LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The cover photo stripped across the top of Pride Lafayette’s Facebook page for the past week or so shows state Sen. Ron Alting, a Lafayette Republican, in a blue suit taking questions from a full house, scattered on couches and folding chairs in the community center headquartered on Main Street in downtown Lafayette.
Since last summer, Alting had been hounding the idea that Indiana shouldn’t be one of five remaining states without a law that gives judges clear latitude to increase sentences for those convicted of intimidation or other crimes motivated by race, religion, sex, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity, among others.
The General Assembly let some form of anti-bias legislation fade in three of the past four sessions. Alting asked often in the midst of his 2018 re-election campaign: “When, Indiana?”
Alting might have been asking the same question of the choir on Feb. 9, in the room of 40 LGBT advocates and friends. And at the time, less than 10 days ago, no one was sure Senate Bill 12, a piece of hate crime legislation Alting co-authored – or any others among a handful filed and waiting for action at the General Assembly – would even warrant a hearing in Indianapolis, even with pressure from Gov. Eric Holcomb for the legislature to get something done.
But, as Alting would say midweek last week, “I’m not just talking here.” It was enough, at least, to get his picture, banner form, on the Pride Lafayette Facebook page as he promised that he would not put his name on the bill if LGBT protections were left off.
“We believe him,” Ashley Smith, Pride Lafayette president, said.
“It was the very first time ever a Republican senator had walked through the doors of the Pride Center,” Smith said. “And that, in itself, says so much to us as to where Ron stands. We are grateful to him because, frankly, if a Republican didn't bring this up, it probably would not have even gone as far as it has.”
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On Monday, SB12, carried by Alting and Sen. Mike Bohacek, a Republican from Michiana Shores, cleared the Senate Public Policy Committee – which Alting runs as chairman – on a 9-1 vote.
The vote followed three hours of testimony – much of it covering familiar ground on both sides from debates in the recent past. And it included this from Alting, as he explained in the Senate chambers why he was carrying the bill.
“I have no control over what has happened in history on some of these issues that were talked about today,” Alting said. “But I say to my colleagues … we do have control of our future. On this vote today, you can be on the right side of Indiana history. But more importantly, you can just be on the right side, period.”
Next up, SB12 faces the full Senate, possibly by Thursday, before heading to the Indiana House for fresh hearings.
What are the odds that this is the year for an idea that has stalled at this stage before? “Pretty good,” Alting said. He said he was focused on getting SB12 to the Senate floor for an up-or-down vote, for now.
“We're going to find out if we've got a majority of legislators that's open-minded and is ready to do what's on the right side of Indiana history," Alting said. “We’ve got work to do. And, buddy, I’ve been working.”
Alting said he was still lobbying for support up until midnight Sunday, eight hours before Monday morning’s hearing, anticipating the talking points.
Among the dissent Monday, Parvonay Stover from the Indiana attorney general’s office said judges already had tools to enhance sentences in bias crimes. “It seems like the idea of getting Indiana off the naughty list is more important than the substance of what we actually pass,” Stover said.
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Peter Scaer, of Fort Wayne’s Concordia Theological Seminary, questioned whether it would stifle religious thought and principles by turning liberal shields into swords. His point: “Special protections simply weaponize the left.”
Michael Morris, a member of the Lafayette-based Citizens in Action, argued that the Indiana Codeamply covered offenses “committed against Hoosiers by means of action rather than by thought and expression.” Laws, he said, must apply equally and be prosecuted on their own merits. “That is,” Morris said, “real inclusion and diversity.”
And Al Parsons, a Mulberry resident and part of the Coalition of Central Indiana Tea Parties, called whatever talk that followed about the job-creating, tourism-promoting and business-friendly potential of adding Indiana’s name to a hate crimes roster “simply bogus. There’s no proof.”
What followed was roughly a 4-to-1 response, particularly from representatives from businesses – Cummins, Eli Lilly, Old National Bank, the Indianapolis Pacers and Colts, the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, the Indiana Motor Speedway – with stories about how the question comes up as they recruit employees or potential businesses. Terry Curry, Marion County prosecutor, said, “The conduct we’re talking about with this bill is no purely hypothetical.”
From Alting’s home county, a tag team of Lafayette Mayor Tony Roswarski, West Lafayette Mayor John Dennis and Tippecanoe County Commissioner Tom Murtaugh piled on.
“One thing we haven’t addressed significantly enough today is fear – the fear of crime and the effect on quality of life,” Dennis said. “Having support for a bill like this will make places like Lafayette, West Lafayette and Tippecanoe County a safer place in the hearts and souls of the citizens that we serve. Living in fear is a condition nobody should live under.”
Monday afternoon, Alting said he was hoping Holcomb would get involved to help get SB12 through the next stage – and then the ones after that. Holcomb made a hate crimes bill a priority after vandals painted Nazi symbols on at CongregationShaarey Tefilla, synagogue in Carmel, in August.
(Sen. Greg Taylor, an Indianapolis Democrat who carries similar bias crime bills in previous years, referenced that moment during Monday’s hearing, saying that while he didn’t condone what happened in Carmel, “God let’s bad things happen to put us in position where we have to step up.”)
Back in Lafayette, word of the vote was being traded over lunch hours among those who had been at Pride Lafayette the afternoon Alting came to explain SB12.
“I left there thinking Sen. Alting seems incredibly determined to get the bill passed,” said Tonya Agnew, a Lafayette resident who also volunteers with Family Equality Council, national organization that works for lived and legal equality for LGBTQ families. “If he does, it will be a huge part of his political legacy.”
Alting said he’s been trying to sell a similar message in places in the Statehouse where the audience isn’t quite as receptive. (A dissenting example in the chamber: “This isn’t going to change people’s views,” Sen. Phil Boots, a Crawfordsville Republican, said. “There’s still going to be biases.”)
“I’ve been working on them one-on-one,” Alting said. “And this is what I’ve been telling them: You will never, ever have another opportunity to carry such a bill so meaningful in the rest of your political career. It’s truly the right side to be on.”
TRACK THE BILLS
To read and track bills filed in this General Assembly session, go toin.gov/legislativeand search by topic, bill number or legislator. Lawmaker email and phone numbers are there, too.
Reach Dave Bangert at 765-420-5258 or at dbangert@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @davebangert.
