INDIANAPOLIS | The state's most powerful business organization announced a legislative agenda Monday that its traditional allies in the House and Senate Republican supermajorities might have a hard time supporting.
The Indiana Chamber of Commerce called on lawmakers to pass full civil rights protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Hoosiers; consider raising taxes to fund infrastructure improvements; and immediately make preschool available to all 4-year-olds in the state.
Shortly after chamber Vice President Cam Carter revealed the chamber's agenda at an Indianapolis luncheon, Senate President David Long, R-Fort Wayne, and House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, suggested none of those proposals is likely to become law.
That's a significant turnabout for Bosma who supported the chamber's policy positions 100 percent of the time during the 2015 session. Long's votes matched the group's priorities at a 94 percent rate.
Nearly all Statehouse Republicans supported the business group's position on at least 80 percent of chamber-scored votes last session.
Carter said the chamber's legislative goals are what Indiana businesses say they need to continue the state's strong economic growth.
For example, despite the $4 billion invested in new roads over the past decade thanks to the 2006 lease of the Indiana Toll Road, Carter said Indiana requires an extra $1 billion a year just to maintain the state's infrastructure, primarily due to its Eisenhower-era age.
"We're not in a crisis yet, but isn't it best to plan ahead and not get into a crisis mode?" Carter asked. "It is best to address this in a bipartisan way before it becomes a crisis."
The chamber endorsed numerous possible infrastructure funding options, including dedicating a larger portion of the sales tax on gasoline to roads, as House Democratic Leader Scott Pelath, D-Michigan City, recently proposed; raising the state's gas tax; automatically increasing the gas tax in future years based on inflation; tolling more roads; and adopting other "user fee" charges.
"Sometimes the only solution to a money problem is more money," Carter said.
Notably absent from the chamber's list was the state borrowing money by issuing 20-year bonds to make road repairs with a seven-year life expectancy, as Republican Gov. Mike Pence has proposed.
Similarly, Carter said an LGBT civil rights law will help move Indiana away from the unwelcoming reputation it won last session after Pence enacted a proposal widely seen as licensing discrimination under the guise of religious liberty.
"We need to get this right in order to secure our economic prosperity," he said.
"The future workforce and our future competitiveness is at stake here."
Also holding Indiana back, he said, is a form of local government lingering from the 18th century: townships. The chamber is supporting efforts to meaningfully reform, or eliminate, township government in Indiana.
"There are far too many abuses at the township level of government, far too little oversight and far too much waste of taxpayer dollars," Carter said.
Other items on the chamber's legislative agenda include: permitting work sharing as an alternative to industrial layoffs; allowing employers to discriminate in hiring against cigarette smokers; expanding state-funded preschool beyond five pilot counties; and auditing charter school spending.
In addition, the chamber wants lawmakers to preserve existing methods of assessing large retail buildings for property tax purposes, make it easier to transfer credits among all Indiana colleges, establish a statewide water use plan and regulate lawsuit lending.