If and when the House Democrats return to the Indiana Statehouse, Republican lawmakers hope to be ready to pass a multitude of bills in a short period of time.
The Legislature is due to end April 29, but extending that date is a matter of taking a vote. The governor can also order a special session, which Republican lawmakers deem likely.
But as far as actual damage from the Democratic quorum busting, it’s difficult to say right now.
Individual bills died when the Democrats walked out, including all of the bills the Senate had either already passed — or hoped to pass — along to the Indiana House.
But 109 House bills had already made their way through the committee process and over to the Senate by the time Democrats left the state on Feb. 22.
Now, Republicans are in the middle of a process to revise those House bills, often adding language from Senate bills killed by the walkout.
“We’re trying to get germane Senate bills included in with House bills so we can have a concurrence vote,” said State Sen. Jim Buck, R-Kokomo.
“We’re just trying to find some way to accommodate the clock, because it’s ticking pretty loudly.”
Under legislative rules, germane (meaning “closely akin” or literally, “of the same parents”) subjects can be combined from different bills into a single piece of legislation.
If the author of the legislation then agrees to all of the changes, then the amended bill can be passed on a simple, up-or-down concurrence vote.
The concurrence procedure eliminates the need for the bill, once it has made it through one chamber, to go through the committee process and three readings in the second chamber — a time-consuming process.
And since the Republicans control both houses, a large amount of legislation could be passed very quickly, if and when the Democrats return and form a quorum.
“That’s just part of what I would say is the misinformation campaign put forward by the Republicans,” State Rep. Terri Austin, D-Anderson, said.
“This has always been an option for them. That’s why I think it’s so disingenuous of them to say these bills have ‘died.’ The bill number has died, but the language hasn’t died,” she said.
In addition, the Legislature has what is called the “one house rule.”
If language has made it out of one house, it is then eligible for conference committee.
“The whole purpose of conference committee is one, to work out the differences in bills, and two, to find a home for language that one chamber wouldn’t give a hearing,” Austin said.
“That whole process is always dynamic.”
Right now, as far as the Democrats are concerned, the Republicans haven’t taken any language completely off the table, including the controversial “right-to-work” legislation.
“I haven’t seen anything in writing. And the point of the negotiation process is to get something in writing,” she said.
Buck said he would prefer the Democrats to simply return, so that bills could travel the normal legislative route.
“I’m hoping they come back, and we don’t have to dump the Senate bills into the House bills and find germane language,” he said.