Indiana voted. Now Warren has his hammer.
The Indiana House passed SB 27, 95-4. Braun signed it two days later. Indiana now has a law on the books creating the framework for a Bears stadium in Hammond. The Bears still haven't agreed to anything. That's the whole point.
By Dear Kevin Warren · 2026-02-24
Update, April 4, 2026: Warren's self-imposed March 30 deadline passed without a signed deal. The NFL Annual League Meeting concluded in Phoenix on April 1 with no stadium announcement. Indiana's law is still on the books. The Bears still haven't agreed to anything. The analysis below was written February 24, the night Indiana voted.
The Indiana House passed Senate Bill 27 tonight by a vote of 95 to 4.
The bill creates the Northwest Indiana Stadium Authority, establishes the financing framework for a Bears stadium near Wolf Lake in Hammond, and sets up the tax structure that would fund it. Governor Mike Braun had been cheerleading this bill since January. He signed it two days later.
Indiana now has a fully enacted law creating the infrastructure to lure the Chicago Bears across the state line.
The Bears have not agreed to anything.
That's not a footnote. That's the whole story.
What 95-4 actually means
The Senate passed SB 27 in January, 46-2. The House Ways and Means Committee passed it 24-0. The full House passed it 95-4 tonight.
Three votes. Zero meaningful opposition. An entire state legislature moved in about six weeks to pass legislation for a team that hasn't signed a term sheet, hasn't broken its Soldier Field lease, and hasn't moved a single employee out of Lake Forest.
This is what Warren wanted. A credible threat with a notarized signature.
Three years ago he was hired to build a stadium in the Chicago market. Two years ago he proposed a $4.7 billion lakefront dome and asked taxpayers for $2.4 billion. One year ago he promised shovels in the ground by end of 2025. Six weeks ago he expanded the search to Indiana because Illinois wouldn't give him what he wanted.
Now Indiana has passed a law.
He has his hammer.
The Bears still haven't moved
Here is what didn't change tonight.
The Bears play at Soldier Field through 2033. That lease doesn't evaporate because Indiana passed a bill. Any new stadium in Hammond, at the absolute earliest construction timeline, opens in 2029 or 2030. If the Bears sign a deal tomorrow, they're still playing in Chicago for three to four more seasons.
Halas Hall, the Bears' headquarters and training facility in Lake Forest, stays in Illinois. The Bears confirmed this. It's not changing.
The Bears committed $2 billion to the Indiana framework. That commitment doesn't have a signed contract attached to it. "Committed" is the word teams use before they've committed.
None of this is criticism of Indiana's process. They moved fast. They showed what a legislature can do when it decides something is a priority. That's genuine.
But Indiana just voted to build a hammer. They haven't handed it to anyone yet. And the man holding it has a track record of swinging in every direction.
What happens next
The next 72 hours matter more than tonight's vote.
Indiana Senate reconvenes to accept House amendments. That should happen Thursday or Friday before the session closes. Braun signs. The law is enacted.
Meanwhile, in Springfield, Illinois has a hearing scheduled Thursday morning on HB 2789. That's the Arlington Heights property tax bill — the legislation that would cap Bears' taxes at roughly $4 million a year on their 326-acre site instead of the $100 to $200 million a year the site would generate post-development. That is the financial spine of any Illinois deal.
Both things happen in the same 48 hours.
So the scoreboard looks like this: Indiana passes a law. Illinois holds a hearing. One of these is a completed action. The other is a scheduled meeting.
Warren is at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis this week. The Combine is in Indianapolis. Indianapolis is the capital of Indiana. He watched this vote happen from inside Indiana's state capital.
Draw your own conclusions.
The leverage is now real. The question is what it costs.
There is a version of this story where everything works out for Chicago.
Warren uses Indiana's law to force Illinois into a deal on HB 2789. The property tax framework gets hammered out. Arlington Heights passes, ground breaks in 2027, Bears open their new stadium in 2030 while technically still inside the Chicago market.
There is another version.
Indiana's law is real. Braun wants this. The Bears have $2 billion committed. Hammond's site is 760 acres. The financial framework is built. Warren doesn't need Illinois anymore.
Which version plays out depends on what Illinois does at that 8 AM hearing Thursday.
Here is what Pritzker said after Warren canceled his own Illinois hearing and praised Indiana on the same day: "Surprised, dismayed and very disappointed."
Here is what McCaskey's people reportedly said: livid.
Here is what Warren said 48 hours after calling Indiana "most meaningful": he appreciated Illinois' progress.
One of these men controls what happens next. It is not the one who was "surprised, dismayed and very disappointed." And it is not the one the Chicago Tribune says was livid.
Kevin Warren has three years of this on his resume. No shovels. No signed deal. Four different sites. Now one governor's signature from a law that didn't exist six weeks ago.
Indiana voted. He has his hammer.
Whether he uses it on Illinois or on Soldier Field is the only question left.
Confirmed: Indiana House passed SB 27, 95-4, February 24, 2026. Sources: The Athletic (Jon Greenberg, @jon_greenberg), IndyStar, ESPN, Indiana General Assembly. Illinois HB 2789 hearing: February 26, 2026, 8 AM, Room D-1 Stratton Building.
Update — July 14, 2026
Four and a half months after Indiana voted, independent economists have done the math on whether the financing actually works.
Two academic economists calculate a $5-7 million annual shortfall in Indiana's stadium revenue. Geoffrey Propheter (UC Denver) and Deborah Carroll (UIC) found that even under best-case assumptions, $55M/year from all authorized tax streams, Indiana falls $5-7M short of the $60-62M annual debt service on $1 billion in bonds. Propheter told the Tribune: "Few lawmakers ever ask what's behind the curtain."
Porter County said "hell no." Commissioner Jim Biggs told the Tribune on July 14 that residents oppose the food-and-beverage tax nearly unanimously. Council President Andy Vásquez lost his primary after supporting the tax. His successor campaigned on "No new taxes for Lake County projects."
The Bears are now scouting a second Hammond site at Wolf Lake Terminals. The 83-acre property holds 21 million gallons of chemical tank storage. It sits beside a Dover Chemical facility and the Federated Metals Superfund site — the same environmental unknowns that were flagged when SB 27 passed, now with a specific chemical inventory.
The hammer still exists. It just turns out the handle is shorter than anyone advertised.