The Indiana State Constitution is the supreme legal authority inside Indiana, adopted in 1851 to replace the state’s original 1816 charter. It defines the rights you hold against state and local government, organizes the three branches of state government, caps your property taxes, controls how the state borrows money, and sets the only process by which any of those rules can be changed. Every statute the General Assembly passes has to stay within its limits.
The Rights It Gives You
Article 1 is Indiana’s Bill of Rights. It runs nearly 40 sections and opens with the declaration that all power belongs to the people, who hold a permanent right to alter or reform their government. Indiana courts treat that as the foundational principle against which government action is measured, not as ceremonial language.1Justia. Indiana Constitution Article 4 – Legislative
Section 9 protects your right to speak and write freely on any subject while holding you responsible for abuses of that right. The criminal-defense protections are unusually detailed. Section 13 guarantees a public trial before an impartial jury in the county where the offense occurred, the right to counsel, the right to learn the specific accusations, and the right to confront witnesses in person. Section 14 bars trying you twice for the same offense and prohibits compelled self-incrimination.2Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Constitution
Sections 2 through 6 protect religious freedom. You cannot be forced to attend, build, or financially support any house of worship. The state cannot prefer any faith, impose a religious test for public office, or spend treasury funds on religious institutions.2Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Constitution
Search and Seizure Protections Beyond the Fourth Amendment
Section 11 uses the same words as the Fourth Amendment, but the Indiana Supreme Court applies a different test. Instead of asking whether you had a reasonable expectation of privacy, Indiana courts weigh the reasonableness of the police conduct under the totality of the circumstances, balancing three things: the strength of the suspicion, the intrusiveness of the search method, and the law enforcement need. That framework sometimes gives you more protection than federal law. The Indiana Supreme Court has held, for example, that police need at least reasonable suspicion before searching trash left out for collection, while the U.S. Supreme Court has said the Fourth Amendment imposes no such requirement.3FindLaw. Litchfield v State
Section 15 adds a protection with no direct federal counterpart: no person who is arrested or held in jail may be treated with unnecessary rigor.2Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Constitution That gives Indiana inmates and arrestees a state claim that does not depend on the Eighth Amendment.
How State Government Is Built
Article 3 splits power among legislative, executive, and judicial departments. A person holding official duties in one branch cannot exercise functions of another except where the constitution expressly allows it.4Justia. Indiana Constitution Article 3 – Distribution of Powers
Article 4 vests legislative authority in a General Assembly made up of a Senate capped at 50 members and a House of Representatives capped at 100.1Justia. Indiana Constitution Article 4 – Legislative Article 5 places executive power in a Governor who serves a four-year term and cannot hold the office for more than eight years in any twelve-year stretch. A Lieutenant Governor serves alongside the Governor for the same term.5Justia. Indiana Constitution Article 5 – Executive
The Governor has seven days after receiving a bill to sign it, veto it, or do nothing. Inaction turns the bill into law on the eighth day. A veto sends the bill back to the chamber of origin, and here Indiana stands apart from most states: overriding the veto takes only a majority of all members elected to each chamber, not a two-thirds supermajority.2Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Constitution Only a handful of states set the bar that low, which leaves the legislature comparatively stronger relative to the governor.
How Indiana Picks Its Justices
Article 7 creates the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals, with circuit courts and other trial courts established by statute.6Justia. Indiana Constitution Article 7 – Judicial The Supreme Court has a Chief Justice and between four and eight associate justices.
