Scott sits down with Alicia Firanek, a Democratic primary candidate for Indiana House District 20 (LaPorte and Starke counties), who brings to the race a hard-won personal biography: a former cosmetologist and single mother who returned to Indiana from Georgia, landed in substandard government-subsidized housing in LaPorte, got sick, went looking for the root cause, and found a loophole-riddled affordable housing system that Indiana has declined to close — one that 32 other states have already shut down. That experience radicalized her, in the best sense: she is running on a platform of closing that housing loophole, reforming healthcare by attacking monopolistic vertical integration and expanding preventative care, repealing Indiana’s so-called right-to-work law, and raising the state’s minimum wage — still frozen at $7.25 since 2009. The conversation ranges from private equity’s role in inflating property values to the union-vs.-data-center tension roiling her northwest Indiana district, to why she believes a candidate who has lived the struggle is better positioned than one who only knows it theoretically to deliver the fierce, grounded advocacy the statehouse minority needs.
00:03:15 Easy W’s: Who, What, When, Where
- Today, April 7, is the first day of early voting in Indiana; primary day is May 5
- HD20 is located in LaPorte and Starke counties in northwest Indiana
- Alicia describes herself as a normal working person: on a W-2 since age 15, former cosmetologist, single mom
- The district sits at the urban/suburban-to-rural cusp of the northwest Indiana “region,” not far from Chicago and South Bend
- Scott notes his own Michigan City roots
00:06:03 Alicia’s Why: Housing, Illness, and the System
- After returning to Indiana from Georgia, Alicia settled in LaPorte near family rather than her hometown of Michigan City due to safety concerns
- She rented a government-subsidized apartment; substandard conditions made her and her daughter sick
- One bad housing experience wiped out two decades of financial stability: if you can’t work, you can’t pay bills
- She began researching and found a loophole in Indiana’s qualified allocation process for affordable housing subsidies
- Indiana is one of only 18 states that still allows developers to walk away from their subsidy obligations; 32 states have closed this loophole
- Developers can take the government loan, neglect the property, and then petition to be released from their original obligations
- She contacted her mayor, code enforcement, state authorities, and the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority (IHCDA) -- and got nowhere
- Conclusion: the corruption goes to the top, and she is running to change it
00:14:03 Three Things: Housing
- Alicia’s first policy priority: close the qualified allocation process loophole so affordable housing developers cannot exit their subsidy obligations
- A well-run subsidized housing program should allow low-wage earners to save money because rent isn’t consuming 50-70% of their paycheck -- but only if the properties are properly maintained
- Second housing priority: reform lending barriers to homeownership; Alicia argues that years of on-time rent payments should qualify someone for a first-time homeowner’s loan
- Private equity is inflating property values by selling properties to themselves at inflated prices, driving up assessments and tax bills for everyone
- The medical-debt property seizure bill passed the Senate but was killed in the House this past legislative session
- Scott references House Enrolled Act 1001: aimed to increase housing stock but critics say it reduced zoning standards and bypassed local governments
- Tariffs on imported raw materials are making housing construction even more expensive
- Oversight is Alicia’s through-line: proper agency oversight could have prevented many of the abuses she experienced
00:26:39 Three Things: Healthcare
- Alicia’s second priority: healthcare, which she frames as inseparable from housing -- bad housing is a determinant of health, as is poverty and food insecurity
- She has personally gone to bed hungry to feed her daughter; she survived on neighbors’ dinners four nights a week after her daughter’s father left
- She pushed back on Scott’s framing that single-payer is impossible at the state level: she asked Sen. Rodney Pol directly at a town hall whether Indiana could lead the country on a state-based universal system; he agreed healthcare could be a unifying issue
- The real problem: healthcare monopolies that own the pharmacy, the hospital, and the clinics and set their own prices
- Preventative care is the economic common-sense argument: a $100 dental visit prevents a $6,000 emergency extraction
- Medicaid and Medicare spending keeps rising precisely because preventative care is not being delivered
- The system is backwards: it is more profitable to treat sick people than to keep them well
00:33:00 Three Things: Wages and Workers
- Alicia’s third priority: wages and worker power
- Indiana’s minimum wage is $7.25 and has not moved since 2009
- Her proposal: corporations whose employees need food stamps or Medicaid because they don’t provide living wages or benefits should lose their corporate tax breaks
- Corporations contribute only 3.1% to Indiana’s general fund; workers are carrying the tax burden
- She supports repealing Indiana’s right-to-work law
- Approximately 1,600 NIPSCO utility workers are currently locked out; another 800-1,000 BP oil refinery workers in Whiting are also affected
- She references Zohran Mamdani’s work on the fast food workers union in New York as a model
- Alicia supports organized labor across all industries -- including a tenants union in her area
00:38:10 Threading the Needle: Unions vs. Data Centers
- Data centers are proliferating across northwest Indiana, particularly in LaPorte County and the New Prairie/St. Joe County area
- They consume enormous amounts of power and water; Indiana deregulated environmental protections to fast-track them
- The tension: construction of these massive projects creates good union jobs upfront, but long-term employment is minimal
- Indiana specifically is being targeted for AI data centers, which are even more resource-intensive than standard data centers
- LaPorte County has an annexation meeting coming up to potentially rezone 1,500 acres of agricultural land for data center development
- The Michigan City example: Mayor Angie Nelson Deutsch’s administration fast-tracked approvals, much of it behind closed doors, and labor got cut out; a worker fell through a roof during construction and contaminated soil was hauled off
- Scott also cites Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett’s controversy over siting a data center in a historically Black neighborhood
- Alicia’s framework: not anti-data-center in principle, but communities must require a labor agreement before approving any variance or contract; they should be sited on brownfields or reclaimed industrial land, built with green energy and closed-loop cooling systems
- The Republican-controlled legislature’s strategy: starve municipalities of revenue so they become desperate enough to accept any deal that comes along
00:45:06 Why Alicia Is the Best Candidate in This Primary
- HD-20 has a contested Democratic primary; the incumbent Republican is Rep. Jim Pressel, who also faces a primary challenger
- Alicia was the second Democrat to file for the seat
- Her case: the party needs candidates who have actually lived the struggle -- not politicians who know it theoretically -- to inspire the voters who have been sitting out because nothing ever seems to change
- She is an underdog and knows it, but frames her candidacy as a long-term commitment regardless of the May 5 outcome
- The fault line in this primary mirrors a broader Democratic Party divide: go-along-to-get-along bipartisanship vs. anchoring firmly in progressive values in a supermajority red statehouse
- Alicia’s pitch: she has been forced to engage with Republicans because that’s her entire community and local government -- she knows how to navigate it while not surrendering her principles
- She is motivated by her eight-year-old daughter and the generations that follow
00:54:47 How to Help
- Facebook: Alicia for IN State Representative
- Campaign email: electaliciaHD20@protonmail.com
- Donate on ActBlue
- Volunteers needed for door-knocking and phone banking before May 5
- Name spelling for podcast listeners: A-L-I-C-I-A F-I-R-A-N-E-K
