Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb made a compelling case for calling on members of the Indiana General Assembly to return to Indianapolis for a special session in May to complete business left unfinished when the regular session ended in unsatisfactory chaos.
He made it clear he wants a limited agenda for the special session. Though legislators can bring up what they want to, he said in a news conference his focus is strictly on “what needed to be tended to right now, what was urgent, what was time sensitive, what would cause confusion if not dealt with, what would have a cost of compliance and what that would mean to Hoosier taxpayers.”
His issues are school safety and federal compliance when it comes to tax reform.
He will meet with legislative leadership soon and will “be politely encouraging” the focus to stay on issues that were heading for legislative approval and his signature in the first place.
“We should not bring new items to the table in a special session,” he said.
He’s absolutely right.
Holcomb acts like an adult in Indianapolis, shying from placing any blame for the failure of the General Assembly to complete its work on time. But to review: The Republican Party, Holcomb’s party, controls both the House and Senate by huge margins but squabbled enough internally that issues the governor believes rise to a level of urgency so great a special session must be called did not receive attention. The clock simply ran out because of the inefficiency and ineptitude of lawmakers.
So the governor was left to make a choice: wait until 2019 to try to bolster school safety and make sure the state is in compliance when it comes to tax laws, or act now, at an estimated cost of $30,000 a day to taxpayers.
Holcomb addressed the cost forcefully, saying, “Whatever the cost is dwarfed by the cost of inaction.”
That may well be true — just as it may well be true that once you’ve made the mistake of taking a baseball bat to all the windows in your house, the cost of fixing them would be dwarfed by the utility bills you would need to pay and the discomfort you would suffer if you didn’t spend that money up front.
The point is, you shouldn’t have broken out all those windows, just as lawmakers shouldn’t have failed to finish their work on time.
The governor is doing what he has to do. Calling for a special session to add funding options designed to keep schools safer, to help Muncie schools continue to operate and to avoid potential problems for 3.5 million Hoosier taxpayers can be justified. It’s too bad it has to be.
Lawmakers must fix the broken windows left open on the items outlined by the governor. Not doing so would add to the damage their failures have caused.