INDIANAPOLIS - Gov. Mitch Daniels entered this year's legislative session riding high.
He was fresh off a landslide re-election victory, and if Hoosiers were demanding change, he was determined to deliver it.
He wanted to revamp local government, permanently cap property taxes, make dramatic changes in how education dollars are spent and more.
But four months later, the governor's legislative agenda is in tatters, almost entirely scuttled by the Indiana General Assembly.
Daniels blames one man - House Speaker Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend.
"The speaker killed a lot of it unilaterally," Daniels said. "But that's just a fact of life."
Daniels and Bauer are the two most powerful men in state government.
The governor's strength is his premier bully pulpit. The speaker, meanwhile, has complete control over which bills live or die, because he can refuse to call anything he doesn't favor to the floor.
Their positions and parties - Daniels is a Republican, Bauer is a Democrat - pit the two head-on against each other each year.
This year, a look back at the agenda Daniels rolled out in his State of the State address shows the balance of power clearly tipped the speaker's way.
Tax increases
Daniels opened his address this year by insisting on no tax hikes.
That promise proved unrealistic when Democrats, led by Bauer, insisted that jobless benefits would not go down as part of a plan to fix the state's bankrupt unemployment insurance fund.Daniels said Thursday that he'll sign into law a bill that will raise more than $600 million per year in new business taxes.
Government reform
Daniels saw the economy as an opportunity for lawmakers to take bold new steps in a critical time.
The governor offered a series of measures to overhaul local government. He wanted to eliminate township government, consolidate small school districts, do away with county commissions in favor of a single county executive and more.
But those measures were watered down in the Republican-controlled Senate. When they reached the Democratic-controlled House, the reform measures were rolled into one bill and discarded - a move reform supporters attributed to Bauer.
Tax cap amendment
Another headliner on the governor's agenda was writing property tax caps approved in 2008 into the state's property tax caps.
Bauer killed that amendment outright by simply refusing to allow a vote on it. He ignored impassioned pleas from House Republicans. He ignored radio commercials from Daniels urging a vote. He even ignored some members of his own caucus.
A vote, he said, simply would have to wait until next year.
School discipline
Daniels said he wanted legislation that would guarantee Hoosiers an automatic tax refund if the surplus grew too high. He wanted legislation he said would put more dollars in classrooms by consolidating school district administrations. He got none of it.
In fact, the only thing Daniels mentioned in his State of the State address that he got was qualified immunity from lawsuits for teachers who take appropriate steps to discipline students.
Special session
"Sure, I'm disappointed," Daniels said last week.
The only chance left for the governor to accomplish what he wants this year lies in the coming special session.
Governors usually get their way in special sessions. They control when lawmakers arrive at the Statehouse, and their bully pulpit becomes even more valuable when they are able to hammer away at lawmakers for wasting taxpayers' money and failing to get the job done.
Daniels can publicly demand lawmakers pass a budget before the current fiscal year ends on June 30, because if they don't, most of the state government would shut down.
He'll have more control, and he'll have one last shot at getting the Legislature to bend to his demands.