IFI Releases 2026 Legislative Scorecard
Indiana’s 2026 Legislative Session was one for the books. We saw meaningful victories for religious liberty, parental rights, and the protection of Indiana children. Your faithful support made every one of these victories possible. Every year, to summarize our legislative wins and honor those who made them possible, we craft a Legislative Scorecard with the session’s most important bills. We are pleased to share this year’s highly anticipated scorecard with you today!
Here’s a rundown of several key bills we graded lawmakers on this year:
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY FOR ADOPTION AND FOSTER CARE:
HB 1389 by Rep. Shane Lindauer prohibits the state from discriminating against adoption agencies, foster parents, foster care providers, or adoptive parents based on their religious beliefs. At a time when Indiana urgently needs more foster and adoptive homes, the bill removes discriminatory barriers that have pushed willing families and faith-based organizations out of the system—reducing options for children who need safe, loving, and permanent homes.
RESTRICTIONS ON SOCIAL MEDIA USE FOR MINORS:
HB 1408 by Rep. Robert Behning requires social media platforms to seek verifiable parental consent for adolescent users (under 16) to be account holders and defaults Indiana adolescents’ accounts into a highly restricted, parent-supervised version of the platform, with certain addictive features disabled, such as no targeted algorithms, limited messaging, no public discoverability, and built-in time controls.
PERMISSIBLE UNSUPERVISED ACTIVITY:
HB 1035 by Rep. Jake Teshka provides that a child is not a child in need of services solely because a parent allows the child to engage in an unsupervised, independent activity, including playing outside, riding their bike, or walking to school. House Bill 1035 makes clear that age-appropriate independence is not neglect, and that state intervention should be reserved for situations involving real danger or reckless disregard for a child’s safety. Parents are best positioned to decide what independent activity is appropriate for their children.
SUCCESS SEQUENCE
SB 88 by Sen. Gary Byrne mandates that part of the mandatory public school curriculum include how to be a good citizen, specifically teaching the importance of obtaining a high school diploma and other training before entering the workforce, securing full-time employment, and waiting until marriage to begin having children (also known as the Success Sequence). Research shows that young adults who follow the success sequence have dramatically lower rates of poverty in adulthood.
These bills only scratch the surface of important wins accomplished this session, but they serve as excellent markers of lawmakers’ commitment to conservative values. View the full scorecard by clicking the image below:
Senators and Representatives with green shading are in our 100% Club for voting for pro-life, pro-family, and pro-freedom policies consistently and without exception. If your elected official is in the 100% Club, please reach out and thank them! This distinction deserves recognition and praise.
Legislators in blue voted in alignment with IFI values 80% to 90% of the time. Those highlighted in yellow were headed in the right direction, but made at least a few votes contrary to Indiana’s best interests. Orange and red shading mark legislators who consciously voted to hurt Hoosier families and dismantle traditional values in our state.
These officials need to hear from you as well – especially those highlighted in yellow. Scoring from 55% to 73%, these legislators clearly care about some conservative values, but they need encouragement from their constituents to remain faithful to pro-life, pro-family, and pro-freedom bills.
We hope this legislative scorecard is a tool you can use to stay informed, vote responsibly, and engage in Indiana’s political process. We encourage you to share this scorecard with your friends, family, and in your spheres of influence so that they can do the same.