By Eric Bradner, Evansville Courier & Press
INDIANAPOLIS - After exchanging all the requisite pleasantries on their first day back at the Statehouse, Indiana lawmakers are primed for a sprint toward what could be a hyperpartisan conclusion to this year's 10-week legislative session.
Leaders of the General Assembly said they'll first tackle constitutional property tax caps and ethics reform, two high-profile issues on which the parties at least have some common ground.
Both the Republican-led Senate and the Democratic-controlled House will go through the second-reading stage - the last step before a final vote - on tax caps Thursday. The Senate will vote on Monday, and the House could do so soon afterward.
On Thursday, the House will consider amendments to a bill that would chill the relationships between lobbyists and state government. Meanwhile, the Senate will hold a committee hearing on a similar bill.
"Some of our goals, it's becoming clear, are now mutual," said Rep. Brian Bosma of Indianapolis, the top House Republican.
One of those shared goals is refusing to advance any legislation that would cost the state money.
"We have to reduce spending, and we're not raising taxes," House Majority Leader Russ Stilwell, D-Boonville, said during an animated floor speech Tuesday.
Today, legislators will get to work with seven House committees scheduled to meet and three Senate panels meeting.
Some issues will require extensive committee work, not because they're overtly political in nature, but because finding the best solutions is complicated.
Redistricting reform could be one such area. Though many lawmakers have come to favor the creation of an independent commission and tasking it with handling many of the district-drawing duties, the structure and ultimate authority of that commission are tougher to define.
Local government reform is another example. Bosma said some proposals offered by a blue-ribbon panel chaired by Indiana Chief Justice Randall Shepard and former Gov. Joe Kernan could pass this year. Among them, he said, could be legislation forbidding nepotism and preventing employees of a government unit who are elected to bodies that control the budgets of that unit from voting on items such as their own salaries.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, said his chamber will consider legislation that would alter the framework of township government, although he declined to offer specifics.
With the critical 2010 election approaching, lawmakers won't forget that the majority party in each chamber gets to control the 2011 redistricting process there.
"I think it's going to be political to the max," Bauer said of this year's session.
He cited Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels' campaigning for 2010 GOP House candidates in hopes of wrestling away control of a chamber in which Democrats hold a 52-48 majority as one reason partisanship is on the horizon.
"You've got the chief executive already declaring he wants the one party to be extinct by next year," he said. "So, I think it's going to be fairly - no, not fairly, very (political)."
Or, as Stilwell put it: "If anyone suggests that the House of Representatives isn't competitive and spirited, they don't live in the state of Indiana."