Legislators passed a law this year that allows them to call themselves into special session during a public emergency. Holcomb's lawsuit contends that power belongs, via the Indiana Constitution, solely to the governor.

In an example of how states are casting for ways to spend the federal influx, Indiana's budget negotiators wrote in $75 million for the Career Accelerator Program -- nearly triple the $27 million going to a 2 percent increase for the state's higher education system.

Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb asked a judge in April to block the new law passed by the GOP-dominated Legislature following criticism from many conservatives over COVID-19 restrictions that Holcomb imposed.

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita is arguing that Gov. Eric Holcomb is wrongly trying to use the courts to expand his powers with a lawsuit challenging the authority state legislators have given themselves to intervene during public emergencies.

The state has been sued nine times over the last decade following passage of anti-abortion legislation.

Gov. Eric Holcomb's lawyers argue in a Monday court filing that Attorney General Todd Rokita is making "absurd" arguments that he alone has the legal authority to represent the state in court and to decide whether the new law is constitutional.

Local health officials across Indiana can no longer impose emergency rules stricter than the states after Republicans overrode the governors veto. Local legislative bodies county commissioners or city councils will have to enact those restrictions instead.

Indiana legislators are returning to the Statehouse for a possible vote on overriding the governors veto of a bill giving local elected officials the power to block county or city public health orders issued during emergencies.

Advocates for nursing home residents say they worry a new Indiana law expanding COVID-19 liability protections for health care providers will effectively block many lawsuits over neglect and substandard treatment that weren't caused by the pandemic.

Gov. Eric Holcomb's veto of a bill tying the hands of local health officials during emergencies may have only postponed the inevitable.