Indiana does not hold popular elections for its highest courts. A seven-member Judicial Nominating Commission screens candidates and sends the Governor a list of three nominees, from which the Governor must pick one. The Chief Justice chairs the commission, three members are attorneys elected by other lawyers, and three are non-lawyer citizens appointed by the Governor. No member may hold a political party position. After appointment, a justice serves until the next general election following two years on the bench, when voters decide whether to retain the justice. A retained justice serves a ten-year term and can keep standing for retention after that.6Justia. Indiana Constitution Article 7 – Judicial
Property Tax Caps and Limits on State Debt
Article 10 governs taxation and finance, and its most practical provision for homeowners is the constitutional cap on property taxes that took effect for taxes first due in 2012. The caps are tied to gross assessed value and vary by property type:
- Owner-occupied homes: no more than 1% of assessed value
- Other residential property and agricultural land: no more than 2% of assessed value
- Commercial and other real property: no more than 3% of assessed value
Because the caps sit in the constitution itself, the legislature cannot raise them without going through the full amendment process.7FindLaw. Constitution of the State of Indiana Art. 10, Sect. 1 If you own a home assessed at $200,000, your total property tax bill cannot exceed $2,000 no matter how many overlapping taxing districts apply to your parcel.
The constitution also sharply restricts state borrowing. The General Assembly cannot take on debt except to cover temporary revenue shortfalls, pay interest on existing state debt, or respond to invasion or insurrection.8Indiana Historical Bureau. The 1851 Indiana Constitution by David G Vanderstel The state also cannot lend its credit to any private person, company, or corporation.9Justia. Indiana Constitution Article 11 – Corporations Those limits date back to the 1851 drafters, who had just watched the state’s canal and railroad borrowing collapse under the Mammoth Internal Improvements Act of 1836.
Voting Rights
Article 2 opens by declaring that all elections shall be free and equal. To vote you must be a U.S. citizen, at least 18, and a resident of your precinct for at least 30 days before the election. General elections fall on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.10Justia. Indiana Constitution Article 2 – Suffrage and Election
Section 8 lets the General Assembly strip voting rights from anyone convicted of an infamous crime. In practice, Indiana law takes voting rights away only during active incarceration. Once released, your right to vote is automatically restored, even if you remain on parole, probation, or home detention. People held in jail awaiting trial who have not been convicted keep the right to vote. Section 12 also shields voters from arrest on Election Day, and while traveling to and from the polls, in all cases except treason, felony, and breach of the peace.10Justia. Indiana Constitution Article 2 – Suffrage and Election
Public Schools as a Constitutional Duty
Article 8 treats education as a constitutional obligation rather than a policy choice. Section 1 declares that widespread knowledge is essential to preserving a free government and directs the General Assembly to provide a “general and uniform system of Common Schools” that are tuition-free and open to everyone. The constitution also created a permanent Common School Fund drawn from land sales, bank taxes, fines, and other revenue. The principal of the fund can never be reduced; only the interest can be spent, and only on common schools.11Justia. Indiana Constitution Article 8 – Education
How the Constitution Can Be Changed
Article 16 makes amendment deliberately slow. A proposed amendment must first pass both the House and Senate by a majority of all elected members. The proposal then waits for a new General Assembly, elected at the next general election, to consider it. That second General Assembly must approve the identical language by a majority in both chambers. Only then does the amendment go to voters at the following general election, where a majority of those voting on the question can put it into the constitution.12Justia. Indiana Constitution Article 16 – Amendments
The requirement that two separately elected legislatures approve the same text is the key safeguard. It guarantees at least one intervening general election, giving voters a chance to weigh in on their legislators’ records before the amendment ever reaches the ballot. The 1851 constitution dropped the earlier document’s provision allowing voters to call a constitutional convention, so Article 16 is now the only path for changing Indiana’s foundational law.13Indiana State Government. Indiana’s Constitutional Past by Justice Brent E Dickson
How It Fits with Federal Law
When a state constitutional provision directly conflicts with valid federal law, federal law wins under the Supremacy Clause. Indiana’s constitution cannot authorize the state to do something federal law forbids. The relationship runs one way, though. A state constitution cannot take away rights the federal Constitution guarantees, but it can add protections on top of the federal floor. Indiana’s independent search-and-seizure analysis under Section 11 is the clearest example. The Fourth Amendment sets a minimum, and Indiana builds above it with a framework that sometimes gives residents more room to challenge police conduct. You hold rights under both documents, and when the state constitution is more protective, the stronger standard applies.