Tuesday afternoon, the Indiana Senate convened to discuss 17 pieces of legislation, including three bills that are now on their way to the House of Representatives, while the disputed Senate Bill 11 received futile calls for concern from Democrats before it passed to a third reading.
SB 11 would require social media sites to obtain parental consent for a child under the age of 16 to access them. Two amendments were proposed by Sen. Rodney Pol, D-Michigan City, which would force social media platforms to provide notice to users being investigated for using the site without permission.
“What we are doing here is, we are trying to get these social media networks that do this job we want parents to do without having a fool-proof way of doing so,” said Pol in a speech to the chamber.
Both amendments proposed by Pol received full support from his Democratic colleagues but failed to pique the interest of Republican lawmakers and died on the floor.
The bill’s author, Sen. