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SUMMARY:
With early voting underway in Marion County, Rev. Tony Alexander and Pastor David W. Greene Sr. devote this episode to walking listeners through what’s actually on this November’s ballot. The centerpiece is Public Question 1, a statewide constitutional referendum that would let a judge deny bail — at their own discretion, based on “clear and convincing evidence” — to anyone charged with an offense other than murder or treason, not just those crimes as under the current Constitution. Both hosts argue against it: Marion County doesn’t elect its judges, so there would be no way to vote out a judge who used the new power unevenly; judges already have supervision, electronic monitoring, and other tools short of denying bail outright; and data the ACLU of Indiana compiled from jails across the state shows more than 98% of people classified as high, moderate, or even low risk do not go on to commit a new violent crime — meaning the change would reshape due process for everyone over a very small number of cases. They also cover judicial retention votes (which only ask whether to keep standing judges, not elect new ones) and the wave of roughly 40 school-funding referendums on ballots statewide, including the IPS referendum, which the hosts say won’t prevent cuts regardless of the outcome and which stems directly from last year’s state property-tax legislation (SB1) shifting the funding burden onto local referendums. Two callers phone in: Imhotep, who connects the bail referendum to the economics of the private-prison industry and cites state-level data on how incarceration rates dropped after marijuana legalization, and Josephine, who asks the hosts to cut through the question’s wording with a plain “yes or no.”
WHAT’S INSIDE
00:00:00 — Show open: disclaimer, prayer, early voting underway
- Alexander: early voting began the day before at the City-County Building downtown; voters can also request a mail-in ballot
- Greene opens in prayer for the city, state, and national leadership during the “election season”
- Preview of tonight’s focus: ballot questions, the bail referendum, and school-funding referendums
00:04:48 — Why this midterm election carries real weight
- Greene: this is a critical election for democracy, and voters need to know not just that to vote but who and what they’re voting for
- Flags gas prices, an ongoing war, and school referendums (including ones in Wayne and Washington Townships) as consequences riding on this ballot
- Greene: Public Question 1 (the bail referendum) will appear on every ballot statewide
00:06:26 — Indiana’s low turnout and the midterm trap
- Alexander: Indiana’s voter turnout is historically poor, and many voters only learn about major policy shifts after the fact — e.g., through a letter saying a benefit or program has changed
- Argues midterm elections are routinely underrated even though they directly affect property taxes, school assignment, and the legal process
- Greene adds that redistricting and other “fast-tracked” changes are also in play this cycle
00:09:40 — Public Question 1: what the bail referendum actually says
- Alexander reads the ballot language: current law denies bail only for murder or treason when “the proof is evident or the presumption strong”; the amendment would extend that denial to any offense if the state proves by “clear and convincing evidence” that no release conditions would reasonably protect public safety
- Alexander and Greene summarize the practical effect: a judge could decide to withhold bail based on their own read of the evidence, before trial
- Cites an ACLU of Indiana summary of the amendment’s text and implications, shared on the show’s Facebook page
00:10:22 — No elected judges in Marion County — why that matters here
- Greene: Marion County lost the ability to elect its own judges years ago, so there is no way to vote out a judge who used this new bail authority unevenly
- Argues it’s unwise to concentrate that much discretion in one appointed official with no accountability mechanism
- Both hosts stress that an arrest is not a conviction — someone could be arrested for something “frivolous” and still lose their liberty pretrial under the new standard
00:13:26 — Political incentives: judges courting favor for appointment
- Alexander: with a Supreme Court majority seen as deferential to the Trump administration, and a tiered system of lower courts, the “one or two bad actors” concern is bigger than it sounds
- Greene: judges hoping to be appointed to higher (including federal) posts would have an incentive to deny bail aggressively to “impress” the president, particularly against people of color, since that visibility could help their career
00:15:16 — Judges already have non-bail tools; the gun-law comparison
- Alexander lists the tools ACLU data shows judges can already use short of denying bail: supervision, bail conditions, electronic monitoring, no-contact orders, treatment, drug testing, and travel restrictions
- Draws a parallel to gun-safety debates: just as advocates often note “there are already laws in place” after mass shootings, he argues the same logic applies here — existing tools are already available, and a sweeping constitutional change risks collateral damage (mistrials, dropped charges, successful not-guilty verdicts, plea deals) for people who never needed to be denied bail in the first place
00:18:01 — A Marion County example: wrongful accusation risk
- Greene cites a real Marion County case near Riverside Park in which a police officer initially claimed a young Black man pointed a weapon, and video later showed that wasn’t true
- Argues that under a no-bail standard, that same man could have been held in jail — losing a job, housing stability, and more — based on an initial accusation that didn’t hold up
- Both hosts stress they aren’t accusing all officers of this, but that the risk of a wrongful initial account is real enough that a judge shouldn’t have unchecked discretion to deny bail based on it
00:20:48 — What the ACLU’s data actually shows
- Alexander reads Indiana-specific data from the ACLU: 98.6% of people classified high risk, 98.9% classified moderate risk, and 99.4% classified low risk did not go on to commit a new violent crime
- Contrasts this with the narrative pushed by local media, social media, and the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) blaming prosecutors and “revolving door” releases for crime
- Argues the actual share of cases involved is under 2%, often closer to 1–2 cases statewide per year by Greene’s framing
00:22:45 — Why amend the Constitution for such a small number of cases?
- Greene: a change this sweeping would affect far more than the 1–2% of people it’s meant to target, since it resets due-process standards for everyone charged with a non-murder/treason offense
- Alexander draws a comparison to national rhetoric about voter fraud, which he says affects roughly .00008% of votes over 30 years, yet is used to justify large-scale changes to voting systems — arguing the bail referendum follows the same pattern of using rare cases to justify broad disruption
00:26:01 — Recap: how to actually read Public Question 1
- Back from the first break, Alexander walks through the exact ballot wording again, pointing out that the question starts with “shall” and lays out the state’s proposed new standard
- Frames the “due process” problem directly: the amendment lets the state act on what a prosecutor or judge believes before a trial has happened
- Notes that people are regularly found not guilty, have charges dropped, or see evidence or witness testimony change — all reasons due process matters before bail is denied
00:29:42 — Drawing the ICE parallel
- Alexander argues ICE’s current enforcement approach — presuming guilt, removing people without ties to or family in the countries they’re sent to, and offering no due process — mirrors what Public Question 1 would authorize domestically
- Greene agrees, and adds that how this would play out “for anybody other than a white man” could look very different, warning this puts everyone on a path similar to ICE’s enforcement model
- Both hosts conclude their recommended vote is no
00:32:09 — Caller Imhotep: misdemeanors, private prisons, and the marijuana-legalization data
- Imhotep, drawing on family members who work as attorneys, argues the criminal justice system’s daily caseload is driven by misdemeanors and petty crimes, not major felonies — meaning this referendum’s effects would “leak down” into minor cases far more than advertised
- Connects the push to the private-prison industry (citing CCA, a major private-prison operator) and its need for high occupancy to stay profitable, noting ICE enforcement has helped supply bodies to private facilities
- Cites reported prison- and jail-population drops of 50–70% in states like Colorado, Arizona, and Nevada after marijuana legalization as evidence the private-prison industry has a financial incentive to find other ways to keep facilities full
- Also raises concerns about a local public-affairs program (a prior day’s broadcast featuring Indianapolis City-County Council President Maggie Lewis) not asking tough questions about Flock camera use, the Dalys Jett investigation, and an incident involving a young man removed from a public forum
00:36:54 — Judge retention votes, explained
- Alexander: in addition to the bail question, voters will see judge retention questions — a yes/no on whether to keep a sitting judge, not a vote for new candidates, since Marion County judges aren’t elected
- Greene notes a separate process is already underway: a judicial nominating committee has sent the governor a list of 10 names to fill two upcoming judicial vacancies from retirements
00:39:23 — School-funding referendums statewide, including IPS
- Alexander: roughly 40 school districts across Indiana, including IPS in Marion County, have funding referendums on this ballot
- Frames the core questions for voters: what does the money fund, and what will it mean for property taxes?
00:40:28 — How SB1 created this wave of referendums
- Greene traces the referendums back to the legislature’s 2025 property-tax bill (SB1), which cut property taxes while also reducing direct school funding — pushing districts, inside and outside Marion County (”donut counties”), to go to voters for funding instead
- Argues this shifts the cost rather than eliminating it, and that households will feel the funding gap directly regardless of whether their property tax bill technically goes down
- Notes that the IPS referendum’s money would ultimately be controlled by IPEC, an appointed (not elected) board, which Greene says is a major source of public distrust — compounded by rising AES and Citizens Energy rate increases that make the added referendum cost harder for fixed-income households to absorb
00:44:46 — IPS says cuts are coming regardless
- Alexander: even if the IPS referendum passes, IPS has said cuts are still coming — because IPS shares referendum revenue with charter schools under current law, which limits how far the money goes
- Argues this dynamic pits IPS and the charter sector against each other for the same pool of money, and that charter schools “win either way” — if IPS loses funding, that reinforces the case for charters, and if a traditional school closes, charter operators are positioned to acquire the building cheaply
- Notes Indianapolis Star reporting suggesting this referendum could further strain, rather than mend, the formal relationship between IPS and charter operators
00:47:09 — Undisclosed school-closure plans
- Greene: IPS has already signaled publicly that some school closures are coming, but hasn’t disclosed which schools or who might take over those buildings
- Argues voters deciding on the referendum deserve to know whether their own neighborhood school is on a closure list before casting a vote they believe is “saving” it
- Frames IPEC’s decision-making as money-driven rather than centered on what’s best for students
00:49:26 — What’s missing from the ballot debate
- Alexander: nothing currently on the table guarantees what transportation, extracurricular activities (athletics, cheerleading), or related logistics will look like regardless of how the referendum vote goes
- Notes the presence of Turning Point USA programming in schools and the absence of any guaranteed counter-programming or alternative, framing it as one more example of funding gaps affecting what students actually experience day to day
00:50:22 — Caller Josephine: a plain-language gut check
- Josephine, worried about a hypothetical where a family member could be jailed indefinitely without due process over a minor offense, asks the hosts directly: is the answer “yes” or “no”?
- Greene answers simply: “No”
- Alexander ties her question back to the ballot language, explaining that voting “no” means declining to change the Constitution, and acknowledges the wording itself is confusing enough that even attorneys he’s spoken with have said so
00:52:52 — Closing: have a plan to vote
- Greene’s closing message: get a plan together, vote, and bring others — failing to participate is what allows constitutional changes like this one to pass
- Argues that whatever gets changed in the Constitution this cycle is unlikely to benefit ordinary residents, and more likely to benefit the wealthy and those already in power
