Produced by:
Progressive Indiana Network : https:/www.progressiveindiana.net
Moderator:
Scott Aaron Rogers: https://hoosleft.us/
Candidates:
Carl Stutsman: https://carlstutsman4in.org/
Emily Yaw: Campaign Facebook
SUMMARY:
Scott Aaron Rogers moderates the Progressive Indiana Network’s Democratic primary debate for Indiana House District 48, covering Cleveland, Osolo, and Washington townships and portions of Baugo and Concord Township in northern Elkhart County. The two candidates — Carl Stutsman, a former community journalist and lifelong Elkhart County resident, and Emily Yaw, an accountant and foster parent turned first-time candidate — cover ten questions across four topic areas: economy and affordability, healthcare, education and childcare, and public safety and immigration. Both candidates express skepticism of Republican supermajority priorities including SEA 1 (property tax relief), the 2026 SEA 1 (Medicaid and SNAP restrictions), and the universal school voucher expansion, while finding common ground on utility reform, publicly funded childcare, and immigrant community protection. The debate closes with a “HoosLeft Asks HoosRight?” speed round in which both candidates align on rejecting public stadium subsidies, affirm trans rights as human rights, side with critics of hyperscale data center subsidies, support Blythe Potter over Beau Bayh on donor integrity, and oppose Flock Safety license plate cameras.
BREAKDOWN:
00:00:22 — Opening / Welcome
- Rogers outlines the format: opening statements, four topic areas with 90-second responses, the “HoosLeft Asks HoosRight?” speed round, and closing statements.
00:03:01 — Opening Statements
- Emily Yaw opens by describing herself as a regular person — an accountant active in her church — who entered politics through foster care advocacy after witnessing how broken the system is for vulnerable children.
- Carl Stutsman’s opening is briefly delayed by a technical audio dropout; once reconnected, he introduces himself as a blue-collar, former community journalist whose family has deep Elkhart County roots going back to the mid-1800s, and frames his candidacy around listening, effective change, and long-term community investment.
00:06:26 — Question 1: Priorities in a Supermajority Environment
- Rogers frames the question: Republicans control both chambers and the governorship — what is one thing each candidate could realistically accomplish from the minority, and how?
- Yaw says her priority is DCS oversight and accountability for the 50-60 children who die annually from abuse and neglect in Indiana, and says she’s willing to work across the aisle and publicly shame Republicans who block progress.
- Stutsman identifies utility rates as a viable bipartisan entry point, arguing that reining in what NIPSCO and Indiana-Michigan Power charge ratepayers is an issue Republicans and Democrats share, and that it opens the door to broader energy conversations.
00:09:13 — Question 2: Tax Fairness and SEA 1 (2025)
- Rogers breaks down Senate Enrolled Act 1 of 2025: homeowners got up to $300; large property holders and businesses got growing exemptions; cities, counties, and school districts are projected to absorb hundreds of millions in losses. Braun’s response to local officials: “prove it” and “do more with less.”
- Stutsman calls SEA 1 bad news for local governments and says the state needs alternative revenue sources, naming marijuana legalization as one example; he argues the tax burden must shift toward businesses and high earners and away from middle- and lower-income Hoosiers.
- Yaw agrees the bill helped companies at the expense of regular Hoosiers, argues fairness requires shared burden, and says she would push to reinstate corporate taxes — not to drive businesses out, but because they benefit from Indiana’s labor and infrastructure and should contribute accordingly.
00:12:41 — Question 3: Utility Monopolies and HEA 1002
- Rogers describes HEA 1002 as a modest step toward performance-based rate making, noting Democrats’ amendments — rate caps, eliminating sales tax on residential bills, blocking private equity from acquiring utilities — were all voted down. He asks whether the bill was sufficient and whether Indiana should debate public ownership of utilities.
- Yaw says it was nowhere near enough and links the status quo to Trump’s hostility toward alternative energy; she supports community solar with school career centers involved in installation as a practical alternative to continued reliance on coal and monopoly pricing.
