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Sunday, March 06, 2011

Ind. Gov't. - "Session clock ticking at Indiana Statehouse: Budget, redistricting top priority list"

Following up on this entry from March 3rd, Eric Bradner of the Evansville Courier & Press writes today:

That means the earliest the Indiana House might be expected to get back to business is March 14 — more than two weeks after the Senate was due to receive all bills passed by the House, and the House was supposed to start work on bills passed by the Senate.

That would give the General Assembly just seven business weeks to pass a budget, redraw the state's legislative and congressional districts, tackle Daniels' package of education reforms and more before the Indiana Constitution's mandated adjournment date of April 29. * * *

Most pressing is the budget, because state government would shut down July 1 if Indiana's two-year spending plan expires without a new one in place. * * *

The other "must-do" item is redistricting. Each decade, after the U.S. Census results are issued, it's up to state lawmakers to update the House, Senate and congressional district maps.

Because census results were recently issued and were being plugged into the state's map-making computer program, lawmakers are just now able to start work on redistricting.

History suggests it might cause more bickering in the coming weeks and months. In the past, the process has been so contentious that during the last two redistricting years — 1991 and 2001 — it triggered boycotts.

"I think that, as an option, what might be nice is if the leadership in the House and Senate would just agree for the immediate future to come back to work on those two issues so that we get done at least what we are lawfully required to do," Sen. Vaneta Becker, R-Evansville, said on "Lawmakers" on WNIN-PBS9 this week. * * *

"This one certainly is not over yet," said Ed Feigenbaum, a longtime political observer who is publisher of Indiana Legislative Insight.

"We don't know how long it's going to go, how deep the resentment will be, where public support will line up on this, and whether it will totally destroy the leadership of the respective parties."

Here are some ILB observations about the redistricting timetable, repeated from near the end of this Dec. 17, 2010 entry:
Here is what the Indiana Constitution, Article 4, Sec. 5, provides:
Section 5. The General Assembly elected during the year in which a federal decennial census is taken shall fix by law the number of Senators and Representatives and apportion them among districts according to the number of inhabitants in each district, as revealed by that federal decennial census. The territory in each district shall be contiguous.

(History: As amended March 14, 1881; November 6, 1984).

Okay, the "The General Assembly elected during the year in which a federal decennial census is taken" would be 2010. This General Assembly will serve for two years before half the Senators and all the Representatives are up for election again, in 2012.

So this means they have two years to draw the maps, this coming 2011 session, and the 2012 session. And it doesn't have to be done in a regular session, the bills setting out the districts may be passed in a special session.

For instance, in 1991 the redistricting bill didn't pass until the second special session. The ACTS of 1991 (2nd SS), PL 240 is titled (read it carefully) "AN ACT concerning the performance of certain constitutional duties of the general assembly including appropriation, redistricting, and state and local administration relating to appropriations."

(Incidentally, I more wrote about this massive 1991 Act in a Nov. 10, 2010 entry.)

Niki Kelly of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette also writes about the budget and redistricting today, in a story headed "Key issues may bring conclusion to walkout." A few quotes:

Their deadline is the session’s end, set for April 29, which is still about eight weeks away.

“Slowing down the legislative process for two to three weeks in the grand scheme of things is really not that big of a deal. Nothing is ever lost there,” said Dave Crooks, a former House Democrat with a weekly political talk radio show in southern Indiana. That’s because there is always a legislative maneuver to revive an issue that has supposedly died, such as moving deadlines or transferring provisions to other bills or using an arcane rule to your advantage. * * *

There are hundreds of other bills moving other than the budget and redistricting. But they don’t rise to the critical level.

For instance, Gov. Mitch Daniels is pushing an education package he hopes will reform traditional public schools in the state. And he wants sentencing changes that will save the state money on prisons.

There is a third tier of legislation involving some high-profile social issues, including a crackdown on illegal immigrants, a statewide smoking ban and more abortion regulations.

“I think that as I look at the balance of this session, it is a reasonable conclusion that only those high visibility items will get accomplished,” said Matt Bell, a former Republican representative and now head of the Regional Chamber of Northeast Indiana. “That means a number of economic development incentives and pro-growth policies run the risk of not being enacted.” * * *

Bell pointed out that even those that are saved will have less transparency. There won’t be a lot of time for public hearings and discussion. The moves will be fast.

“It will be more difficult for the public to track what is happening.” he said.

In the end, the big issues could get distilled into three or four behemoth bills, and that makes it harder for legislators to cast votes on specific issues.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 6, 2011 12:40 PM
Posted to Indiana Government