Mike Delph

In your view, what was the most important issue to come out of this year’s legislative session, and how would you have approached legislating the issue?

I’ve been getting a lot of calls from the veterans community and concerns about benefits being taken away from disabled veterans. As a veteran myself, that concerns me.

The whole data center deal is a huge issue because of the impact on the grid, on energy production, and, most importantly, because of the potential negative impact on ratepayers.

Companies proposing data centers in Indianapolis had touted jobs and local tax revenue as benefits. Residents, many of whom have fiercely opposed the proposals, are concerned about pollution, energy bills and property values. What is your stance on the future of data centers in Indianapolis?

The west side is very unique and very diverse. We have Eagle Creek Reservoir and Eagle Creek Park, and data centers would negatively impact the quality of life there. I’m also concerned about private property rights. The energy company sent out nastrygram letters that if people don’t sell part of their land to lay piping, there’d be an eminent domain action on them, which to me is crazy. I believe in strong private property rights, but I also don’t like the idea of messing up one of the most pristine ecosystems in all of Indianapolis because of this quest for ever more AI and ever more power for all of these data centers. I think we need to have a heart-to-heart about how important this is to the community over the long term. People were told there would be jobs and tax revenue. I think people are now starting to feel the personal pain that wasn’t advertised when they were first introduced. I think we need to really have an honest discussion about the second, third and fourth order effects from all of this, and where it’s gonna take us as a community. I don’t believe in eminent domain to resource data centers. I don’t think that’s right.

Indianapolis residents are facing steep increases to the cost of living at the same time federal benefits are being pulled back. What is one policy you would pursue to ease the financial burden of your constituents?

We’ve got to get the cost of government down. We’ve gotta get this war over with so we don’t have the Strait of Hormuz (blockaded). One-fifth of all of our energy goes through there, and it’s basically shut down right now. We’ve got to get commodity prices down, grocery prices down, eggs, gas, all of those things people depend upon every week for their daily living. We’ve gotta get prices down so people can afford to live their lives in freedom. You do that by opening up markets, decreasing the cost of regulation. You do that by having more access to product: Supply and demand. But I’m very concerned about energy prices, in particular because of the war. I’m still an officer in the Army reserve, so I support our commander-in-chief. We need to get that done as quickly as possible.

I came out strongly against the governor’s tolling of I-70. We pay gas taxes to fund our roads, and we should not double-tax our residents and our citizens because we’ve not properly planned our road program.

More than 1 in 10 Marion County residents were born outside the country. President Donald Trump’s administration is pursuing a immigration agenda that has led to mass detentions and at times resulted in the deaths of citizens and noncitizens. What is your role in maintaining the safety and due process rights of immigrants and other residents in Marion County?

I support legal immigration. I oppose illegal immigration. I was the one that wrote the original crackdown on illegal immigration. It took me six years to get it passed, but I always believe you should go after employers that knowingly and willingly break the law, and if you did that, there would be an effort to self-deport because you wouldn’t have jobs for the illegal immigrant community. You would take the market away. I believe there should be a cold place in hell for those that exploit people who are looking for economic opportunity.

When I was carrying the immigration bill, I met with groups all over the city, and I certainly recognize that most of them are coming to seek economic opportunity. They were being paid below market wages. I chose to attack that whole issue by going after people that exploit other human beings for profit.

How should public tax dollars be spent on education? Do you support property tax funding for charter schools? Should Indiana fund students’ tuition to attend private schools?

I’m a big supporter of public education, but I also support school choice. I grew up with the public education system. I went to Carmel schools. We chose to home educate our children and it turned out to be a really good thing for them. They went on to Big Ten universities and graduated with high GPAs. That was the best fit for me and my family when I was raising my five daughters, but it’s not for everybody. It’s because of all that I’m a supporter of school choice. I don’t like public dollars going to other purposes that become fraudulent or wasteful, and that aren’t narrowly tailored toward improving education for our students.