The Indiana legislature completed the 2026 session Friday evening with final approvals of bills dealing with the creation a “military police force” within the Indiana National Guard, fiscal matters, and doxing. The bills go to Gov. Mike Braun’s desk for signature.
The Senate adjourned sine die at 6:26 p.m. eastern time and the House adjourned at 6:35 p.m. Friday.
Braun issued a statement after the session highlighting the work the legislature completed like addressing rising utility costs, “cracking down on illegal immigration” and establishing a financial framework to attract the Chicago Bears to build a proposed stadium in Hammond.
“I’m proud of what we accomplished in a short session and look forward to continuing our work for Hoosiers to make life more affordable, grow our economy, and keep our communities safe,” Braun said.
The House and Senate gave final approval to a bill that would allow for the creation of a “military police force” within the Indiana National Guard Friday after the bill author pulled the bill into conference committee to add language to the bill.
House Bill 1343, authored by State Rep. Steve Bartels, was changed in the final hours of session to allow for a waiver of certain training requirements for law enforcement officers from outside of Indiana.
“What we’re basically saying is if you have a law enforcement officer in another state, that you’ve passed their academy, have that accreditation and spent 10 years in law enforcement that that satisfies any deficit in the number of hours of our training in our state,” Bartels said during a committee meeting Friday.
The conference committee report for House Bill 1343 passed mostly along party line votes with the Senate voting 37-11 and the House voting 65-29. State Sen. Vaneta Becker, R-Evansville, State Rep. Daniel Lopez, R-Carmel, opposed the report.
House Bill 1343 allows the Indiana National Guard’s leader, the adjutant general, to establish a “military police force” that could make arrests, conduct searches and seizures, carry firearms and exercise other police powers.
The bill outlines that to become a member of the Indiana National Guard military police force the adjutant general will make sure the members have security clearance and no felony convictions. Anyone appointed to the military police force has to complete army or air military police occupational training, according to the bill.
The governor may deploy the military police force “to exercise police powers throughout Indiana” during times of war, disaster or “at any other time the governor considers necessary.” The governor would have to provide reasonable notice to local law enforcement agencies in the area, according to the bill.
Bartels, R-Eckerty, previously said the military police force will merge six different units that exist within the Indiana National Guard.
If a governor chose to send the military police force into a community, the mayor there wouldn’t have a way to stop the action, Bartels previously said. The bill also doesn’t give a timeframe for how long the military police force could be deployed, he said.
“I think this is very proactive. I think it helps us deal with situations that are unpredictable. It’s probably past due, in my opinion,” Bartels previously said.
Bartels said House Bill 1343 also now includes language from House Bill 1040, which dealt with attacks against school and health care employees, and a new Indiana State Police recruitment provision.
State Rep. Matt Pierce, D-Bloomington, said he opposed the bill because it will allow the governor to deploy the Indiana National Guard military police unit for whatever reason the governor deems necessary.
“I don’t think that we want our state, our country, to kind of devolve into the kind of world where you have, essentially, a military occupation force coming in and enforcing laws against civilians and doing searches and seizures,” Pierce said.
State Rep. Ed DeLaney, D-Indianapolis, said the only legislators who should vote in favor of the bill are those who don’t believe that the local police officers in their districts are properly doing their jobs.
“A vote for this is a vote against the competence and independence of your local law enforcement,” DeLaney said. “This bill completely steps on local control of the simple, most important local government institution.”
After the vote, State Rep. Vernon Smith, D-Gary, said in a statement he didn’t support House Bill 1343 because it gives the governor too much power over the Indiana National Guard.
“I support the Indiana National Guard and the essential work they do for our nation. However, i don’t want a single Hoosier to fear our guardsmen,” Smith said.
Smith said the bill is “dangerous,” especially as the country heads into the 2026 election.
“There is nothing in this bill preventing the deployment of this force at the polls. They could be used to intimidate voters, and local officials would be powerless to stop it. This is something befitting a dictatorship and not a democracy,” Smith said.
Both chambers also approved a conference committee report for Senate Bill 4, a various fiscal matters bill, to give the Legislative Services Agency authority to calculate the fiscal impacts to state and local government for all executive orders signed by the governor.
The nonpartisan department would have to submit an analysis of the money spent to the legislative council within 7 days.
Senate Bill 4 was also amended to remove a number of House amendments including economic development reporting, tax credit reviews and public library budgets. The Senate ruled the additions to the bill were not germane.
Both chambers unanimously approved the conference committee report Friday with a 91-0 vote in the House and a 50-0 vote in the Senate.
The legislature amended Senate Bill 140, the doxing bill renamed as a public safety bill, to remove the amendments approved in the House addressing drones and railroad crew member’s information in public reports following a fatal accident.
Under Senate Bill 140, authored by State Sen. Vaneta Becker, R-Evansville, doxing will become a class a misdemeanor and a Level 6 felony if the posting of the personal information results in the targeted person or someone closely connected to the person suffering serious injury or death.
Senate Bill 140 passed both chambers unanimously with a 96-0 vote in the House and a 47-0 vote in the Senate Friday.
Becker, the bill author, previously said she filed the bill because of the threats against state senators amid the mid-census redistricting discussions last year.
In November, Senate Pro Tem Rodric Bray, R-Martinsville, announced he would cancel the early December session to take up mid-census redistricting because the chamber did not have the votes to pass the measure.
Two days after the cancellation announcement, President Donald Trump issued a statement on his social media site Truth Social calling out “RINO” Bray and Sen. Greg Goode, R-Terre Haute, “for not wanting to redistrict their state, allowing the United States Congress to perhaps gain two more Republican seats.”
Hours after Trump posted his comment, Goode received a false swatting call. After Organization Day, when the Senate voted to reconvene in January, at least sevev more State Senators – Dan Dernulc, Spencer Deery, Ric Niemeyer, Kyle Walker, Greg Walker, Linda Rogers and Andy Zay – received swatting calls.
The Trump administration asked Republican state leaders to redraw Congressional maps to ensure a Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives after the 2026 election.
Ultimately, the Indiana legislature met in early December – which kicked off the start of the 2026 session – to take up redistricting. The measure passed the House, but failed in the Senate.
akukulka@post-trib.com