Staff Reports
INDIANAPOLIS — Tempers flared among state legislators during a debate Thursday morning at the Statehouse when Black lawmakers were shouted down and booed by some Republicans. Two House members also had to be separated in a hallway outside the House chamber after the incident.
Democratic Rep. Greg Porter of Indianapolis, who is Black, was speaking on the floor of the House against a bill allowing a rural, mostly white St. Joseph County township to leave South Bend Community School Corp., which is about 60% Black or Hispanic, when he called the proposal discriminatory. The bill in question, House Bill 1367, was authored by Rep. Jake Teshka, R-South Bend, who contends the purpose of the bill is to resolve transportation issues.
Several Republican members said loudly “no” and “stop,” after which Porter, who was wearing traditional African clothing in recognition of Black History Month, left the House meeting room, according to The Associated Press.
“We kinda felt like it kind of fed into how the members were acting,” said Rep. Robin Shackleford, D-Indianapolis, who is chair of the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus. “I think having on the African garb and our members going up there stating how they felt about a bill, I think that just antagonized them even more.”
“I have a right to speak,” Porter said before walking out into the hall.
The bill would allow de-annexation of neighborhoods which are mostly non-white, and move them to John Glenn School Corp., which is mostly white.
Rep. Vernon Smith, D-Gary, once a Gary Public Schools teacher and a principal, spoke after Porter and expressed the bill had racist intent. He also was booed.
“This is another wrong of this nation,” Smith said. “I don’t care how you twist it, how you paint it, how you disguise it, how you camouflage it. It’s racist.”
Calling ‘point of order’
Rep. Jim Lucas, R-Seymour, who spoke to The Seymour Tribune about the incident Friday morning, said he didn’t think HB 1367 was racist.
“Rep. Teshka, he’s just trying to help his local community out, he’s representing his district,” he said. “Then several Democrats got up there impugning his motive and implying that it was racially motivated, which is nothing further from the truth, and that really upset a lot of people in the gallery, you know, representatives. And they found offense to that, and there was booing going on.”
Lucas said after the bill was repeatedly accused of being racially discriminatory by the Black lawmakers, he asked House Speaker Todd Huston for a point of order. Smith again accused the bill of being racially discriminatory after Lucas called for the point of order, Lucas said.
Lucas said he then stood up, turned around and said to his nearest colleagues, “Walk out so we don’t have to listen to this.”
Lucas said he didn’t shout what he said. “I did not yell it. I said it loud enough that those in the immediate vicinity might have heard me.”
After making the comment, some Republican lawmakers left the chamber with Lucas.
When asked if walking off of the House floor was an appropriate response to what the lawmakers were saying, he said, “Give me a better thing to do. Sit there and listen to it? It’s not like we’re leaving to go to Illinois like the Democrats did 10 years ago.”
Lucas was referring to the time Democratic House members temporarily moved to Illinois in 2011 to avoid voting on legislation that was considered to be anti-union.
“We’re going out in the hallway. We’re taking a little break to let things cool down because tensions were getting high,” Lucas said. “I’ve always been of the belief that when tensions get high like that, you call a timeout and settle down a little bit. That makes perfect sense to me. It’s not like we were leaving the building or anything. We were just going back out in the hallway.”
In the hallway, Lucas said Rep. Vanessa Summers, D-Indianapolis, another Black lawmaker, confronted him, calling him racist and prejudiced.
“I told her, ‘Ness, I walked out of here to get away from that. You guys can go in there and talk,’ and she brought it to me and that’s when Rep. (Sean) Eberhart (R-Shelbyville) had came over,” Lucas said. “She was pretty hot. (Eberhart) tried to calm her down.”
A confrontation between Summers and Eberhart then broke out, and Rep. Bob Morris, R-Fort Wayne, tried to hold Eberhart back from Summers. Eventually, Morris pushed Eberhart into the men’s restroom to deescalate the situation.
“For a member to now take it to a violent situation and look like they’re going to hit a member and have to be pulled away from a member, especially when it’s a white male versus a Black female, then we have some serious issues there,” Shackleford said.
Summers said she doesn’t remember what was said in the heat of the moment but admitted she “has a mouth” and may have used strong language. She said she was calling out another Republican, though, when Eberhart thought she was talking to him.
“He just went off and got mad and tried to hit me,” Summers told The Indianapolis Star. “I felt in danger for my life.”
Eberhart said he was called a racist and verbally attacked by Summers.
Lucas said there was no physical altercation, and Summers had been calling Eberhart expletives.
“It’s kind of odd, if you’re in fear for your life, then why are you chasing someone out of a hallway?” Lucas said. “The lies, the misrepresentation, the constant accusation of being called a racist is getting thin. People are fed up with it.”
Last May, Lucas was removed from two study committees and demoted from a leadership position in a third by Indiana House Speaker Todd Huston, R-Fishers. Lucas no longer sits on the House Interim Study Committee on Elections or on the Interim Study Committee on Public Policy. He was demoted from vice chair to a regular member of the Standing Select Committee on Government Reduction.
