Blue 812 News Issue 9

Feb 23, 2025

Trump has purged the country’s military leadership, firing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Charles Q. Brown, who Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested got the job only because he is Black, and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti, who was the first woman to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff and whom Hegseth called a “DEI hire.” Last night, Trump also fired the Air Force vice chief of staff, General James Slife.

In place of Brown, Trump has said he will nominate Air Force Lieutenant General John Dan Caine to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Joint Chiefs of Staff is the body of the eight most senior uniformed leaders within the United States Department of Defense. It advises the president, the secretary of defense, the Homeland Security Council and the National Security Council on military matters.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the highest-ranking and most senior military officer in the United States Armed Forces and is the principal military advisor to the president, the National Security Council, the Homeland Security Council, and the Secretary of Defense.

Caine has held none of the assignments that are required for elevation to this position. The law prohibits the elevation of someone at his level to chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff unless the president waives the law because “such action is necessary in the national interest.”

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo notes that Trump is “reaching far down the pecking order to someone who isn’t even on active duty in the military for the critical position not only as the chief military advisor to the President…but the key person at the contact point of civilian control over the military.”

Republicans in the Senate voted Thursday to adopt a budget blueprint in what many referred to as a “vote-a-rama.” You can add “a-rama” to the end of it, but that doesn’t make it a good time. So far, House and Senate Republicans agree about licking Trump’s boots and giving him everything he wants in their new budget, but they’re in disagreement about whether to do this in one bad bill, or two. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has moved ahead with his two-bill approach – teeing up a border, defense, and energy bill first, followed by a tax bill that would come later this year. Trump favors the one-bill approach since he’s gotta get rich people their tax cuts ASAP!

The Senate blueprint is a $340 billion framework that instructs the Senate to craft bills to spend a lot on the border and military, but it’s not a bill itself, which means there are still tons of open questions. In particular: will they cut Medicaid, which Trump has super pinky-promised as recently as this week that he’s not going to cut? Probably yes. Trump has already given his approval of the House plan which includes massive cuts (almost $900 billion). When minority leader Chuck Schumer proposed an amendment to prohibit tax cuts from the wealthy if even $1 was cut from Medicaid, the GOP voted it down with only Sens Hawley (R-MO) and Collins (R-ME) supporting that measure.

Democrats also used the vote-a-rama to try to force votes on preventing tax cuts for billionaires. Watch this excellent clip from Senator Warren to see how that shook out.

The only GOP no vote on the entire budget was Rand Paul (R-KY), an anti-spending libertarian. There’s really only one faction of the GOP putting up any resistance to Trump right now, and it’s the people who care exclusively about reducing the deficit at the expense of all kinds of social welfare programs (or, in this case, the border and the military). Sen Paul did make a rare logical point when he said, "If we were fiscally conservative, why wouldn’t we take the savings from Elon Musk and DOGE and move it over here and help with the border? Why would we be doing a brand new bill to increase spending by $340 billion?" Read more at NBC News.

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Mitch McConnell announced he won’t be seeking re-election in 2026. In the last few weeks, Mitch McConnell was the most likely GOP senator to vote against Trump’s nominees, which really does disprove the theory that “it’s never too late to do the right thing.” There would really be no Trump without Mitch McConnell, so I will gladly be toasting the end of his career. more at NPR

The Senate on Monday passed its top priority bill in Senate Bill 1, which aims to provide property tax relief for Hoosiers.

But while the bill passed on a vote of 37-10 nobody, not even Senate Republicans, seemed happy with where SB 1 stands at this point. Gov. Braun took a harsher tone this week when he signaled he wouldn't sign the current bill, which is now in the hands of the House.

The House passed its version of the two-year state budget Thursday with ultimately few surprises. It's pretty close the Braun’s proposal, but with fewer tax breaks. Republicans did not accept any of the Democrats' proposed amendments, including ones that would have increased teacher pay or expanded On My Way Pre-K.

