Sen. Greg Walker
INDIANAPOLIS — State legislators representing Columbus remained divided on a controversial bill banning transgender athletes from competing in school sports as the Republican-dominated legislature voted to override the governor’s veto of the measure.
The Indiana House voted 67-28 Tuesday to override Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb’s veto and ban trans athletes from girls sports teams. Rep. Ryan Lauer, R-Columbus, voted in favor of overruling the governor.
The Senate then voted 32-15 to override the governor, making the bill law without Holcomb’s signature. However, Sen. Greg Walker, R-Columbus, voted against overriding the veto.
A veto override allows the legislature to enact a bill into law despite the governor’s opposition. In Indiana, an override requires a simple majority in each chamber.
The measure, HEA 1041, prohibits K-12 students who were born male but identify as female from participating in a sport or an athletic team that is designated for women or girls. But it wouldn’t prevent students who identify as female or transgender men from playing on men’s sports teams.
Lauer had previously vowed to vote to override the governor’s veto, touting the measure in a campaign mailer during the primary as an effort to “protect equal opportunity in girls’ sports” and telling voters that he “will proudly vote to overturn the veto.”
On Tuesday, Lauer said he was happy to vote in favor of overriding the veto.
“I proudly voted in favor of that (overriding the veto) and for protecting girls sports,” Lauer said. “I want to make sure that we have fair competition in our schools and want to make sure that girls sports remains a class of sports and that we can just move forward.”
Walker said Tuesday that he voted against the veto override because he believes the bill is unconstitutional. Walker also voted against the bill in March before the governor vetoed it.
“I believe the bill to be unconstitutional,” Walker said. “The Indiana General Assembly is to pass no law that prohibits contract and the (Indiana High School Athletic Association) has bylaws. It has elections as far as what policies they adopt. It’s a volunteer organization for public schools, private schools, parochial schools, and they get to choose whether or not they want to abide by the regulations of the IHSAA. All of this is handled by contract. It’s a private transaction that I don’t think the General Assembly had the business of being in the middle of.”
The bill has faced intense opposition this year before and after being approved by the legislature, which has embraced what has become a conservative cause across the country. Eleven other Republican-led states have adopted such laws that political observers describe as a class “wedge issue” to motivate conservative supporters.
Opponents of the transgender sports bill have argued that it was a bigoted response to a problem that doesn’t exist, with the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana filing a lawsuit against what it called “hateful legislation” Tuesday following the action of the General Assembly, according to wire reports.
The Indiana High School Athletic Association, which has a policy covering transgender students wanting to play sports that match their gender identity, has said it has had no transgender girls finalize a request to play on girls teams.
Indiana Senate Democrats, for their part, denounced the veto override on Tuesday, accusing Republicans of voting to “codify discrimination against vulnerable Hoosier children.”
“Our caucus, as well as certain Republicans, including Governor Holcomb, understand that this legislation is both cruel and unnecessary—we already have a process to deal with this on the very rare occasion it becomes an issue,” Indiana Senate Democrats said in a statement. “This is just one more example of our reactionary supermajority sticking government where it doesn’t belong in order to further their private political agenda.”
Republican state Attorney General Todd Rokita, who joined other prominent Indiana Republicans to call for an override, said in a letter published Thursday that the attorney general’s office “stands ready to uphold the law and defend any challenges.”
“Hoosiers won’t be bullied by woke groups threatening girls’ sports,” said Rokita, who had a senior prosecutor testify at legislative hearings in support of the bill while Holcomb stayed out of the debate as hundreds of bill opponents attended Statehouse rallies.
The bill cleared the House in a 66-30 vote in January. The Senate followed suit in March, voting 32-18 to send the bill to Holcomb’s desk.
But Holcomb, a Republican, vetoed the bill three weeks later, saying that the legislation “falls short” of providing a consistent statewide policy for what he called “fairness in K-12 sports.”
Last month, Lauer, who is seeking a third term representing District 59, said the bill is needed “to protect the ability for girls to compete on a fair and level playing field” and gain college athletic scholarships.
Lauer suggested in a previous interview that if K-12 schools wanted to include athletes of different gender identities in the same sporting events, “there’s nothing stopping (them) from having co-ed sports and co-ed competitions.”
Lauer didn’t provide any examples of transgender girls in Indiana outperforming their cisgender peers, but pointed to an athlete at the University of Pennsylvania who recently became the first transgender woman to win an NCAA swimming championship.
“Read the news,” Lauer said last month. “There have been a number of situations. There was a recent controversy of the swimmer recently in college sports. But I disagree that it’s not a real issue that needs to have a clear policy are from the state for our schools and athletic events from our schools. So, it is an issue nationally and in our state, and it’s, in my opinion, a highly political and cultural matter that requires, I believe, a policy to be clear about Indiana standing for the protection of girls sports.”
—The Associated Press contributed to this report.
