The City of Bloomington has historically granted adjacent property owners access to the City’s wastewater services. In exchange, the City required many of these property owners to waive their to right to remonstrate against future annexation by the City. In 2019, the General Assembly passed legislation that invalidates many of these waivers and impairs the City’s annexation efforts. The City argues that, pursuant to the contract clauses of the United States and Indiana Constitutions, the legislation invalidating the waivers unlawfully impairs the City’s contracts with the landowners. The State argues that the City lacks standing to bring these challenges because the City is an instrumentality of the State and, if the City does have standing, the legislation does not unlawfully impair the City’s contracts.

The scheduled panelists are Judge May, Judge Tavitas, and Judge DeBoer.