INDIANAPOLIS —Here's a look at who came out on top and who fared poorly during this year's session of the Indiana General Assembly.
Winners
- Mitch Daniels: The two-term Republican governor got the sweeping education reform package he wanted. He got a structurally balanced budget, with an automatic taxpayer refund if there's a surplus. He got expanded authority to build new toll roads using public-private partnerships. His only misses were a criminal sentencing law overhaul and township government reform.
- Business interests: Among the things the Indiana Chamber of Commerce and others can check off this year's list are a corporate income tax reduction from 8.5 percent to 6.5 percent. It will provide a savings of more than $100 million thanks to a measure that lessens the size of a tax increase passed two years ago to fix Indiana's bankrupt unemployment insurance fund.
- Suburban schools: In areas where enrollment is increasing, funding for K-12 education funding will see a significant shot in the arm.
That's thanks to changes to the funding formula to eliminate mechanisms that were intended to soften the blow of lost per-pupil funding at places where enrollment was steadily eroding. Warrick County schools stand to benefit.
- Social conservatives: A constitutional gay marriage ban advanced. A tough anti-abortion bill that will block government funding for Planned Parenthood will become law. Gun rights were expanded. An anti-illegal immigration bill, though not the Arizona-style proposal that was introduced, was passed.
- Non-traditional schools: Private schools will have the option to take vouchers worth, in many cases, around $4,500, to admit an influx of new students.
They will face new accountability standards if they accept the money. Charter schools, meanwhile, will have new ways of gaining the authorization they need to open.
- Brian Bosma: Indiana's Republican House speaker was in the middle of his chamber's meltdown when Democrats fled to Urbana, Ill., on Feb. 22.
Once they returned five weeks later, though, Bosma managed to snuff out the fireworks that could have easily occurred, convincing his caucus to keep its head down and doing enough to keep Democrats in town, too.
Losers
- Democrats: Just about all that minority Democrats have to celebrate about this year's session is they can highlight their opposition to any Republican-backed programs that prove unpopular.
- Unions: It was a mixed bag for unions.
When Democrats boycotted for five weeks, the measure unions considered most egregious — the "right to work" bill — was killed.
But several others, including teacher collective bargaining restrictions and a common construction wage bill, did pass.
- Urban and rural schools: While their suburban counterparts will benefit, the urban and rural districts where enrollment is declining will lose their per-pupil funding more rapidly as a result of tweaks to the K-12 funding formula. The changes will hit Posey County particularly hard.
- Planned Parenthood: Medicaid recipients will no longer be able to visit the agency's 28 clinics in Indiana, including one in Evansville, under a tough anti-abortion measure that Daniels has said he will sign into law.
- Unemployed Hoosiers: They will see their average weekly benefits, currently $283, cut by about 25 percent. That goes to lessen the size of a business tax increase.
- Township reform supporters: Now four years after former Gov. Joe Kernan and Indiana Chief Justice Randall Shepard issued a report recommending the abolition of township government, supporters of their proposal still have yet to gain any headway in the General Assembly.
- Social liberals: Despite rallies that filled the Statehouse hallways for weeks, liberals who supported gay rights, women's choice, gun controls and expanded paths to citizenship for illegal immigrants got none of what they wanted.