Statehouse roundup: Legislators give Pence half of what he wanted

It was new Republican Gov. Mike Pence’s first session, and he got much of what he wanted including a new emphasis on vocational education and an effort to more quickly commercialize Indiana universities’ research.

The big question, though, was whether he would get the individual income tax he sought. Lawmakers gave him something but it is short of what Pence envisioned.

He wanted a 10 percent cut phased in over two years 5 percent starting two months from now, and another 5 percent a year later. The full cut, under his proposal, would have been in place by mid-2014.

Instead, he gets a 3 percent income tax cut starting in 2015, and another 2 percent starting in 2017 44 months away.

In other words, Pence is getting half the tax cut and it’s taking three times as long.

Still, it was enough for Pence to declare victory in the wee Saturday morning hours, after he and his staff sat in the governor’s office watching the House and Senate votes on the budget.

He began selling it not as a stand-alone item but in conjunction with other cuts tucked into the budget. Among them: Eliminating Indiana’s inheritance tax immediately, saving taxpayers $150 million per year, and lowering the financial institutions tax, saving banks nearly $20 million per year.

“The work we have done together has laid a solid foundation for a more prosperous future for Indiana,” Pence said.

“We will attract more good-paying jobs because of the business-friendly tax climate we have produced and the strong balance sheet we have preserved. And Hoosiers will keep more of what they earn.”

Democrats didn’t see it that way.

They argued that the cut one that would be worth just less than $1 per paycheck for someone earning $25,000 per year and being paid every other week costs the state too much money that should go to schools.

“I’m not sure how that stimulates the economy. You’re not even going to be able to buy a pop at the local filling station,” said Senate Minority Leader Tim Lanane, D-Anderson.

Lanane referred to the tax cut taking place “somewhere over the rainbow.” His counterpart, House Minority Leader Scott Pelath, D-Michigan City, was just as critical. He called the tax a “sham” and “pathetic.”

Regardless, Pence got solid marks on his first session from House Speaker Brian Bosma, the Indianapolis Republican who at one point stood in the way of Pence’s tax cut.

“He finished very strong,” Bosma said. “I will confess, it was a slow warm-up period it’s a new team. But he finished extremely strong and weighed in at the right time on a lot of the right issues, and was very successful in his first legislative session.”

He said Pence, a 12-year member of Congress, entered office understanding the importance of building relationships with the General Assembly a departure from former Gov. Mitch Daniels, who had a harder-charging style.

Bosma said Pence was “possibly” hurt, and certainly not helped, by an advertising campaign launched by the Tea Party organization Americans For Prosperity, which lambasted House members for failing to include the tax cut in an early budget draft.

This year’s session could also be remembered for what lawmakers decided they did not want to do.

In the Senate, Republicans repeatedly expressed a sense of “education reform fatigue” on the heels of the recent launch of Indiana’s private school voucher program, strict new collective bargaining restrictions, expanded charter school options and more.

So Senate President Pro Tem David Long, R-Fort Wayne, in some ways pulled back the reins. He insisted that an expansion of the voucher program be slight, and his chamber successfully pushed to pause Indiana’s implementation of Common Core education standards.

In the House, Bosma turned down a major push by casinos to win the ability to move their riverboats onto land and add live table games to the “racinos” in Anderson and Shelbyville.

A number of far-reaching measures including requiring armed officers in schools, requiring drug testing for welfare recipients and prohibiting photos and videos being taken with the intent to harm businesses even if the photographer planned to report illegal activity did not win passage.

An effort to overhaul Indiana’s criminal sentencing laws for the first time since the 1970s was weakened significantly after Pence said he opposed lighter sentences for those convicted of drug offenses.

The two leaders decided to postpone a debate over whether Indiana should amend a ban of gay marriage, civil unions or anything like them into the state’s constitution until next year’s legislative session.

And both chambers ultimately agreed on a measure that could block the progress of one of Daniels’ most ambitious projects: the $2.8 billion Rockport coal-to-gas plant and the state’s 30-year deal with its developers to buy and then resell their product.

The issue was “the most difficult it’s the one I spent the most time on,” Bosma said.

The session also came with a much different tone than the previous two years’ battles over education reforms, a “right to work” law and more.

House Democrats, under the new leadership of Pelath, eschewed the boycotts they’ve launched the last two years.