Legislative leaders have various tools to achieve a desired result. For Indiana House Democrats in 2011, it was a five-week walkout to deny the Republican majority the quorum needed to pass anti-labor legislation. For House Speaker Brian Bosma this week, it was a committee reassignment to move the same-sex marriage resolution before lawmakers more likely to support it.
The speaker said he reassigned the bill to the Elections Committee at the request of GOP caucus members who want to vote on it in the full House. The Election Committee approved it Wednesday by a 9-3 vote.
The bill was stalled in the Judiciary Committee by a handful of Republican committee members, including Huntington Republican Dan Leonard, who refused to tell how they would vote in advance. Committee Chairman Greg Steuerwald couldn’t call for a vote because he didn’t know how it would come out.
Another tool Bosma had available was the authority to replace the recalcitrant committee members, but that would have looked even more heavy handed than a total committee switch. As it is, an Indianapolis Star columnist called his maneuver a “stomach-churning display of misplaced power, pride and pigheadedness.”
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