INDIANAPOLIS – In the last 24 hours before a key legislative deadline, bill after bill went down to defeat Tuesday and Wednesday.
Some were publicly trounced with dozens of red buttons glaring on the vote board.
Others were quiet burials as the authors of the legislation knew the expected outcome and declined to call the bill for consideration.
The topics were wide-ranging – education, vaccines, speed cameras, annexation, alcohol regulations, cremation, civics testing and more.
“That tends to happen toward the end of each segment (of the legislative session),” House Speaker Brian Bosma said. “People get tired. The day gets long, and if there’s something that rubs them the wrong way, they’ll cast a no vote. We’ve had some good bills go down that way.”
Even though House Republicans spent hours in caucus Wednesday, he said head counts were taken only on a few bills.
Instead, it’s up to authors to call a bill or not. And they usually know the landscape of whether something will pass or fail.
On Tuesday, Rep. Tom Dermody, R-LaPorte, said he clearly didn’t have the votes on a Sunday alcohol sales bill. So it is now dead for the session.
On Wednesday, Rep. Bob Behning, R-Indianapolis, passed on an education bill involving ISTEP+ and letter grades for small schools after seeing a wide-ranging education bill get defeated hours earlier.
The latter bill was House Bill 1072, which gave more power over student data to the State Board of Education, changed teacher evaluation methodology, tweaked how school’s A-to-F grades work and made changes to the ISTEP+ test.
It was defeated 51-42 – a surprise to many. It was a Republican bill, and the GOP has a supermajority of 71 in the House.