2008 2009 300 million dollars was taken out of the educational funding and it was never replaced so we as a state have been catching up because of the rate of inflation in terms of how we spend our dollars towards education on top of other policies they have contributed that take away from traditional public education as well so we file amendments in the senate to address how we can strategically and be directed on raising teacher salaries across the entire state so i think this is going to be a fight that we're going to continue to fight uh more and we just commend all the teachers that came down on red friday which was a phenomenal day but we just got to take it a step further and there has to be a commitment we have another important question from facebook and a lovely guest with representative summers and i'm glad to see her um and i hope pam on facebook will help me if i i mischaracterize the question could someone speak to when we have a police officer who commits what appears to be race-based violence racist violence what makes it a hate crime and what doesn't what is the line especially when a police officer is involved taylor you're on mute okay now i'm not on you well let's understand hate crimes if you're talking about the federal statute there's a list of people who are covered under a federal statute but when it comes to the indiana statute unfortunately because of the law we passed last year if a police officer actually harms someone because of their race it the sentence that the officer can get is what is called an aggravated okay so that means let's say it's bodily harm that carries a time period of a year to a year and a half in jail they can then the judge can aggravate that sentence and add more time now what i want to go back to is what we did in the legislative session which is why it's important for indiana for hoosiers to know that the same penalty that a police officer would get for attacking someone based on the race is the same penalty they would get for attacking somebody because their i u basketball fair it has nothing to do with your race it's just any bias so in my opinion just my opinion then nothing will happen because nobody can enforce the law because it applies to every bias it's not just for you know race color age those those words were taken out it's any bias so it can be a bias because you're wearing glasses that could be a hate crime in indiana that's really helpful no i just wanted to make sure it's it's actually pretty sad it's pretty sad because uh there are people who want to say we have a hate crime in indiana and uh we don't i'm just going to tell you any lawyer you talk to will tell you that this law can never be enforced i mean how do you enforce a law when somebody's attacked because of their race and you do the same thing when somebody's attacked because of who they affiliate with with sports doesn't make any sense and that's why i think it will never ever be charged in indiana that's a really good point uh before i head back to marshawn we have another question that's come in in lots of places about deprivatizing prisons in indiana and companies that may be profiting from working inside prisons but may not even hire those workers when they get out so does anyone want to speak on the role of private entities in prisons in indiana and what changes might be down the road let me say this let me respond to that question this way i had a bill and i offered this last later session a criminal justice reform a multi-year study of criminal justice reform i wanted to look at the time the police stops you get the police and makes the decision to take you to jail what happens doing that process while you're in jail what happens when you go to court what happens if you're sentenced to doc what happens and what happens after your release our constitution of this great state says we will not use the department of correction for vindictive punishment in my opinion that's exactly what we do we've tweaked our laws um and tweaked it but basically we use the same criminal justice system that we use when jessie james was robbing train with one exception back then everybody had a trial i think the majority upwards of 80 percent of the folklorian prison that did not do a trial they did a plea board and that a lot all fought you off in this pressure time because back in the old day they would put screws in your hands you admitted to a crime i put folders in your chest you admitted to a crime so what happens now if you get arrested then the public defender comes in and says you can't go to trial for another five weeks but if you will go ahead and plead guilty to this it's a lesser charge i can have you out of here by this afternoon well you don't want to lose your job our criminal justice system is jacked all the way around and that's the reason why uh i offered that bill to look at our criminal justice system and study it and have folk come in and testify juveniles young folk people who've been locked up people who've done time and and talk about this so we can fix it it's almost too late now because of the the climate of the country today but there was a vision to do that part two but no one heard the crime thank you representative Bartlett we're going to try to get through a few more of these questions and so i'm actually going to combine uh one of the questions two of the questions that we got from facebook uh the question is how can we expect equality from officers that don't want to even live in our community and so that's an accountability it's a you know a question about living in the community and officers and then where is the accountability for township trustees when they're not helping people with rental and utility assistance so these are uh we got a question about making police officers live in the community and then how do we deal with township trustees representative prior thank you i think um for police living in our communities um i think that they should in i'm not sure if representative hatcher is on here or not but i think one of the bills that's in this packet would have required police officers to live in the community in which they serve trustees are elected and i think this is where it gets important for people to to vote in people that is going to actually do the service in which they have sworn and taken oath for so if they are if they're not supporting and giving out money to people in the community then you have an opportunity to vote them out um so i think this is really important where your vote where your vote counts but there is a piece of legislation that representative hatchard had again important piece of legislation that did not pass all right and did not get a hearing did not get a hearing okay i have another question can legislation be introduced to require officers to become licensed in order to maintain their jobs uh that way the license can be revoked for misconduct and they cannot be rehired anywhere anywhere else um marshawn i i i would love to address that issue i have been doing a tremendous amount of research in this area and i just researched uh the what is called peace officer licensing in the state of missouri and i am a tremendous supporter of licensing police officers um one there is blind accountability as a licensed uh attorney if i do something and i get a complaint it is reviewed in the dark as to who did it it is reviewed by peers and they are independent we don't even know who they are the problem that you have in law enforcement in the state of indiana is there a good law enforcement officers out there what's good about them though also causes a problem because loyalty as well as safety because they don't want to and cannot whistle blow on one of their colleagues these bad officers continue to be on the force with licensing then these individuals would be responsible for their own individual license and therefore they would not be decided it would not be decided whether or not they have their license by the police it would be an independent panel and it clears up transparency because any lawyer that you want to look up whether or not they've ever had a complaint you can do in the state of indiana any doctor whether or not they had a complaint you can look up in the state of indiana any architect i could go down the line nurses any licensed individual there's a database that shows whether or not