Indiana State Senator, District 41
The Indiana State Senate, the upper chamber of the Indiana General Assembly, and the House of Representatives form the state’s legislative branch. Its responsibilities include passing legislation, setting the state budget, adjusting taxes, and voting to uphold or override gubernatorial vetoes. State senators serve four-year terms.
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Ross Thomas
(Dem)
If elected, what would be your two highest legislative priorities?
What unique experience or perspective do you bring that distinguishes you from other candidates?
How would you address cost-of-living affordability for Hoosiers? Please describe any policies or approaches you support.
Which of the following policy areas would be your highest priority while in office, and why? Childcare, Community Safety, Economic Development, Education, Energy, Health, Housing, Environment, or Infrastructure.
What do you consider Indiana’s most significant environmental challenges?
How should the state balance economic, environmental, and community considerations when evaluating proposals for new data centers?
Supporting public schools and returning local control to our communities on issues of education, housing, and land use.
As an attorney and small business owner for over 30 years in Indiana I understand how our state government should function, and I have seen how it has failed us but ignoring the needs of the people in favor of big business and culture war nonsense. I bring independence from big money politics and political influence from Washington.
I support limiting the number of single family homes that can be owned by hedge funds and out of state investors. I want to return local control to our cities and towns on housing policy. I think any housing project that receives tax abatements must set aside a portion of the project for affordable housing units. I would also support investment in rural transit to allow people to more easily live in more affordable areas to take some supply pressure of the cost of housing.
I support lowering our regressive gas taxes and making corporations and the wealthy take on a more equitable portion of the tax burden.
I think all of these should be high priorities for the state legislature, but if ai had to pick one it would be education. The state legislature has been attacking public schools for decades. We have continued to cut funding for schools, limit the ability for local communities to raise money for schools and limiting the ability of teachers to collectively bargain, all the while expanding voucher programs to pay for the wealthy to send their children to private schools.
Public schools are vital to growing communities and they should be a priority for the legislature.
Indiana consistently ranks at or near the bottom in air and water quality. Our challenge is to actually have a state government that will enforce air and water quality standards. Instead of expanding protected wetlands, which improve water quality and prevent flooding, we choose unlimited development at the expense of the environment. Development is important, but we have to take into account the long term sustainability of our projects.
The recent push to build data centers while ignoring the impact those will have on our water supply is just another example of our legislature ignoring the environment for profit.
I think the first question for any development that seeks government funding or tax abatement should be what is the overall economic benefit to the community, not just the investors. I haven’t seen much that would show me that data centers will provide much in terms of long term local employment. When you add to that the obvious strain that these projects but on local water and electricity resources, it becomes had to see how the benefit to the community would outweigh the costs.
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