Did Braun Get Played on Bears Stadium Bill?

All right, so let's talk about the Bear Stadium bill. And by the way, Friday was the end of the General Assembly. Friday was the last day of the legislative session. And as always happens in the final days, all sorts of shenanigans just start happening. And this is a horrible way. I said this on the Facebook Live, and Twitter Live a couple of days ago. By the way, you can follow me on Twitter, at RobMKendall, at RobMKendall. The legislative session, and the way we govern in this state is, it's horrible, it's rotten, it's just awful. And I kind of compare it to like a NASCAR race. I'm not a racing fan, but I would always watch a couple of NASCAR races a year. Daytona, the Daytona race, got the Brickyard, couple others, used to be fun, right? I used to really enjoy it. And a lot of people used to enjoy it too. At one point, NASCAR overtook IndyCar, right? But they've had all these rule changes, and now I will watch Daytona, and that's probably about it. And it's just like I watch it, and you realize, now I get it for points, it matters, I understand that. But I'm saying in terms of that race, the casual viewer, the final 10 to 15 laps are all that matter. You got this big long race, and then there's all these wrecks, there's all these crashes, it's just like, your guy can be leading the whole race, and then people just start getting crazy, and you're like, why did I watch this whole race? Why did I invest all this time watching this whole race when I know the final 10 laps are all that matter? And our governing is sort of that way too, in the state of Indiana. Our governing has become where nothing really matters until the end, a bill can die, a bill can not get a hearing, a bill can be changed, it can be altered, and then in the final couple hours, they call them conference committees, where the House and Senate elect leaders that get together, and they negotiate these bills that aren't agreed on by the House and Senate, and all sorts of crazy changes start happening. We saw this last year, or somehow, by the end of the legislative session, despite no testimony or no heads up, Mike Braun ended up taking over Indiana University, and people were like, what? And so it's very frustrating, where it's basically whose line is it anyway, where the game's made up, and the rules don't matter. That's basically what our legislative session, our legislative process is in Indiana, where the game's made up, and the rules don't matter. So all sorts of crazy stuff happens at the end of the legislative session. And one of the things that happened this year, and it's not getting the publicity it should, but it's very interesting, is something that got tucked in to the Bears Stadium bill. Now, those of you who've been watching the live feeds, we've talked a length about this, about the state's plan to give all sorts of money to the Chicago Bears to come to the state of Indiana. Billions of dollars by the time it's all said and done, different tax increases, some of them I don't think they've been real honest about, as it relates to tolling and the roads yet. And then there's a lot of people who are super critical. This may be an example of the legislature, which look, don't kid yourself. The Indiana General Assembly, by and large, hates Mike Braun. They cannot stand Mike Braun. Why? Because they see him as some fraudulent, rich guy that bought his way to power. That is what most of your lawmakers, whether they'll admit it publicly or not, most of them won't, of course. That's what they think of Braun. I've heard it from a bunch of them, and people who know a bunch of them. They can't stand him. And he came in there and started immediately trying to boss these guys around, and they said, "Eh, eh, we just dealt with that with Holcomb for a few years, for almost a decade. We're not doing that with you. You don't have the resources or the money to boss us around anymore like Holcomb did." It's very similar to what we saw when Mike Pence became governor after Mitch Daniels. Brian Bosma, David Long, the pro-Temp of the Senate, the Speaker of the House, they stepped in and said, "When Pence became governor, we think you're kind of a phony. We don't think you're really interested in Indiana, and we've been taking a backseat to Mitch Daniels because we needed him for eight years. We don't need you. And so you saw, excuse me, still fighting it. This bug that's been going around, you guys got this? Like everybody has this. I'm sure it emanated from my kid. I'm absolutely like every other sickness that comes into my house. I'm sure it emanated from my baby tyrant, toddler. But like, look, dude, I could have had 108 temperature and I've been here today. There was no way we're missing the show today. The snow, everything. I was like, "It could