they've been complained about and let's put them on the same line as professionals i i support that thank you very much i'ma turn it over to molly so that we can continue to read the question all right have some kind of simpler procedural questions to make sure that everyone in the audience can stay engaged on facebook we've been asked where can i find all of these bills that you're talking about records of bills that are proposed and records of things that have passed representative shackleford would you like to to point everyone to the right direction sure the simplest way is to go to our house democrat website or house website and senate website is iga.in.gov that is also where you'll find the iblc website right after the house dims website but and if you want to send us any ideas you're looking through this legislation make sure you send it directly to us at iblc at iga.in.gov and if you need any help navigating the website our staff is more than happy to help you navigate i know i was online what a user a young man that reached out to me on facebook and i got to talk to him and actually help him navigate that website so he can see who author what bills when they offer them so yeah any assistance please feel free to give our office a call thank you so much we've got a follow-up question actually about the specific list of criminal justice reforms and where that might be available or when that might be available so you can find that directly on our website on the Indiana black legislative caucus you can also find it on our facebook and twitter page what we are planning to do is have a full legislative agenda probably about mid july once our town halls wrap up june 25th we want to put everybody inputs in there then we want to do some more research look at best practices so about the middle of july you'll see a full legislative plan and you'll see us starting to submit our legislation legislation is not due into december and we go into session in january but we want to get a hit start and make sure we get all this legislation in thank you so much one last issue-based question before i hand it back to march on and representative shackleford but before i do i do want to point out that we are capturing all of the questions and comments verbatim and we will make sure that everyone you see on screen receives those and we will reach back to you if you feel like you haven't been addressed you can also reach out to me molly martin that's m-a-r-t-i-n at new america dot o-r-g you can find that information also on the event page but this last issue-based question is about minimum wage what is in the works to raise minimum wage to have a different conversation about what's a livable wage and and sometimes people use the phrase good and promising jobs where is that wage conversation okay well i'll start off and i'm quite sure all my colleagues have something to say on this it's been a lot of discussion through division of workforce development one thing that's going to be very interesting this upcoming session is about essential workers and those individuals who worked in the grocery stores and were on the front line who made seven or eight dollars or maybe ten dollars an hour they're essential and so if they're essential they need to make a livable wage which a minimum it should be fifteen dollars so i i think as we go through this we're going to ask the governor because he's talked about essential workers what does that really mean to him and i know what it means to us as generally as a caucus so i'm i think this you know i know this upcoming session through division of workforce development and next next generation jobs it's going to be an issue representative prior than jackson and then i want to jump in with some more questions um i think um the minimum wage is always going to be something that we're going to pursue as democrats and as a black caucus i will tell you one one thing one amendment that i had did not file it as a bill but i did file it as an amendment was to tie the minimum wage to the salaries of legislators so whenever legislators receive a salary increase the minimum wage would would go up as well it was successful well i did offer up the amendment and republicans withheld the bill that i tried to amend the amendment in because they did not want to have a vote on that particular amendment that i had but i am going to continue to offer up that amendment because i feel as our salaries continue to increase people appear in our salaries then the minimum wage should be increased as well so i'm gonna keep offering that and it would have increased the minimum wage about 15 a little bit over $15 an hour i just want to kind of piggyback on that i've had a bill that would increase the wages for women because as you know women tend to make a lot less than what men do doing the same job and no matter how many times you file that bill or any similar bills getting it heard is the issue i think if we would would be able to get that bill heard i think maybe we could get some headway but if we're in the minority and when we don't get a bill heard all we can do is put it on our wish list so to speak and keep filing them over and over again and i think this not this session but the one before i think we had a variation of increasing wages and minimum wage i think we had somewhere about five maybe five to six bills and none of them got a hearing thank you for that i'm actually going to modify the questions and actually because they actually feel more like um suggestions um there's been a suggestion to get the department of education to create a chief diversity officer to make sure that there's a continuous focus on implicit bias in academic achievement gap there's also been a question a concern about audits of the trustee's office and there was also a continued suggestions to continue to educate your republican colleagues on the challenges that people of color african-americans latinx and asian americans and others face with that i'd like to turn it over to representative rovin shackleford for the last word thank you march on and i just wanted to go do a couple things in the closing first i want everyone to continue to advocate we firmly believe that advocacy works when we go into session january we're going to meet you down at the state house whether if you're emailing coming down to testify or calling it is a great way to get a lot of these bills that you want pushed and pushed through the legislature next keep in touch with us you can get in touch with us by our email address you can get on our eblast list we send out eblast constantly every day of what's going on in the state house we also are on social media we keep that up to date representative harris is our it slash video guide so we are constantly trying to keep you updated on what's going on in the state legislature so feel free to keep in touch with us nest i want to talk to young people we have paid internships at the house in the senate these paid internships they're starting to take applications now applications are due by october the 30th of this year to be eligible you have to be a southmore college student but we are excited if you do apply for these programs we do hire one intern to work specifically with the black caucus and then we have other positions throughout the house in the senate whether it was fiscal whether in your pr so any of your interests make sure you get that information on our internships they pay 750 biweekly a stipend so it's not much but the experience you grade will be great and you'll love it i just want to thank everyone for coming out thank our partners again for always supporting us and helping us out the indianapolis recorder new america indianapolis urban league ibe imhc the nwcp and in a power one of our new partners so thank you we couldn't do this without you last make sure you tell your friends and family to join our second town hall which is june 25th at 6 30 same place same time if they couldn't join this one and you notice information is valuable make sure you reach out to them and give them that information so thank you everyone for attending thanks everybody indianapolis recorder preparing 425 years preparing a conscious community we've been with the indiana rock legislative caucus and our partnership with new america um we have something to say next week thank you thank you thank you