What's dead and alive halfway through Indiana legislative session

Zoom in: Here are the big ideas we're still watching, and those that didn't make it.

🟢 Budget sent to Senate

Arguably the only bill that can't die this session is the budget, which the House passed last week.

• The Senate will now get its chance at drafting a two-year spending plan, and we'll see just how close it aligns with the House's $46.7 billion draft.
• A compromise budget bill is expected in late April after the final revenue forecast.

🟢 Transgender athlete participation moves

An effort to extend Indiana's ban on transgender girls and women participating in female sports to the college level passed the House.

• Participation at the K-12 level was banned by a 2022 law.

🟢 Annexing Illinois greenlit

House Speaker Todd Huston's bill throwing shade at Illinois has been sent to the Senate.

Catch up quick: Huston drafted legislation that would allow Illinois counties to secede from their "high-tax" state and join Indiana.

Between the lines: We're also trying to steal their sports teams.

• A bill designed to lure the Chicago Bears to Northwest Indiana passed the House last week to stay alive for the second half of session.

🧐 Partisan school boards still uncertain

Senate Bill 287, which would make Indiana's school board elections partisan, has been sent to the House, where a similar proposal died last week.

Why it matters: School board members who have opposed similar bills in previous years have done so over concerns about injecting politics into education policy and deterring would-be board members from running if they have to do so with a party affiliation.

The other side: Supporters have argued the measure would give voters more information about candidates and increase turnout for those races.

🏗️ Property tax bill needs work

The Senate sent a property tax overhaul to the House, but it's not the one Gov. Mike Braun wanted.

• He's threatening to veto Senate Bill 1 if the House doesn't make it more favorable to homeowners.

• Another bill that would require school districts to share property tax revenue with charter schools also passed the Senate.

💀 Dead bills

Hundreds of bills die at the Statehouse each year.

Yes, but: Session's not over until it's over.

• Ideas have been known to come back from the dead as amendments to other bills later in the session.

Here are bills we were watching that didn't make it:

• The Indianapolis Public Schools district is safe from dissolution after the failure of a bill that would have turned IPS and four other districts that enroll fewer than half the students who live within their boundaries into charter schools.
• A ban on public camping, which opponents say would outlaw homelessness, died on the House floor.
• A bill that would have required county sheriffs to participate in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's 287(g) program, which trains officers and then allows them to perform certain functions of immigration enforcement within their jails, never made it out of committee.
• Indiana's primary elections will stay open after a bill to close them to anyone not registered with the party failed to make it off the Senate floor.
• Another elections bill, this one to shorten the early voting period, also failed.