By Erica Irish & Bekah Eaker 

INDIANAPOLIS—Senate Democrats plan to focus their legislative goals this session on policies that would help working families, enact police reform and change how elections are conducted in the state.

Senate Minority Leader Greg Taylor, D-Indianapolis, and other leading Senate Democrats unveiled their agenda for the session at a press conference Tuesday. The group said they identified policies that matter more than ever in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, a national economic downturn, and renewed conversations about racial justice and the role of law enforcement in communities.

Topping the agenda, said Sen. Eddie Melton, D-Gary, is raising the state minimum wage from the current rate of $7.25 per hour. Melton proposed immediately raising the minimum wage to $10 this session, with subsequent $1 raises each year after that until the minimum wage is $15 per hour.

“During this pandemic, our working Hoosiers kept our grocery stores open. They delivered our food and our packages during quarantine. They cleaned our stores and offices to keep us safe,” Melton said. “They did all of this while getting paid low wages.”

Related to the minimum wage, Sen. Karen Tallian, D-Ogden Dunes, said the legislature is past due for updating the statewide worker’s compensation system. Worker’s compensation ensures businesses are protected from lawsuits when their employees are injured on the job while also cutting a check for the workers to help them recover from accidents.

But Tallian said Indiana’s compensation schedule hasn’t been updated since 2016 and the rates should have been updated in 2017.

“It’s now 2021,” Tallian said. “We’re five years late.”

Senate Democrats want 2021 to be the year Indiana plays catch up, proposing a 10% increase to the worker’s compensation schedule this year. The schedule would gradually increase by 6% the following year and then by 2% for the next four years.

Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb unveiled his own agenda for the legislative session last month, featuring policies about the economy, improving state infrastructure like broadband access, and protections for pregnant workers.

Holcomb’s agenda also revisits several of the diversity and equity policies he outlined at the height of racial justice protests last summer. That includes publishing a digital dashboard with information about statewide disparities that need to be addressed.

Melton said the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus, or IBLC, is most interested in two immediate steps that Holcomb’s agenda doesn’t include, though—banning chokeholds in arrests and no-knock warrants.

The wider agenda by the Senate Democrats revisited 2020 in other ways, too. Sen. J.D. Ford, D-Indianapolis, said there are lessons to be learned from the 2020 election and how Indiana makes alternatives like absentee ballots available to voters.

Ford said Democrats want to see Indiana voters be able to cast mail-in ballots for any reason moving forward. Current law requires voters to meet certain requirements to cast an absentee ballot, such as being elderly or at work through the hours polls are open. With that, Ford said, the state should also consider adding tracking technology to ballots to help voters keep track of when and how they are being reviewed and expanding secure ballot drop boxes in counties.

Absent from the agenda Democrats discussed Tuesday was cannabis legalization and teacher pay. But Taylor said those policies remain priorities—and that his party wants to see more of the onus on the supermajority Republican caucus.

“Just because we didn’t talk about it today doesn’t mean it’s not a priority,” Taylor said. “Why it’s not a priority of the supermajority should be the question.”

FOOTNOTE: Erica Irish and Bekah Eaker are reporters for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.