The 2025 Indiana state legislative session lasted from Jan. 27 through April 24, the better part of three months.
Yet, on the last day of the session lawmakers had to vote on bills with substantial last-minute amendments thrown in.
The Indiana Capital Chronicle reported on the frustration felt by Sen Mike Young, R-Indianapolis, over late adjustments to an education “deregulation” measure that was championed by his own party and won ultimate approval.
“This is bull crap,” Young lamented. “You’ve got a 116-page bill. You’ve got 30 minutes to read it. We should have more time than that.
“I am so mad about this. Our one job is to do what’s right for our constituents, and we can’t do it if we don’t have a chance to read the dang bill.”
Here’s an even more troubling example.
On April 23, the day before the legislative session ended, Republicans buried deep in pages 181 and 182 of the 215-page budget bill an amendment giving Gov. Mike Braun control over membership of the Indiana University Board of Trustees.
What does the IU board of trustees have to do with the budget? Not much, but state Legislature rules that amendments should be germane to the main subject matter of a bill don’t apply to sweeping biennial budget legislation since, ostensibly, all state issues — including funding of state universities — are germane to state finances.
That exception enabled Braun and fellow Republican culture warriors to use the budget bill to position themselves for control at the highest level over the state’s “liberal” bastion of higher education. The sneaky, underhanded way Republicans accomplished this left no time for proper legislative review, let alone public awareness and comment.
The Legislature shouldn’t be doing business this way, nefariously sneaking related — or unrelated — law into bills on an expiring clock.
Yes, the legislative process demands compromise and a certain amount of back scratching to pass new laws. But this tactic sidesteps the rigorous process of vetting so fundamental to the development of sound public policy.
Forty-four states have an imperfect solution to the problem — line-item vetoes that enable the governor to strike specific portions of legislation. When wielded ethically, governors can erase last-minute amendments or “riders” before signing a bill into law.
In 2005 in West Virginia, where the state constitution forbids more than one topic per bill, then-Gov. Joe Manchin vetoed a line item in a local parks boards bill. The last-minute rider to the bill would have made English the official language of the state. Manchin supported the English language idea but realized it should have no place in the parks board bill, so he struck it before signing the parks board legislation into law.
Indiana is one of the six states that don’t allow line-item vetoes by the governor. There are some good reasons for that, primarily that it puts too much power in the hands of the state executive to undo the efforts of the legislative branch.
Of course, in the case of the state budget bill, Braun wouldn’t have invoked a line-item veto anyway. It handed him a responsibility that he, no doubt, very much wanted.
Braun almost certainly worked behind closed doors with GOP legislators on the strategy of adding it to the budget bill. In the end, it’s just another example of why a state government supermajority of one party simultaneously controlling both chambers and the governor’s office encourages abuse of power.
Instead of empowering the governor to veto line items, perhaps a better way to bring substantial last-minute amendments under control would be to change the deadline for the final form of legislation to be posted online for review. Currently, it’s just 24 hours. Extending it to seven days would enable legislators and their constituents to review and debate changes ahead of the final vote.
Short of that, Hoosier must call on their legislators to behave ethically rather than pulling last-minute shenanigans to fool elected colleagues and hoodwink the voters who elected them.