INDIANAPOLIS - This "trend" bubbled up in the homestretch leading into the May 3 Indiana primary in several media quarters: A slate of "Liberty Defense" candidates was poised to pull the Republican House and Senate super majorities even further to the right. Liberty Defense, based in Bluffton, was formed to confront Gov. Eric Holcomb's pandemic mandates and to preserve "your freedoms and traditional family values. Our firm conservative stance is held tight to a no-compromise view on the issues of the sanctity of life, the 2nd Amendment, and religious freedom." But there was no anti-incumbency trend in the May 3 primary. Five General Assembly incumbents lost, but three (State Reps. Curt Nisly, Jeff Ellington and State Sen. Kevin Boehnlein) fell victim to other incumbent legislators after they were drawn into the same districts with the new. With the defeat of Reps. John Jacob and Nisly, who were championed by Liberty Defense, two major headaches of Speaker Todd Huston are now gone. As for the challenges by the Liberty Defense organization in 25 House races, only four on its list won and three of them – State Rep. Bruce Borders, State Sen. Gary Byrne and Wabash County Councilman Lorissa Sweet – had already won multiple elections. Of these 21 Liberty Defense races where endorsed candidates lost, none were close to matching Howey Politics Indiana’s 7% threshold that would suggest a potential breakthrough in the 2024 cycle.

INDIANAPOLIS - On Monday, Politico broke the story of a leaked SCOTUS draft opinion that had by a 5-4 margin the termination of Roe v. Wade which has legalized abortion over the past 49 years. “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled," wrote Justice Samuel Alito. "It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives. Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.” When the Dobbs case out of Mississippi is announced in late June or early July, Gov. Eric Holcomb will almost certainly call a special session of the General Assembly and Indiana is expected become one of 26 states to outright ban abortions. This will likely preclude the traditional carve outs that had allowed abortion in the case of rape, incest or the life of the mother is in peril. The outright outlawing of all abortion will bring more children into our state. I was curious about how the children already with us are doing, so I read the 2022 Kids Count Data Book published by the Indiana Youth Institute. Indiana is home to the 14th largest population of children nationally, with more than 1.57 million children younger than 18 residing, including 51% who were males and 49% females. According to the Indiana Department of Health, the number of abortions in Indiana grew by 119, or 1.6%, to 7,756 during 2020. That increased number remained below the some 8,000 performed in 2018, Indiana’s highest number since 2014.