An Indianapolis Republican aiming for his third straight term representing District 32 in the Indiana Senate is being challenged by a first-time candidate from the Democratic party.
Aaron Freeman, who has represented District 32 since his initial election in 2016, said he is determined to carry on the momentum he and his fellow legislators have made in recent years.
“Indiana is doing really, really well, contrary to what’s going on in the country and what’s going on there — Indiana is really a model of how to govern,” he said. “Mitch Daniels set us up on a really good trajectory, and we’ve continued to follow that. The Democrats who had been in charge up to that point had nearly bankrupted the state. … We had significant debt, now we have significant surplus. We set that up, and I’m proud to be a part of that and would love the opportunity to continue to be a part of it.”
Katrina Owens has never run for office in the past. But the Indianapolis resident feels the residents of District 32 and the state of Indiana in general can benefit from her skill set and leadership.
“Is it something I had planned years ago? Absolutely not. However, my entire professional career has prepared me for this moment,” she said. “In hindsight, this was part of my destination in life. My purpose in life is to align with politics, public policy. I’ve been navigating in that space, and I’ve been in public service for over 20 years. For me, the opportunity presented itself.”
To help voters make their decision in this Senate race, the Daily Journal asked the candidates their takes on issues facing the state ahead of the Nov. 5 election and early voting.
Here’s a snapshot of what they said, edited for length, repetition and clarity:
Next year is a budget year. What should be prioritized?
Freeman: We have to maintain our fiscal discipline. Now there’s going to be some headwinds, depending on what the results of the presidential election and congressional elections look like. … We have to retain our fiscal discipline while maintaining the smart spending we’ve done. We’ve invested heavily on K-12 education and we need to continue to do that. We need to ensure law enforcement has the tools they need to keep our streets safe and secure. Those are the top couple of things we need to pay attention to.
Owens: If I’m elected, it’s not about what I think. That’s been part of the problem over the years with certain individuals who get into the legislature. This isn’t a “me” campaign, it’s a “we” campaign. … I will be representing, as an individual, thousands of residents; when you become a state senator, you become everyone’s state senator. So it’s about the people, the needs of people. … It’s important I look at where the gaps are in terms of our state. We can just start with some basic things and where we rank in the nation. The major issues right now are, even with health care, we rank 43rd (in mental health) but we’re the 10th-worst state for health care. When we talk about education, we’re 43rd among highly educated states. We’re 50th in the nation in voter turnout. So we have a lot of places where we rank low, however, we’re in the top 20 for gun violence. Oh my goodness, right? We really need to look at that and determine, where do we need to align our budgets and making sure we have legislation that supports that, and where can we change the numbers and where we rank nationwide. Those are the realistic conversations we need to have.
Do you think Hoosiers need property tax relief? If so, how can property tax relief be done without reducing tax dollars that fund local governments and schools?
Freeman: Yes I do. There’s certainly a task force going on that the General Assembly put together in a bipartisan way to wrap their fingers around this topic. It is very clear to me, having knocked on a lot of doors that we have a property tax problem. Mitch Daniels, going back to his leadership, did a great job of getting us out of that particular property tax issue. We have seen phenomenal growth in assessed value, an astronomical rise in those costs that seniors and people on fixed incomes, a lot of people just cannot afford. This is a product of the local units of government — property taxes are a local unit of government issue. Although the state sets the parameters here, it’s really up to the locals to get this right. It’s been clear to me for a very long time that certain units of local government are just not equipped and maybe not willing to say no to assessed valuation growth. They don’t have to take all assessed valuation growth, they don’t have to take more and more more. They can live within the means set at 2020 levels or whatever levels they come to. They’ve just not been willing to do that. So it’s going to be a balance, and probably be a very delicate balance. But it’s something that the state, I believe, has to look at and should look at, to figure out a way to give people the much-needed property relief they need while still funding our local units of government.
Owens: I’d really need to look at the numbers and see and take a deeper dive before I can give a response to that. I am a homeowner and I pay property taxes — I’m a part of this as well. I hope to make sure I’m working with others and we are very much so addressing those needs. Where can we balance the scales? Taxes are just an equation in the process. How do we balance the scales for everyone. Housing is a crisis as well, in the entire state, whether its affordability, accessibility. We just need to take a deeper dive and look at that. As someone who pays taxes, I feel it as well. I’m not exempt at all in this process. But what are all the determining factors? How do we grow our revenue in this state? What are the opportunities that we need to go after to maybe give some relief? There are more things to that. I believe that we have missed some opportunities; there’s a lot of room for growth in this state, and we need to catch up, compared to the bordering states, even.
