Big issues saw little progress in 1st half of Indiana legislative session

BY PATRICK GUINANE, Times of Northwest Indiana
pguinane@nwitimes.com

INDIANAPOLIS | The Indiana House approved 247 bills the past two months but gave up trying to fix the state's bankrupt unemployment fund and sent only half a budget to the Senate.

"It's a good thing they don't give out midterm grades," Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels said of the work led by Democratic House Speaker Pat Bauer, D-South Bend. "The budget bill is of almost no use at all."

While the gumption to tackle difficult tasks, including government streamlining, often eluded lawmakers in the first half of the legislative session, the rhetoric did not disappoint.

After the Republican-ruled Senate cut compromises to keep alive portions of the governor's proposed local government makeover, Bauer quipped that the Kernan-Shepard reform agenda had lost its shepherd and arrived in the House a wounded animal.

After all, the bill to eliminate townships no longer would eliminate townships -- just the three-member township advisory boards. And an effort to streamline counties would exempt Lake County and could give rise to a patchwork quilt of up to five different forms of county government.

Meanwhile, Senate President David Long, R-Fort Wayne, warned that the Democrats' decision to abandon an employer tax hike to help fix the state's insolvent jobless fund could prolong negotiations enough to confine legislators to Indianapolis a month beyond the scheduled April 29 adjournment.

The House Democrats' plan would have gone only about halfway toward erasing a more than $400 million structural deficit in the unemployment fund. And it didn't include laid-off worker benefit reductions that Republicans reluctantly acknowledge will be a necessary part of an eventual solution. Still, Bauer blamed House Republicans for refusing to vote for the legislation.

"These guys pick up their ball and run as quickly as anyone," countered House Minority Leader Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis.

On the state budget, the ball now is in hands of Senate Republicans, who say they will craft a two-year spending plan within the state's recession-strapped means while responsibly incorporating some of the $4 billion Indiana will receive from the federal stimulus package.

House Democrats have the opportunity to take up constitutional property tax caps and local government reforms sent over by the Senate. Rep. Dan Stevenson, D-Highland, would like to restore to full strength the township abolition effort, which he will sponsor in the House.

"Basically, the bill as it came over is useless as far as taxpayer relief," Stevenson said. "It does nothing to reduce the cost of township government, other than a few dollars for the salaries of the board members."

But Bauer hasn't said whether he will give the township bill -- or any other local government reform -- a hearing in the House. And he has all but ruled out moving ahead this year with a measure to move the tax caps -- written into state law last year -- to the Indiana Constitution.

"I would say the law speaks for itself," Bauer said. "Tinkering with the constitution is a very serious matter, so I would say at this time, 'No' (to a hearing)."