Another Session Behind Us: Business as Usual, I Hope Not

By CCO StateHouse Editor-Gail Riecken

Another Session Behind Us: Business as Usual, I Hope Not

This might have been one of the most interesting but confusing and confounding ends of a session I can remember.

The Indy Star has Speaker of the House Brian Bosma and Senate President Pro Tem David Long publicly pointing fingers at each other’s caucus; Senator Long singling out Rep Ed Soliday as having “a meltdown” and causing much of the session’s self-destruction; and the Governor trying a last-minute effort to extend the session to save his bills and the legislature’s image.

House Minority Leader Terry Goodin couldn’t have said it better. “Instead of fixing DCS, we passed a bill that said you could buy alcohol at Walmart on Sunday”(the Statehouse File).

A better comment could not have been made. The sadness, though, is the issues that matter to many of us failed to get any traction and in some cases no discussion at all— issues like hate crimes legislation, raising the minimum wage, a redistricting compromise and a step forward addressing problems at the Department of Child Services (DCS).

Maybe this is the session legislators on both sides of the aisle will always regret. However, it is only one session, and those issues many of us think are important can and should be addressed at the next one.

Does the legislature lack leadership? Is the outcome solely the challenge of an inevitable arrogance that is guaranteed by supermajorities in both Houses?

Whatever the reason, the signature test will be the elections of 2018 and what a new State legislature will do for you and me in the future.