- Stutsman cites NIPSCO’s ongoing labor strikes in Northwest Indiana as evidence of the dysfunction, says the IURC has become a politically motivated rubber stamp for the governor, and while acknowledging public ownership would be a massive conversation, says the principle — that infrastructure built for the public shouldn’t be priced by private shareholders — is the right direction.
00:16:45 — Question 4: Elkhart County’s Single-Industry Economy
- Rogers notes Elkhart County produces 80–85% of the world’s RVs — a legacy and a vulnerability. Unemployment hit nearly 20% in the Great Recession and the county set a record for single-week unemployment claims (nearly 10,000) when COVID shutdowns hit in spring 2020.
- Stutsman, who covered Elkhart as a journalist and saw 24% unemployment in 2012, confirms the county is too dependent on one industry; he notes diversification exists (citing Elkhart Brass, which supplies most U.S. fire department nozzles) and calls on the state to actively recruit new industry to leverage the region’s labor force.
- Yaw, who works at ATC Trailers, says tariffs are currently making things worse and points to businesses already internally diversifying across product lines as the right model; she favors keeping economic decisions local rather than state-directed.
00:21:07 — Question 5: Medicaid, SNAP, and SEA 1 (2026)
- Rogers distinguishes the 2026 SEA 1 from the 2025 property tax bill of the same number: this session’s top Senate Republican priority tightened Medicaid and SNAP eligibility, added immigration status verification for entire households, and cut the Healthy Indiana Plan renewal period from 12 to 6 months. Per Hoosier Action, more than 100,000 Hoosiers could lose Medicaid coverage. Indiana’s rules are now more restrictive than what the Trump administration has imposed federally.
- Yaw calls for state-level universal health coverage, rejects the “waste, fraud, and abuse” justification as unsupported by actual fraud data, and argues that spending more money on means-testing while kids go hungry and families lose homes to medical costs is an indefensible trade-off.
- Stutsman says HIP must be expanded and could serve as the foundation for a statewide health insurance plan; he makes the small-business case for socialized health care, arguing that eliminating employer-subsidized premium contributions frees up capital while pooling resources more effectively.
00:25:54 — Question 6: Indiana’s Abortion Ban and Maternal Healthcare Infrastructure
- Rogers frames this not as a values question but a logistics one: Indiana has the third-highest maternal mortality rate in the country (2022), maternity wards are closing, OBGYNs are leaving to avoid prosecution, residency applications dropped more than 9% post-ban, IU School of Medicine is sending OB residents to Illinois for training, and one in four Indiana counties is already a maternity care desert. What can a minority caucus member actually do?
- Stutsman says the abortion ban casts a shadow over every practical intervention; he calls for investing in community health organizations that are filling gaps, acknowledges those organizations are struggling, and says restoring women’s bodily autonomy is a conversation that should have been settled long ago.
- Yaw says her perspective as a Christian gives her visibility into both sides of the debate; she would push for increased adoption and support services funding if the ban persists, but says her preferred path is investing in emerging artificial womb technology that could offer a third option — safely transferring a fetus rather than forcing a binary choice between abortion and birth.
00:30:04 — Question 7: Public Education and Universal Vouchers
- Rogers notes Indiana’s constitution requires a free, uniform public education system; Republicans have spent a decade defunding it in favor of privatization. The voucher program now costs nearly half a billion dollars a year, and this upcoming school year Indiana becomes a universal voucher state with no income cap.
- Yaw opposes vouchers, using the analogy of a boat with leaks — pulling people off into better boats doesn’t fix the boat for those left behind. She especially flags foster kids and children in poverty as vulnerable populations harmed by voucher flight and calls for reinvesting in public schools with more local curriculum flexibility.
- Stutsman is unequivocal: every dollar that can go to public education should go to public education, and private schools should not receive another cent of public money. He notes school districts are now holding referendums just to fund busing and that Indiana still does not provide universal free school lunches despite once having that program.
00:34:59 — Question 8: Childcare as a Right
- Rogers details the childcare crisis: the state voucher program is closed to new enrollees, the waitlist has topped 30,000 children, no new vouchers until at least 2027, and reimbursement rates were slashed — 10% for infant care, 15% for preschoolers, 35% for school-aged children. HEA 1177 passed this session but is a drop in the bucket.