be the blizzard of 78. I am showing up here today for you guys." But anyway, so the legislature already was in a defensive posture to Braun before redistricting. And then redistricting happens and it goes up 30 notches, right? Braun is threatening the General Assembly. He's calling the special session despite Rod Bray basically, the leader of the Senate basically begging him not to do it. He threatens to primary people that don't vote the way he wants. And we said when this, all this was going on, we said, "There is no way these guys are gonna wanna work with Braun and they're gonna make him feel pain." They have the ability to make him feel pain and they're gonna do it. So fast forward to the Bear Stadium Bill. Now, keep in mind, in the buildup to the stadium bill, what happened? We exposed and ultimately shut down for now the Mid-States corridor. Remember that's that project to connect 64 to 69 in Southwest Indiana that the people in Dubois County and the surrounding counties are very against. Mike Braun's home county, a poll came out that showed overwhelmingly people are against him in his home county. And the major reason it was revealed was because of the Mid-States corridor project. A project that would gut generations of family farms, of ways of life, of quality of living. And the only real benefit despite intense public opposition in Southwest Indiana is seen as being to the trucking and distribution industry. Well, who's in the trucking and distribution industry? Mike Braun, that's how he made his money. That's how he made his fortune. And so many people down there see this as the state proposing spending billions of dollars for something that saves a few minutes of time at best. And really only benefits a select group of people and totally guts and disrupts the way of life in Southwest Indiana. And it really wasn't getting any exposure up there until we took it on on our radio show. And I was told by multiple people, we did look, we did a week of exposés on this. We sent producer Jason down to Dubois County to talk to those people about specific people, how their farms, how their childhood homes, how all of this, their way of life is gonna be disrupted. And multiple people with connections to lawmakers reached out to me and said, these guys were totally unaware of what was going on with this until you ran your segments on it. And my initial response was, to the legislature, this is a multi-billion dollar project. How could they be totally unaware of this? That's just the way it operates. If it ain't in their orbit, these guys don't know. The price is irrelevant. And in this case, it's a Southwest Indiana deal. Unless you're from Southwest Indiana, it's not on your radar, business as usual. Think about that, a multi-billion dollar project, and many of our lawmakers weren't even really aware. They may have known kind of what it was on the peripheral, but they weren't aware of what was going on. A multi-billion dollar project, and they were not aware of what was going on. Now think about all the little stuff they don't know about. But to their credit, lawmakers once we ran the exposés on it, they heard about it, and they said, we gotta do something for two reasons. One, it's a horrible project. It's a total waste of billions of dollars of taxpayer money. And two, it was a chance to stick it to Braun. Because Braun has been for this project almost his entire legislative life, going back more than a decade from when he was in the House of Representatives. Mike Braun has been obsessed with the Mid-State's Corridor Project, which I think reasonable people believe will benefit him since he was in the Indiana General Assembly. And so these lawmakers saw this, and to their credit said, "Eh, that's not happening. "We may not like Rob Kendall, "but we dislike Braun more than we dislike Rob, "'cause Rob ain't got no power over us. "He's just an annoyance. "He's a nuisance. "Braun, we really don't like him." It's like, probably like, I've pictured these lawmakers, you ever seen the movie "Freddy vs. Jason"? Where they got, you know, like these kids, they're being chased by both of them, and they gotta pick a side? That's probably these lawmakers, they were like, "Well, we really hate Rob Kendall." But at the end of the day, he's just an annoyance. "We really, really, really hate Braun." So I guess that makes me Jason. "We'll choose," I'm Jason Voorhees in this equation. "We'll choose Rob Kendall." And very quickly, this project for now got delayed. Jim Pressel, who's the head of transportation in the house, publicly criticized the project, asked why hundreds and hundreds of projects were getting delayed or scrapped by INDOT, but this project was going forward. And ultimately, now, INDOT has come out and said the RFP request for proposal has been delayed, moving