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Sunday, February 27, 2011

Ind. Gov't. - "There's too much to lose: With stakes so high, a deal may be out of reach"

Here are some highlights from a lengthy, front-page story in the Indianapolis Star today by Mary Beth Schneider and Heather Gillers:

The same dynamic that sent House Democrats running for the Illinois border is what makes finding a way to return to the legislature so difficult.

There are just too many issues right now on a freight train to passage in the Indiana General Assembly that they find objectionable but that the majority Republicans find nothing short of essential. * * *

[Former state Rep. Dave Crooks, a Washington Ind. Democrat ] is among many who say this work stoppage was inevitable since Nov. 2.

That day, Republicans won such dominating majorities in the legislature that it seemed their every wish could be granted. They've tried to put those dreams into law -- from limiting collective bargaining and weakening labor unions to expanding an array of educational reforms. * * *

Some items split Democrats, including the social issues of abortion and guns. A constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage passed the House easily, with Bauer and 10 more of the 40 Democrats joining all but one of the 60 Republicans in voting yes.

But two issues united liberals, as well as conservatives: collective bargaining and public education.

"There are some common themes that cut through all of us," Rep. Scott Pelath, D-Michigan City, said of his fellow Democrats, "and support of public education and support of workers' ability to improve each other's lives are pretty bedrock principles."

With numerous bills aimed at labor and public education being passed at a rapid pace in the House, and even more in the Senate, Democrats were reaching the boiling point.

"I had former colleagues warning me up to a month ago that the House was becoming like a pressure cooker," said Crooks, now a radio talk show host. "It was going to explode at any moment. The heat kept getting increased, and they saw no end in sight to the overreach, at least in the Democrats' eyes, of what the Republicans were asking for."

Taken together, Crooks said, they amounted to far more significant changes to Indiana than the one collective-bargaining bill in Wisconsin that has shut down that state's Assembly as Democratic senators there also fled to Illinois.

The tipping point, House Democrats said, came when Republicans decided to push the so-called "right to work" bill -- which bars unions and companies from negotiating a contract that requires non-members to pay representation fees -- against Gov. Mitch Daniels' advice.

Daniels recognized this session was a tinderbox and didn't want right-to-work to be the match that ignited it, leaving his education agenda in the ashes.

Now that's just what he's worried about. The right-to-work bill was passed by a House committee Monday morning, and by that afternoon, Democrats had shut down the House.

Crooks said Democrats realized that if that bill became law this year, it likely would take them generations to repeal it. Even if they managed to win back the House -- something that almost certainly won't happen soon, because Republicans will draw new legislative maps this year -- the chances of winning the Senate and governor's office any time soon is remote.

In fact, the last time Democrats held all three was in 1965, after the landslide election of President Lyndon Johnson ushered in Democratic control of Indiana's Statehouse. They used their power that year to repeal a right-to-work law the Republicans had passed in the 1950s. * * *

Daniels said it is "possible for there to be overreach, but not on these things they said they walked out on."

Scanning the list of bills that Democrats said they had concerns about, Daniels said: "I didn't find immigration on here. I didn't find guns on here. I didn't find abortion on here. That's why I think it is so transparently false that there's anything extreme about it. Maybe they could have made that case about some things that aren't on the list, not what's here."

Niki Kelly of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette reports today under the heading "End of stalemate hard to see
But observers say right-to-work holdout losing luster." Some quotes:
It’s hard to predict how the boycott will end without understanding its beginning, which came Nov. 2 when Republicans won significant majorities in both the House and Senate.

The GOP in the House, especially, has been making the most of a 60-40 advantage.

Republicans have been pushing hard on an agenda that House Democrats have bristled against all session. There have been contentious hearings on labor bills and unemployment benefit cuts. The debates on charter schools and vouchers were long and emotional. The vote to add a gay marriage ban to the state constitution was one Democrats had avoided for years.

Then on Monday, the controversial right-to-work bill received a hearing in a House committee. Dozens of opponents were cut off from testifying on the legislation, and Republicans approved the bill along party lines.

Democrats left the state Tuesday in an attempt to kill the bill, which was up against a legislative deadline.

On Wednesday, Senate leadership put a nail in the coffin of right-to-work legislation, saying that chamber would not deal with the issue this year except to assign it to a summer study committee.

But Democrats didn’t come back. They instead added to their list of objections.

They said the Republicans’ agenda was radical and had to be stopped.

Republicans, meanwhile, said there was nothing radical about providing more educational choices for parents and loosening the hold unions have on the state.

[Andy Downs, a political science professor at IPFW] said Republicans need to be careful of overreaching.

He compared it to President Obama winning in 2008, acting on his agenda and then witnessing a mass Republican win in the 2010 because voters thought Obama had gone too far, too fast.

“When you are in the majority, you have to be careful about trying to get too much done all at once,” Downs said.

Both Downs and Clark also warned that Democrats have complicated the situation by broadening the scope of the reason for their walkout.

That makes it hard to pinpoint what would count as a victory for them to come back to the Statehouse.

“They widened the net, and now it just looks like they’re whiners,” Clark said.

And House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, gave them somewhat of a disincentive to return Monday by trying to push back legislative deadlines. That would keep alive, for instance, an education voucher bill that many House Democrats oppose.

It also would salvage the traditional budget bill – House Bill 1001 – even though insiders say there are numerous procedural ways to have a state budget without that specific bill.

Eric Bradner of the Evansville Courier & Press has a long story today headed "'Attacks' spurred exodus, explains House Minority Leader Patrick Bauer: Dems list steps to Illinois flight." Also Bradner's weekly column, this week headed: "Ind. Assembly boycott inspired by historical Whig perspective."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on February 27, 2011 04:07 PM
Posted to Indiana Government