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Saturday, March 13, 2010

Ind. Law - What happened ...

Masson's Blog has just posted a detailed list of the five bills that passed last night and are on their way to the Governor.

Dorothy Schneider of the Lafayette Journal Courier reports: "Bill fails to extend vote centers' life." It begins:

Tippecanoe County lawmakers and election officials were frustrated by a blow dealt to vote centers in the waning hours of the Indiana General Assembly session Friday.

"I think it's over," Rep. Sheila Klinker, D-Lafayette, said of the viability of House Bill 1106. "I'm very disappointed."

That bill would have allowed vote centers to continue in Tippecanoe County after this year, but was tied to controversial language about statewide absentee voting through the mail.

Sen. Ron Alting, R-Lafayette, described the situation as: "It's like getting a good scoop of ice cream and putting a topping on it that nobody likes."

Alting blamed Democratic leadership, though not Klinker, for insisting on an absentee voter provision in the bill. Klinker, and other key Democrats in the House, argued that the absentee language was in the bill from the beginning and should remain.

The provision for no-fault absentee voting by mail statewide would allow voters anywhere to cast early ballots by mail, even if they do not meet the current criteria for voting absentee.

The language passed narrowly in the House and was removed from the bill in the Senate. Some Republicans argued it would increase instances of voter fraud, but Democrats said there are other safeguards to prevent that.

Instead of passing blame Friday, Tippecanoe County election officials started thinking about what to do for next year's elections.

The vote center system will be eliminated before the 2011 municipal elections without legislative action. Tippecanoe County officials have estimated that next year's elections will cost at least $50,000 more if they have to use precincts instead of centralized vote centers.

More later, possibly a run-down of how "budget bill surprises" from 2009 were dealt with in 2010.

But first, a few paragraphs from a story today in the NWI Times, reported by Dan Carden:

The unemployment legislation had been a sticking point for several days, with Senate Republicans insisting on a two-year delay in the rate hike, while House Democrats supported a total repeal, so long as Democratic job-creation proposals were included in the legislation.

A tentative compromise on the unemployment legislation was reached Friday evening, but for a while it was not certain the deal would be approved. Female Democratic representatives engaged in a self-described "girlcott" of the Democratic party meeting where details of the final proposal were revealed. Their angst stemmed from a decision by the all-male House Democratic leadership to take pending legislation sponsored by state Rep. Peggy Welch, D-Bloomington, strip out her proposal and use that bill for other legislation.

State Rep. Linda Lawson, D-Hammond, and several female legislators voted against the unemployment legislation to show they felt it was wrong for House leaders to steal Welch's legislation.

"It's time that they recognize there are 14 women who are smart, who are bright and should be brought to the table," Lawson said. "It was time to stand up for Peggy, and we did."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 13, 2010 10:22 AM
Posted to Indiana Law