A recent study says Indiana needs $1 billion to fund needed improvements to local roads and bridges. What could the legislature do to raise this money?
Freeman: Up until the census and redistricting, I had a district that was contained entirely in Marion County. Now I go into Clark and Pleasant townships (in Johnson County). My word of caution to the fine people of Johnson County is to tread lightly and do not follow the model that Marion County has led you down. I had served on the city-county council in Indianapolis before I came to the Senate. … There was a report released that said Marion County was a billion dollars behind in infrastructure needs. Instead of addressing that, and instead of looking at roads, bridges, sidewalks, the legislature — before my time there — allowed Marion County voters to do a referendum for mass transit. … Let me be very clear, I’m all for a bus service, and I’m all for for a robust bus service. People who do not have the means need to be able to get to work and need to go to the grocery store. I understand that. But taking away lanes of travel from the public in favor of only bus lanes is like an 18th-century way of looking at a 21st-century problem. I do not agree with that at all. The money we’re spending could be much better served on roads, bridges and sidewalks, and an increased bus service that goes into the community more. In my view, we have not addressed the basic needs that are roads, bridges and sidewalks in favor of other projects, and they just don’t work. They’re unnecessary and I would redirect funds to roads, bridges, sidewalks. When you say “How do you raise those funds?” there’s a concrete way of doing it.
Owens: Infrastructure is also one of my focus areas. We do need to fix the road funding formula and supporting transit. We also don’t need to waste taxpayer dollars in authoring bills that put $230 million in infrastructure costs at risk. This is a majority-wins state; when we vote on something, and when 59% of approximately 192,000 Marion County residents say yes to a referendum to expand a public transportation project, we move forward with that. The reason I mention that is there were taxpayer dollars that were used to take time to go through a session or a hearing about something that (residents) already said they wanted. We also have to stop wasting taxpayer dollars on things that are unnecessary. We have to look at where we are wasting those dollars, and repurpose those towards projects such as infrastructure, fixing our roads, adding that into the road formula. And then, yes, growth will help. But we have to look at the laws and things that are in place to make some changes. Either we need to do some additional revisions, there need to be some parts killed, some old bills that were really great concepts need to come back to the table. We need to look at those and say as a state, are we in a place where we can attract to grow? We need to have a long-term plan for that.
Do you think the Indiana legislature is on the right track with recent education legislation?
Freeman: Two years ago, I offered a bill that became a law that didn’t have a single “no” vote against it in the Senate dealing with the science of reading. We’ve completely gone off-track in our education system on how we were teaching kids to read, or in some cases, we were using faulty science and not teaching kids how to read. I’ve been in some of the education issues, and I feel that there are issues that we absolutely need to address. That being one of them — if we’re not teaching kids how to read, I don’t know what we’re doing. That’s a fundamental first step. I voted against some of the diploma requirement things, I voted against that bill last year. For every new law we pass, someone at the school, some administrator, has to be dealing with the accountability of these things, the reporting to the Department of Education. I don’t want to grow central offices; I want fewer people in central offices. I want more resources to go to the person actually teaching children for a living. We’ve allocated a lot of money to K-12 education, and it frustrates me greatly when I hear from teachers that they are not the beneficiaries of that money. God bless superintendents and staff, but at some point, how many superintendents do we need? I want to look at that situation and get more money into the actual classroom. I want more money going to the actual teacher, not the five people who get money before the teacher. I’ve been very vocal about some of my opposition, some of the votes I’ve cast. I wish we’d focus more on reading-writing-arithmetic, eliminating some excessive folks in administration offices, and that means we need fewer regulations.
Owens: No I do not. … One example right now is the proposed new graduation requirements. That word “proposed” — that alone shows you we were off track. In those proposed graduation requirements, there were two tracks, and neither track at all aligned with the admission requirements of any Indiana state college or university. … The Commission of Higher Education even released a statement asking to reconsider. That alone shows off that we’re all off track. I understand that not everyone is going to college. But the misconception is this: Learning is lifelong. We learn something every day. We don’t have to be in a classroom, we learn something new every day. Each and every one of us needs some kind of education. Education doesn’t have to mean it always takes place in a classroom. But in the workforce today, there is some kind of education that every individual would have to have. An apprenticeship, you’re still being educated, you’re still doing learning. Whether it’s on-the-job training, you’re still being educated. There’s more than one track to a career, absolutely. That’s what we should be saying. Maybe college isn’t for everybody, but education is for everybody. We need to change the narrative and the thinking and the language we’re saying. Our messaging is not correct. The message has to be that education is for everyone, and you will get educated in some way. It doesn’t have to mean it’s the college education framework, but you’ll become educated.
