Gov. Braun gave his second State of the State address in front of Indiana lawmakers on Wednesday night. The governor opened by touting Indiana’s strong business climate.
“In 2025 our message was clear: Indiana is open for business,” Braun said.
His speech focused on numerous affordability issues, from utility rates to the cost of housing, and especially job growth.
“I know the most important part of affordability is new jobs and higher wages,” he said.
He made no mention of the Senate’s recent rejection of his call to redraw the state’s congressional maps to favor Republicans at the national level, a push backed by President Donald Trump.
Braun instead took time to outline key bills moving through the legislature, many of which have already been identified as priorities by Senate and House Republicans.
That included highlighting specific bills tied to Braun’s priorities, including Rep. Doug Miller’s (R-Elkhart) bill aimed at bringing down the cost of building new homes, Sen. Jeff Raatz’s (R-Richmond) bill to limit cellphone use in schools, and Sen. Eric Koch’s (R-Bedford) bill to amend the state’s bail law.
Other public safety measures highlighted by Braun include an effort to criminalize homelessness, based on similar language struck from a bill last year.
The governor praised the state’s management of Medicaid and pointed to current legislation that codifies other changes that aim to save money and reduce waste and fraud.
“When something was broken, we didn’t wait for permission — we fixed it,” he said.
Braun also noted efforts to tackle medical debt, utility costs, and childcare. Although with lawmakers not opening the budget this session, childcare is likely to take a backseat until next year.
“I would like to see a program where businesses have some skin in the game to make child care more affordable,” Braun suggested.
In his speech, Braun praised a growing state GDP, rising wages, and thousands of new jobs being brought to the state through biopharma, defense and tech companies.
He also touted success in Indiana’s education system and pointed to last year’s move to increase school choice.
Beyond affordability, Braun also took time to discuss data centers, underlining that he will require data centers to bring their own power to the grid. He pointed to a recent deal with Amazon that required the company to pay “for every cent of their power needs.”
Braun also mentioned, a number of times, that the state was “working hard” to bring the Chicago Bears to Indiana.
Lawmakers respond
In a response after the speech, Democrats said Braun’s embrace of affordability issues was “better late than never.”
“When the governor says affordability is now his focus Hoosiers are right to ask one simple question: ‘Do you mean it now?’” Shelli Yoder (D-Bloomington) said in prepared comments.
Yoder said that Republicans have caused Indiana’s affordability crisis but are now using Democrats’ ideas to try and fix it - pointing out that medical debt has long been an issue for Indiana Democrats.
“That's what the Democrats are focused on, is giving real relief to Hoosiers so they can feel it in their pocketbooks, not just investors,” she said.
Yoder added that some of the Governor’s priorities seemed at odds - she noted his efforts to root out fraud in SNAP and Medicaid would cost money, while at the same time his administration has rejected spending money on meals for kids during the summer.
“That is a choice,” she said. “And how do you explain this to families? How do you explain it to hungry kids that that is where you're going to make your investment?”
Republican leadership was also given a chance to respond to Braun’s speech and the Democratic comments. When asked whether Republicans were stealing Democratic affordability ideas both Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray (R-Martinsville) and House Speaker Todd Huston (R-Fishers) laughed.
“I don’t recall any Democrats voting for the property tax bill nor any of the tax cuts that we did,” Bray responded.
When asked whether the relationship had been repaired with the Governor following the disagreements over redistricting Bray said Braun had made a “good speech.”
“There’s lots of hard things that happen in this place and we’re going to continue to come to work and do good work for Hoosiers and I look forward to working with the Governor on that,” he said.
Contact Health and Government Reporter Benjamin Thorp at bthorp@wfyi.org