The budget would prioritize private schools by dedicating $1.3 billion to private school vouchers, making them universally available to the wealthiest of Hoosiers. While traditional public schools would receive increases of 2.1% and 0.9% in 2026 and 2027, private schools would receive increases of 28.8% and 8.3%.

One area of optimism is language proposing eliminating the period tax... it’s still in the House bill, but the Senate will probably kill that.

The fight over abortion records continues. Marion Superior Judge James Joven has temporarily blocked the release of terminated pregnancy reports. The next hearing has not yet been scheduled.

It's crossover time! When the legislature reconvenes on Monday, March 3, it will be the second half of the legislative session, when House bills are sent to the Senate, and Senate bills are sent to the House. There, they will be assigned to a new committee, and the legislative process repeats.

Only bills that were passed by the first chamber are eligible to cross over, meaning many bills are essentially "dead." However, language from dead bills can be resurrected into live bills via amendments, so it's important to maintain constant vigilance.

SB 1: This is a priority bill for House and Senate Republicans, as well as Gov. Braun, to lower rising property taxes for homeowners. This is also important for schools as property taxes pay for supportive services and programs such as transportation, building maintenance and repair, construction, administration and technology. While the revenue loss for schools is not as severe as the $2 billion reduction in the original proposal, the amended version passed by the Senate still cuts approximately $370 million over the next three years. As noted above, Gov. Braun has made it clear that the current version of SB 1 doesn’t go far enough in tax relief, so this bill will be a work in progress likely up until the end of the session.

SB 287: Under this legislation, school board candidates would be required to declare a political party and be nominated in party primaries. It also modifies the school board member annual pay from $2,000 to an amount not to exceed 10% of the lowest starting teacher salary in the district. A similar House bill died in the first half, this is one to watch as it moves to the House in the second half.

From MADVoters:

from Women4ChangeIndiana:

HB 1241 seeks to establish the trauma-informed care commission that will: (1) study and make recommendations for use by health, educational, and other social service providers; (2) recommend best practices and research models to specified entities; and (3) submit a report to the general assembly regarding best practices with respect to children, youth, and families who have experienced trauma.

Hundreds of local business and community leaders gathered at the Terre Haute Convention Center on Friday morning for the annual Terre Haute Chamber of Commerce City Update. This year marked Mayor Sakbun’s second update about the city’s progress and vision for the future.

A few of the key takeaways from Mayor Sakbun’s presentation were:

this week, the Indiana legislature is not in session, but that doesn’t mean we have the week off. Let’s use this time to contact our legislators and remind them of the bills we want to see passed in the second half of the session, and the ones we don’t.

find legislators here if you’re not sure who represents you: https://indianavoters.in.gov/

introducing the Blue812News Resource Center webpage! All of the resources in one place - organized by topic!

I will add new resources to the webpage as they are released in the newsletter.

Anything you use that you don’t see on the list? let me know!

Anything you need that you can’t find? let me know!

2/28: general strike/no buy day

ISTA’s Day of Action on March 4 offers a prime opportunity for you to stand in solidarity for public education. Preceding this, plan to attend ISTA’s virtual legislative briefing on March 3 to get the latest insights on education legislation

also March 4th - the next 50501 protest

Nasty Women Vigo County will be meeting March 4th at the VCPL in meeting room D at 5pm. Pamphlet club reading for the week is the INDems Party Platform

HB 1662, the bill that would’ve forced Indiana communities to lock people up for being homeless is now dead!

A new CNN poll showed 62% of Americans don’t think Trump has done enough to reduce the price of goods. What is “enough?” Has he done anything?

Tucked into Senate Bill 453 is language that would allow the WNBA to have access to tax breaks for the All-Star Game and other events in Indianapolis this summer. The bill passed the Senate unanimously on Thursday. State code already includes tax breaks for events from major sports leagues like the NFL, NBA and NCAA.

Trump's time in the White House runs out in:

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