- Stutsman calls childcare an absolute right, noting the contradiction in demanding workforce participation while providing no childcare infrastructure; he shares a personal story about his niece with developmental disabilities thriving in a pre-K program as evidence of what investment can do.
- Yaw agrees it’s a right and calls out the hypocrisy of imposing SNAP work requirements while refusing to fund the childcare that would make work possible; she cites Germany’s universal childcare program as a model that produced a 25% reduction in abuse and neglect cases.
00:39:12 — Question 9: Public Safety, Mental Health, and Economic Resilience
- Rogers broadens the public safety frame: in a boom-bust economy, safety threats include layoffs, housing instability, addiction, and mental health crises — not just crime.
- Yaw says safety starts with childcare and early childhood intervention, which address the root causes of mental health issues and chronic physical problems; she calls for state grants to community centers that can serve as hubs for kids, parents, and anyone needing a safe space.
- Stutsman draws on his experience with the Elkhart Citizens Police Academy to note that officers are already being asked to serve as mental health workers and mediators; he echoes Yaw’s call for community center investment and cites the Southern Indiana needle-sharing program as a model of state getting out of the way and letting communities solve their own problems.
00:43:08 — Question 10: Immigration and Immigrant Communities in District 48
- Rogers notes that about one in 10 Elkhart County residents was born outside the U.S., thousands of Indiana residents have been subject to ICE arrests since January of last year, the state has mandated cooperation from local governments, schools, and universities, and Indiana is now profiting from holding detainees at Miami Correctional Facility.
- Stutsman acknowledges the structural difficulty — state-level action requires majority votes the minority can’t deliver — but commits to amplifying the work of community organizations already protecting Goshen and Elkhart’s large Hispanic population, and calls out the reality of American citizens carrying passports to prove their identity out of fear of racial profiling.
- Yaw condemns the reopening of Miami Correctional Facility for immigration detention given its history of understaffing and above-average deaths; she calls for state-defined protected zones (schools, churches, parks) where ICE should not operate, a state-level audit unit to verify ICE is detaining people legally, and sustained legal challenges.
00:48:18 — HoosLeft Asks HoosRight? (Speed Round)
- Stadium subsidies: State Rep. Earl Harris Jr. (D-East Chicago) calls the potential Chicago Bears stadium in Hammond a once-in-a-generation opportunity; Congressman Don Beyer has co-authored legislation to end public stadium subsidies entirely. Both Yaw and Stutsman side with Beyer — no public subsidies, though Stutsman notes he is a Bears fan.
- Trans rights: Newsom and Buttigieg have both moved toward accommodating Republican framing on trans issues; Jayapal and Markey reintroduced the Transgender Bill of Rights arguing Democrats should get louder, not quieter. Both candidates side with Jayapal and Markey — trans rights are human rights.
- Data centers: Mayor Angie Nelson Deutsch and building trades unions argue data centers bring good-paying construction jobs; Citizens Action Coalition’s Ben Inskeep calls hyperscale data centers the single biggest threat to utility affordability and sustainability in Indiana this decade. Both candidates side with Inskeep.
- Money in Politics: Beau Bayh has accepted high-dollar contributions from Trump-aligned billionaires and school privatization champions; his opponent Blythe Potter argues the source of money matters. Both candidates side with Potter.
- Flock Safety cameras: South Bend Mayor James Mueller champions the license plate readers; Congressmen Raj Krishnamoorthi and Robert Garcia have launched a formal congressional investigation into Flock over ICE’s unauthorized access to the data. Both candidates side with Krishnamoorthi and Garcia.
00:54:47 — Closing Statements
- Yaw keeps it brief: she urges voters to look both candidates up, research where they stand, and vote for whoever they believe will make Indiana better — and notes that both she and Stutsman genuinely want the best candidate to win.
- Stutsman reflects on a lifetime of quiet community service — speech and debate, bunk bed drives, a decade of local journalism, a community radio show — and frames his candidacy as a continuation of that work; he closes with a call to bring Indiana back toward a government that reflects its people.