forward with the Mid-States Corridor. Which brings us to the Bears Bill. And in the Bears Bill, ooh, this is spicy, and it got no attention. Other than the Capital Chronicle, our friends at the Indiana Capital Chronicle, if somebody else wrote about this, let me know, but they are the ones that I saw that wrote the big expose on it, I believe it was Tom Davies, I think. Let me make sure I got that right. Yes, I think it was indeed Tom Davies who wrote this. Oh, and Abdul, don't let me forget, Abdul wrote about this in his cheat sheet yesterday. By the way, Abdul, friend of the show, indypolitics.org does the State House Happenings with us, which we'll be bringing over here soon. I don't know if it's gonna be this week or not, we got a lot of stuff going on. Still may be audio for another week, figure that out. But Abdul wrote about this at length in his cheat sheet, which is his subscription deal that he does over at Indie Politics. And so the Capitol Chronicle with Tom Davies and Abdul were the two people who did deep dives on this. Here's what went down in the Bears Bill, tucked into this Chicago Bears Stadium Funding Bill, is now a giant layer of red tape that will produce all sorts of media scrutiny for projects above $250 million. Now I know you're thinking to yourself, you're like, they didn't already have that? Answer is no. Essentially the legislature allocates the money and then the governor spends it. And the state agencies, they spend it. And so this project, one of the reasons it was trucking along despite intense opposition locally, despite anybody who was hearing about it, like we're spending billions of dollars to save people a few minutes of time, well, why are we doing this? It was allowed to go forward because there was not state oversight on this. So in the Bears Bill, which this is very, you can believe in coincidence or you believe, they let these legislators let Braun run out there and flap his gums about bringing the Bears to Indiana. They let him take the lead, go on McAfee and Fox News and all these other places. Now Braun's cornered himself because he wants the fame. This is the thing about Braun. And we found this firsthand. Braun craves acceptance. He craves it. So why he came to me begging for an endorsement in 24. He would have been the governor, whether I endorsed him or not, he craves acceptance. He craves people saying, look at you, you're great. And these guys, I think knew that. And so they let Braun do all of this publicity tour. Oh, I'm meeting with the NFL people. I'm meeting with the Bears. I'm like, blah, blah, blah. Oh, Indiana's open for business. We're bringing the Bears. Of course, their version of open for business is taking billions of dollars for you and giving it to a billion dollar corporation. That's neither here nor there right now. So then the lawmakers tucked into this bill which keep in mind, this bill is the law now and all the things in it, whether the Bears come here or not. This is the law now, whether the Bears decide on Indiana or not. They tucked into this bill that any project over $250 million is now required to go to the state budget committee for a review. The state budget committee, including the, according to the Indiana Capital Chronicle is the Republican and Democrat fiscal leaders from both the House and the Senate and Braun's state budget director. And these people will meet and do meet periodically throughout the year on various topics. What this does though now is if this project goes forward, you will have to go through that state budget committee which means all sorts of spotlight will be shined on it. All sorts of publicity, all sorts of media scrutiny because these people now have to meet to discuss it. They have to meet to talk about it. And when they meet and talk about it, they're gonna have to lay out to the state the benefit which nobody's really been able to do. I was told by multiple, multiple reliable sources, Braun was livid over this. He was outraged over this, but he'd already stepped in it. He'd already said, Indiana's open for business, baby. Bears are coming, or we won't be able to get the Bears to come. Look, I still think the bears are coming to Arlington Heights. I think they're staying in Arlington Heights. But the legislature played Braun like a fiddle on this one, sticking this amendment into a bill that they knew Braun had to sign. He couldn't object to it. He couldn't talk about it. And Abdul pointed out, this is really, a key component of the bill. Braun never mentioned it when he sprinted to sign that bill. The lawmakers knew that Braun's obsession with the bright shiny object, the obsession with the headline, the obsession with, look at me, look at what I'm doing. Look at what I'm trying to bring to Indiana. He'd have no choice but to sign the bill.