Tempers flared among legislators during a debate Thursday morning at the Statehouse when Black lawmakers were shouted down and booed by some Republicans.
Two House members also had to be separated in a hallway outside the House chamber after the incident.
Democratic Rep. Greg Porter of Indianapolis, who is Black, was speaking on the floor of the House against a bill allowing a rural, mostly white St. Joseph County township to leave South Bend Community School Corp., which is about 60% Black or Hispanic, when he called the proposal discriminatory.
The bill in question, House Bill 1367, was authored by Rep. Jake Teshka, R-South Bend, who contends the purpose of the bill is to resolve transportation issues.
Several Republican members said loudly “no” and “stop,” after which Porter, who was wearing traditional African clothing in recognition of Black History Month, left the House meeting room, according to The Associated Press.
Rep. Vernon Smith, D-Gary, also spoke in opposition of the bill after Porter left and voiced his concerns of discrimination.
Rep. Jim Lucas, R-Seymour, who spoke to The Tribune about the incident Friday morning, said he didn’t think HB 1367 was racist.
“Rep. Teshka, he’s just trying to help his local community out, he’s representing his district,” he said. “Then several Democrats got up there impugning his motive and implying that it was racially motivated, which is nothing further from the truth, and that really upset a lot of people in the galley, you know, representatives. And they found offense to that, and there was booing going on.”
Lucas said after HB 1367 was repeatedly accused of being racially discriminatory by lawmakers, he stood up and asked House Speaker Todd Huston for a point of order.
Smith again accused the bill of being racially discriminatory after Lucas called for the point of order, Lucas said.
In response, Lucas said he stood up, turned around and said to his nearest colleagues, “Walk out so we don’t have to listen to this.”
Lucas said media outlets have been inaccurate in how they’ve reported on what he said in the House because he didn’t shout what he said.
“If we treated the media like we do gun owners, half you guys would be in jail for your irresponsibility,” Lucas said. “I did not yell it. I said it loud enough that those in the immediate vicinity might have heard me.”
After making the comment, some Republican lawmakers left the chamber with Lucas.
When asked if walking off of the House floor was an appropriate response to what the lawmakers were saying, he said, “Give me a better thing to do. Sit there and listen to it? It’s not like we’re leaving to go to Illinois like the Democrats did 10 years ago.”
Lucas was referring to the time Democratic House members temporarily moved to Illinois in 2011 to avoid voting on legislation that was considered to be anti-union.
“We’re going out in the hallway. We’re taking a little break to let things cool down because tensions were getting high,” he said. “I’ve always been of the belief that when tensions get high like that, you call a timeout and settle down a little bit. That makes perfect sense to me. It’s not like we were leaving the building or anything. We were just going back out in the hallway.”
In the hallway, Lucas said Rep. Vanessa Summers, D-Indianapolis, another Black lawmaker, confronted him, calling him racist and prejudiced.
“I told her, ‘Ness, I walked out of here to get away from that. You guys can go in there and talk,’ and she brought it to me and that’s when Rep. (Sean) Eberhart (R-Shelbyville) had came over,” Lucas said. “She was pretty hot. (Eberhart) tried to calm her down.”
A confrontation soon erupted in the hallway between Eberhart and Summers, and they were separated by other legislators, according to The AP.
Summers said she doesn’t remember what was said in the heat of the moment but admitted she “has a mouth” and may have used strong language. She said she was calling out another Republican (Lucas), though, when Eberhart thought she was talking to him.
“He just went off and got mad and tried to hit me,” Summers told The Indianapolis Star. “I felt in danger for my life.”
Lucas said there was no physical altercation, and Summers had been calling Eberhart expletives.
“It’s kind of odd, if you’re in fear for your life, then why are you chasing someone out of a hallway?” Lucas said. “The lies, the misrepresentation, the constant accusation of being called a racist is getting thin. People are fed up with it.”
Eberhart told The AP he was called a racist and verbally attacked by Summers.
“I was confronted by Vanessa and accused of being discriminatory and racist toward people in general,” Eberhart said. “That’s totally not factual. I don’t have a racist bone in my body.”
HB 1367 calls for the deannexation of neighborhoods that are currently part of South Bend Community School Corp., which is mostly non-white, and move them to John Glenn School Corp., which is mostly white.
The Republican-dominated House narrowly approved the school district bill on a 52-43 vote as 14 Republicans joined Democrats in voting against the proposal.
Huston later urged all legislators to show respect for each other and not question the motives of others.
“We’re going to disagree. That’s part of the process,” Huston said. “But we’re going to do it in a respectful way. I’m going to enforce our rules in a more strident manner.”
Summers, a House member since 1991, said relationships between Republicans and Democrats feel different this session, fueled by debates over racism following last year’s deaths of George Floyd and other unarmed Black people at the hands of police.
“Everybody over there is racist and discriminatory,” Summers said of House Republicans in news accounts of the incident. “Those that aren’t and are not standing up for what’s right, they’ve got white privilege and they’re racist, too.”
Lucas said he disagreed with Summers’ statement.
“We have white privilege because of our skin? That’s another thing I find vile and reprehensible, and I find that vile and reprehensible as I do racism,” he said. “Racism is horrible. It’s vile. It’s reprehensible. Yes, we should do everything to combat it, but there are too many people that have weaponized the accusation of racism, and that’s what leads to incidents that happened yesterday.”
Lucas denounced the media’s coverage of the House incident, saying the coverage he saw made the Republican party look bad.
“I find it reprehensible that all the media reports I’ve seen so far are making the Republican Party out to be the bad guys,” he said. “Nothing’s further from the truth. We’ve taken the high road on this time and time again, but to constantly be accused of being racist, as you saw Rep. Summers’ quote, that is as racist a comment as you can make. Had I said something like that, you can only imagine the outcry.”