The changes came four days after Lucas was accused of making a racist social media post on his personal Facebook page that generated controversy in the district and statewide.
Eberhart told The AP he was called a racist and verbally attacked by Summers.
“I was confronted by Vanessa and accused of being discriminatory and racist toward people in general,” Eberhart said. “That’s totally not factual. I don’t have a racist bone in my body.”
While in a meeting with Huston, Shackleford said representatives came in saying Smith had been verbally attacked in the bathroom by Rep. Alan Morrison, R-Brazil. Smith came into the meeting and said he was in the bathroom washing his hands when Morrison entered, calling him a bully and other derogatory names. Smith tried to ignore it and keep going, according to Shackleford, but Morrison kept following him until Smith said something back. Neither Morrison nor Smith could immediately be reached for comment.
Asking for respect
The Republican-dominated House narrowly approved the school district bill on a 52-43 vote as 14 Republicans joined Democrats in voting against the proposal.
Huston later urged all legislators to show respect for each other and not question the motives of others.
“We’re going to disagree. That’s part of the process,” Huston said. “But we’re going to do it in a respectful way. I’m going to enforce our rules in a more strident manner.”
Summers, a House member since 1991, said relationships between Republicans and Democrats feel different this session, fueled by debates over racism following last year’s deaths of George Floyd and other unarmed Black people at the hands of police.
“Everybody over there is racist and discriminatory,” Summers said of House Republicans. “Those that aren’t and are not standing up for what’s right, they’ve got white privilege and they’re racist, too.”
Lucas disagreed.
“We have white privilege because of our skin? That’s another thing I find vile and reprehensible, and I find that vile and reprehensible as I do racism,” he said. “Racism is horrible. It’s vile. It’s reprehensible. Yes, we should do everything to combat it, but there are too many people that have weaponized the accusation of racism, and that’s what leads to incidents that happened yesterday.”
Lucas denounced the media’s coverage of the House incident, saying it made the Republican party look bad.
“I find it reprehensible that all the media reports I’ve seen so far are making the Republican Party out to be the bad guys,” he said. “Nothing’s further from the truth. We’ve taken the high road on this time and time again, but to constantly be accused of being racist, as you saw Rep. Summers’ quote, that is as racist a comment as you can make. Had I said something like that, you can only imagine the outcry.”
Rep. Ryan Lauer, R-Columbus, disputed the accounts of what happened, saying they don’t match up with what he witnessed.
Lauer said 75% of children who resident in the township in question already go to a different school district, meaning the township residents are paying taxes to one school district while their kids are going to another. “It’s the only school district in Indiana that has a desegregation order from the Department of Justice from 1981 that is still on the books,” Lauer said, adding said the school borders had not been touched in more than 50 years.”
“It was simply a policy matter,” Lauer said. “I don’t see any evidence that residents are motivated by racism in wanting to switch to a different school district.”
Lauer said Porter was using very strong and passionate language and had labeled the bill as discriminatory, he said. There were some responses from the House members while Porter was speaking that Lauer said he found to be inappropriate. “There were gasps and murmurs. Rep. Porter was insulted from that, and he left the chamber.”
Some lawmakers may have thought Porter was criticizing the motives of Teshka’s bill and such talk is not allowed by a speaker on the House floor, Lauer said.
Smith did not reiterate Porter’s concerns, but was speaking about another bill, House Bill 1384, which would require students to take one semester of civics in middle school, Lauer said. “It’s my recollection that (Smith’s) bill was not related in any way to the (school district bill) nor the situation with Rep. Porter,” Lauer said, who added he does not remember any “boo’s” toward Smith.
Lauer said when other Republicans walked out of the chamber, he remained in his seat and did not know what happened outside the House chamber involving Lucas, Eberhart and Summers.
Shackleford has renewed her request for all members of the House to go through implicit bias training.
“I really think all members need it,” Shackleford said. “I think there needs to be some education, clearly, on what racism is and what implicit bias is.”
Huston said he was disappointed by what took place on Thursday, but he did not commit to having members go through implicit bias training.
Huston also did not say whether any members will be disciplined. “I’ve got to figure out what the facts are, and just take note of what happened,” Huston said.
Shackleford said she also thought Huston could have been more aggressive in reprimanding members on the floor before the situation escalated.
“What I am hoping is we see a more aggressive standpoint in making sure that kind of behavior will not be tolerated,” Shackleford said.
House Minority Leader Phil GiaQuinta said he thinks the heckling while members are speaking needs to stop.
“House Democrats have every right to get up there and speak on amendments, speak on bills,” GiaQuinta said. “Our members deserve to be heard and deserve the respect of all members on the floor.”
Huston said he knows he needs to do a better job overseeing the chamber and making sure there’s decorum.
“I want to own my mistakes,” Huston said. “It’s easy to be informal and it’s easy to let decorum slide. Certainly, I have to be better and collectively we have to do better.”
