As people are beginning to anticipate the 2026 elections, one office that will be up for a vote is state senator for District 47. This district includes Harrison County, Washington County, and most of Floyd County.

Local businessman Ethan Sweetland-May has launched a campaign for state senate, helping our community become even more successful.  He is running as a Democrat against Republican Garry Byrne.

“No matter where we live or what we look like, Hoosiers overwhelmingly agree that every child deserves the freedom to learn in a well-funded public school with good class sizes and access to the arts, technology, and extracurriculars,” Sweetland-May said. “Public education is the most foundational pathway to a more free and prosperous Indiana.”

The state senator is a member of a state’s legislature, and their primary role is to represent the people of their specific district by introducing and voting on laws that affect the state, often focusing on education and local projects.

Sweetland-May emphasizes his primary concerns when enhancing student learning. To satisfy and meet the needs of his constituents, he focuses on the funding aspects in order to accommodate students and teachers.

“My top priorities are fully funding public schools and raising teacher pay,” Sweetland-May said. “Our current state leadership has cut more than $10 million from the school budgets in our district alone over the next three years. Added to that, 39% of college graduates are leaving our state within a year of graduation, and 50% leave within five years- that includes newly graduated educators, of which we are sorely in need, with nearly 1000 vacant teacher jobs in our state. We need to make sure every neighborhood school is a place where kids can learn, grow, and thrive, and the most direct and impactful way to achieve that goal is to listen to our educators and invest in our schools by returning teacher pay to the standard of dignity it should afford.”

Considering the main concerns of his constituents, Sweetland-May’s focus revolves around efforts to make an improved community for District 47.

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“People in Southern Indiana want good jobs, strong schools, affordable healthcare, and affordable housing. Wages have been stagnant in our state and the cost of living never stops going up. Everyone I talk to is tired of being told to settle for less while big corporations and politicians enjoy being on the profiting end of the largest wealth disparity ever to exist in American history,” Sweetland-May said. “I’ve been going to work since was sixteen years old, I’ve worked on a garbage truck all across our area for 11years, and I have found that no matter our race, religion, or where we live, we all want the same thing: to care for our families, make a good living, and know our kids have a bright future here at home. More and more Hoosiers agree that our struggle today isn’t less about left vs. right, it’s about everyday people vs. powerful elites.”

Sweetland-May considers the frustration felt by many teachers and students in Indiana due to standardized testing, emphasizing the importance of recognizing different levels of intelligence in schools.

“Echoing educators across our state for the last decade, I support maintaining accountability, but not at the expense of real instruction. Our kids deserve real learning, not endless test prep. Meaningful efforts are being made to improve the landscape of standardized testing in our state, but there is more to be done,” he said. “I believe in measuring learning in ways that support growth, not stress. We should reduce the weight of standardized tests and free up teachers so they have more time to actually educate. We know the saying, ‘If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.’ As every employer and entrepreneur knows, there is not one kind of intelligence and there is not one standard for measuring aptitude.”

Some citizens believe that schools should be community centers that meet students’ physical and mental health needs. According to the Bowen Center, nearly half of high school students reported experiencing depression, and more than 65% of them were unable to access care in 2024. 

“For many students in our communities, school is where they get meals, counseling, mentorship, and safety. We should embrace that model by funding school-based health clinics, hiring more mental health counselors, and expanding after-school programs,” he said. “One way to make that possible is to elect leaders that permanently put a stop to the millions of taxpayer dollars that have been shelled out in no-bid contracts to for-profit corporations in our state, and instead make sure our resources are invested where they have the biggest impact- right here in our schools. We have seen leaders that waste hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on private helipads and luxury vehicles for their personal use, while many teachers and administrators pay for necessary school supplies out of their own paychecks. When we make our schools true community centers where students and families can receive support, we will strengthen our entire community, attract more families to our state, and boost investment and business opportunities.”

A school voucher is a government-funded scholarship that can be used by parents to pay for private school tuition and other non-public schools. Indiana uses a voucher system called the Indiana Choice Scholarship Program, which provides scholarships to students to attend private schools. 

“The bedrock of good governance is that all public money has public oversight, and the current voucher program doesn’t satisfy that standard,” he said. “Nearly all private institutions do not want the same public oversight that we require of our public schools. Funneling taxpayer money into private institutions that don’t have to play by the same rules is inherently problematic. If we truly believe in freedom and fairness, we should make sure public money supports public schools.”

Sweetland-May shares his views on how Indiana is helping to support students coming from low-income backgrounds to have equal access to employment opportunities.

“Right now, we aren’t doing enough. James Heckman, a Nobel Laureate in Economics, said, ‘The best investment is in early childhood development. The highest rate of return comes from investing as early as possible.’ Expanding access to affordable childcare and subsidized Pre-K is the clearest and most certain way to raise the prospects for EVERY student in Indiana,” he said. “Students from low-income backgrounds deserve exactly the support anyone would hope for if the roles were reversed. No one’s future should depend on their ZIP code or their parents’ income. The soul of our state is revealed by how we invest in our kids, and it’s time for a revival of commitment to public education.”

“This campaign is about restoring our shared freedom to thrive, to live with dignity, and to regain opportunity and prosperity for everyone. Indiana has all the talent and heart in the world; what we need is leadership that believes in every Hoosier kid and invests in our community instead of giving handouts to the powerful few. When we come together across our differences, there’s nothing we can’t build.”