By John Krull
TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS – An old farmer I knew had a marvelous saying.
“You can try spraying perfume on fertilizer,” he would drawl, “but, no matter how much you use, it never takes.”

The Republican members of the Indiana General Assembly would have been wise to listen to that old farmer.
The GOP lawmakers, along with their Democratic brethren, gathered Monday at the Statehouse for a special legislative session. The purpose of the gathering was to take care of some business the legislators left undone at the end of the regular session just a few weeks ago.
The fact that they had to gather has been a source of embarrassment for Republicans.
The reason several bills were left in the unfinished pile is that GOP lawmakers spent an inordinate amount of time on the last day congratulating themselves on a job well done.
Turns out, it wasn’t so well done.

That’s why Gov. Eric Holcomb called the legislature back into session – a move that provoked anger across the state.
Much of the ire focused on the cost of the session — $30,000 for the single day. Stung by criticism, most lawmakers have vowed to donate their pay to charity.
That’s a nice gesture, but a bit beside the point. While $30,000 is real money to most of the Hoosiers for whom these legislators are supposed to work, it is just a microscopic blip in a budget the size of the state.

The real cost – the true embarrassment – in this single-day session isn’t the cost in cash.
It’s the cost of confidence.
This year’s Hoosier legislative sessions offer conclusive proof of the close relationship between arrogance and incompetence.

The only reason the legislators had to come back into session in May is that they weren’t paying attention to what they were doing in January, February, and March. They either stopped reading or couldn’t read the calendar and the clock.
We know that, because of this, a handful of measures were left unattended in the to-do pile.
How many other things the lawmakers did pass failed to receive sufficient scrutiny because the state’s lawmakers were so busy – too busy – being pleased with themselves? How many other mistakes were made while the legislators indulged in an orgy of patting themselves on the back?

Perhaps even worse, the GOP lawmakers demonstrated how many rules they were willing to bend or even break to mitigate embarrassment.
They suspended constitutional rules so they could do the special session in a single day.
That means that the five measures that were adopted received less discussion and consideration than a group order for pizza.

Given that one of these measures involved making schools safer and another involved taking over some schools, that’s not reassuring.
Much of this is a consequence of gerrymandering.

Because most of the state’s lawmakers come from districts where they face no meaningful competition, they don’t feel obligated in any way to meet objections, answer questions or even pay attention.

Indiana’s rigged legislative maps give Republicans supermajorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, which means Democrats cannot even slow, much less stop, any measure before the General Assembly.

Lack of competition at the ballot box leads to arrogance, which leads to incompetence.
For those who might be tempted to think things would be better if Democrats had this kind of power, think again. Part of the reason we Americans and we Hoosiers put restraints on government’s power is that we understand – or at least we used to understand – that human beings, regardless of their party affiliation, are not to be trusted with too much-unchecked power.

After the one-day session ended, Republican leaders crowed about how efficient they had been in getting the bills passed in just a few hours.
They sprayed perfume all over this putrid legislative session.
The old farmer was right.
It won’t take.

FOOTNOTE: John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism, host of “No Limits” WFYI 90.1 Indianapolis and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.