By Vanessa Green Sinders, Indiana Chamber president and CEO
Building on past momentum, this legislative session delivered meaningful policy wins that strengthen Indiana’s competitiveness and create new opportunities for businesses and their workers to prosper. Our Final Legislative Report (with scorecard) highlights those top achievements – including further advances regarding childcare and work‑based learning, long-sought modernization of local government and tax conformity measures to address what’s happened at the federal level.
For years, Indiana employers have identified childcare access and affordability as one of the most significant barriers to workforce participation and productivity. By passing several policies that increase childcare supply, reduce regulatory friction and encourage employer investment, lawmakers took important steps toward removing a critical constraint on Indiana’s labor force and unlocking long‑term economic growth potential for Hoosier families and their employers.
Our township government has remained largely unchanged for generations, which has led to duplication, inefficiencies and inconsistent fiscal oversight. Senate Bill 270 marks a significant effort to modernize this system of local government in a way that improves accountability, reduces unnecessary costs and creates a more predictable, transparent environment for all taxpayers. This has been a longtime priority of the Indiana Chamber, and we consider this a major victory for improving communities across the state.
The 2026 session also laid the groundwork for what we believe will be notable progress in 2027. Tort reform is at the top of the list. The very condensed timeframe we had this short session proved a little too challenging to get all the stakeholders and lawmakers on the same page. Still, legislation aimed at curbing frivolous lawsuits against businesses made it to the final week, with many good discussions had on how to move this policy going forward. Given its critical role in economic development and competitiveness, tort reform will remain a top focus for us during the interim.
We are already turning our attention to the 2027 General Assembly. We’ve started the process of gathering perspectives to ensure we have the most impactful legislative policies and priorities that best represent employers during the 2027 General Assembly.
