Candidate Statement
Public health professional focused on improving healthcare access and building an affordable future for Indiana families.
Education
Master of Public Health
Occupational background
Home Care/Senior Care Operations
In District 29, SEA 1(2025) provided property tax relief, but it also created serious funding concerns for local governments, including public schools, police, fire, and infrastructure. I support amending the law to provide responsible property tax relief while ensuring stable funding for these essential services. I also support policies that expand attainable housing for young families and seniors who want to remain in their communities, increase transparency and accountability around utility rate increases, and help lower everyday costs for Indiana families without shifting the burden onto schools or local communities.
The state should play a stronger role in making healthcare more affordable by strengthening Medicaid, investing in aging-in-place solutions for seniors and people with disabilities, and expanding access to home and community-based care. Supporting the healthcare workforce and investing in preventative care can also reduce long-term costs. The state can also help stabilize the Affordable Care Act marketplace, so families have access to reliable and affordable coverage.
Most Indiana students attend traditional public schools, so protecting strong funding for public education must remain the state’s priority. School choice programs should not come at the expense of neighborhood schools. If charter and voucher programs continue to expand, they must meet the same accountability and transparency standards as public schools to ensure every student across the state has access to a high-quality education and improved outcomes.
Many families choose to live in District 29 because of the strong sense of safety and stability. My priority would be continuing to support the things that are working today, including ensuring our local police, fire, and emergency services remain well funded. Public safety policies should also respect civil liberties and maintain trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve. Decisions about how local agencies work with federal partners, including immigration enforcement, should prioritize community trust and allow local leaders to make the best decisions for their communities.
Indiana should continue to pursue economic growth, but we need to ensure the businesses coming to our state are truly benefiting the local communities where they operate. While technology companies and data centers are likely to keep expanding, the state should take a thoughtful approach and fully evaluate their impact on energy demand, utility costs, environmental impact, community health and well-being. I support taking the time to assess both the benefits, such as job creation, tax revenue, and the potential impacts on our power grid and environment so that growth is responsible and works for the people who live here.
My top legislative priority would be addressing Indiana’s senior care and home and community-based services crisis so older adults and people with disabilities can safely remain in their homes. Expanding access to home-based care improves quality of life and reduces costly institutional care. I would support investing state reserve funds and leveraging federal Medicaid matching dollars to expand these services. Indiana is projected to maintain strong reserves in the coming years, and investing a portion of those funds into healthcare solutions that lower long-term costs is both fiscally responsible and necessary for our aging population.
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Candidate Statement
I'm Devon Wellington, a mom, a small business owner, and a policy expert who has spent her career helping people navigate the damage that bad policy leaves behind. With a background in research, I can look 10 to 20 years down the road and see what's coming for our kids and our community. At some point, that means you stop treating symptoms and go to the source. I know how laws get made. I know how systems work and how they fail. And when I looked at my kids and the world I wanted for them, the answer was clear: the statehouse is where I can do the most good, for the most people; not because I want a title, but because I know exactly where the lever is, and I'm not willing to watch bad policy go unchallenged when I can do something about it. That's why I'm running. For my family, and for every family in District 29.
Education
B.A., Deaf Studies, M.A. Applied Developmental Psychology
Occupational background
Education Policy
Campaign Phone (public)
317-316-8378
Indiana just recorded the highest foreclosure rate in the nation. People are hurting but we don't have to wait for new legislation to deliver relief. Damage has been done through technical amendments to existing laws. Those of us with policy experience know those same tools can be turned around.
On housing: any corporation buying homes should publicly disclose who really owns it. That framework already exists in Indiana law. Let's extend it to residential property, tied to tax exemption eligibility.
On utilities: in 2019, amendments let utility companies raise rates automatically without independent oversight. We can restore that oversight, remove the 7% sales tax on electricity, and require data centers to pay their own costs.
On property taxes: SEA 1 delivered a $12,000 cut for businesses and $300 for homeowners, gutting $1.3 billion from schools and services. Real, targeted relief protects seniors, veterans, and low-income families without gutting our schools and communities.
The state's first job is to stop making healthcare more expensive. Indiana stripped enforcement teeth from healthcare acquisition reporting, letting private equity buy up entire specialties, driving out competition until there's one provider left to set any price they want. And you pay it, or you go without.
The state licenses every insurer, every facility, every pharmacy operating here. That license is a state-granted privilege, so let's attach conditions to it: full ownership transparency, real penalties for non-compliance, and no hiding corporate control behind a physician's name. We don't need to ban anything; we need to stop granting privileges without accountability.
Then we build. Drug pricing, insurance vertical integration, facility fees -- the same licensing lever applies across every domain. Indiana has more power here than it's been willing to use.
That's the role the state should play: stop being complicit, then use its authority to protect and serve Hoosiers.
Indiana's constitution requires the state to maintain a public school system. Not a suggestion; an affirmative obligation. And right now, we're failing it.
Draining public schools of funding isn't choice, it's abandonment. Public education has the highest return on investment of any public spending: workforce, economic growth, community stability; but it only works if money actually reaches public schools. Charter and voucher programs can have a role, but not at the expense of the 90% of kids educated in public schools, and not without the same accountability. If you take public money, you follow public rules.
Real improvement requires a system built on evidence: robust teacher support and pay, high academic standards without outdated testing models, and teaching the whole child. Hunger, instability, and sleep deprivation don't stop at the schoolhouse steps. Address the social determinants, and outcome follow.
That's how we improve outcomes for every kid in Indiana.
Public safety isn't just about enforcement. It's about whether people trust the systems meant to protect them. When that trust breaks down, safety breaks down with it.
Reinvest in communities first. Policing works better when it's community-rooted. Evidence shows non-enforcement interactions between officers and residents build the trust that makes communities safer. But local departments need resources and flexibility, not state-level revenue decisions made without them. Communities with funded schools, mental health services, and stable housing have less crime. Prevention is cheaper than enforcement. Restoring local governance isn't just a budget argument. It's a public safety argument.
Communities that feel over-policed or unheard don't cooperate with law enforcement. Transparency and local accountability aren't concessions to safety. They're the infrastructure of it. The state's job is to resource and enable, not override the people closest to a problem.
Indiana should welcome economic growth, but not at any price. The question isn't whether to attract tech companies and data centers. It's who sets the terms.
Right now, terms are set behind closed doors. NDAs between developers and officials lead to projects affecting water, power grid, and quality of life. That's not economic development. That's extraction.
The framework should be simple: if you want to operate in Indiana, you pay your own way. Full cost of grid upgrades, infrastructure, and buildings, not passed to working families through utility bills. Zero-water or closed-loop cooling to protect our water supply. Full environmental impact assessments before ground breaks, especially in overburdened communities.
And local officials must agree to full transparency with their communities. Economic growth that works for Indiana means growth Hoosiers actually choose, on terms they set, with full information, and genuine veto power over projects that threaten their health and community.
Most of us agree we need money out of politics. The good news: in Indiana we already have a way to stop special interests from buying the rules they operate under, with privileges the state granted and accountability it never demanded in return. This power exists in our constitution but it's not being enforced. The Montana Plan proves other states are already pursuing this.
I will introduce a concurrent resolution: a formal, on-record vote requiring every legislator to publicly affirm the constitutional provisions already binding them. Any entity operating under a state-granted license can only do what the state explicitly permits, and that includes political spending. If passed, we would unlock enforcement mechanisms across all domains: utility bills, healthcare costs, education funding, housing. We don't have to wait for a Supreme Court ruling. We can take that power back now. Any legislator who refuses will be telling their constituents exactly who they work for.