Should the legislature act to help curb hospital costs for Hoosiers?
Freeman: I think we need to take a serious look at it, and we need to identify the problem. This morning, in my email inbox, there was an email from a constituent explaining that their kid had to go to the hospital. There was a medical bill and they asked for an itemized receipt, and they received a bill that’s nowhere close to an itemized receipt. … Obviously, a lot of this is driven and goes back to what’s going to happen at the top of the ticket. This is a federal government-created issue. You have Obamacare, and any time government is involved in anything, costs go up significantly. I remember back in the day that Obamacare was supposed to lower costs and you could keep your doctor if you wanted to keep your doctor — and by the way, none of those things are true. Again, here is where Indiana is trying to lead the way and trying to be responsible, and at the same time, there are challenges.
Owens: The legislature absolutely should do something. Legislation determines the cost of health care. From the federal side, we need help on the federal guidelines. As a nation, we’re just behind in health care compared to other countries that are so much more progressive, who provide health care in so many different forms free of cost. From the statewide, there’s absolutely there’s something we can do with the cost of health care. But we also need to address the fact, we need to focus on the infrastructure in terms of our hospitals, the access to that, the supply and demand. Right now, the demand is greater than the supply. … I have no problem sharing, I lost my OB/GYN two months ago to another state. I got a call that my doctor is leaving — my long-term doctor for years. Do I blame my doctor? No. Not only are we losing our providers, but we’re not gaining any … It becomes a domino effect. I understand the issue with cost, but again, the cost may be high because we don’t have a lot of providers. But it all stems from growth at all levels. We have to be a state that wants to attract new.
What are your thoughts on the cuts made to Indiana Medicaid?
Freeman: Like I said before, we have a Medicare-Medicaid shortfall that we’re going to have to address in a significant way. That’s not going to be easy. Overall, we have to look at how we deliver a first-class, world-class medical system to our constituents and our citizens in Indiana, and at the same time, not bankrupt them in the process. We have to deliver very high-quality health care that’s affordable. That’s going to be my focus going into 2025.
Owens: I’m not saying I necessarily agree with the cuts being made. I also don’t know the formula they used to make those cuts, to get to the decisions. But this is part of what I represent as a person. I believe in transparency, and I think you should have a transparent government. Help people understand why you made those decisions — what led to them? What were your sources? I believe in making well-informed decisions, but I don’t know what was taken into account to arrive there, so I can’t say I support a decision without knowing how we landed there. But any time we’re adding an expectation to those who need the help, I find it alarming. … I don’t agree with any time we place additional requirements that can be a barrier or added weight that they’re carrying in their life, another challenge, to access a need.
ABOUT THE JOB
What: Indiana State Senator
Term: Four years
Pay: $30,070.24 a year, with a $196 per diem a day (2024)
Duties: Senators draft and vote on legislation brought before the General Assembly, including the bi-annual state budget.
Area: Senate District 32 covers all of Franklin Township and areas of Center, Perry and Warren townships in Marion County, along with all of Clark and a majority of Pleasant Township in Johnson County.
THE FREEMAN FILE
Name: Aaron Freeman
Party: Republican
Residence: Franklin Township, Indianapolis
Family: Wife, Heather; two sons
Occupation: Attorney for The Freeman Law Office
Education background: Bachelor’s degree from Bradley University, law degree from the University of Dayton School of Law
Political experience: Incumbent since 2016; previously a Marion County deputy prosecuting attorney; served for six years on the Indianapolis City-County Council; current precinct committeeman in Franklin Township
Memberships: Franklin Township Republican Club, president; elected Precinct Committeeman, Franklin Township 4; Indianapolis Bar Association, Criminal Justice Section; Bradley University Alumni Association, Board of Directors 2007; Indiana State Bar Association, Board of Directors 2010-2014
THE OWENS FILE
Name: Katrina Owens
Party: Democratic
Residence: Indianapolis
Family: Daughter, Kayla; dog, Button
Occupation: Consultant for Go 2 Consulting; former adjunct instructor, Ivy Tech Community College.
Education background: North Central High School, Indianapolis; associate’s degree from Ivy Tech Community College; bachelor’s degree from Indiana Wesleyan University, and graduate degree from Ball State University
Political experience: First time running for office, multi-year campaign volunteer
Memberships: Board of directors for the National Association of Workforce Development Professionals, Indiana state representative from 2020-2023; lifetime member, National Association of Workforce Development Professionals
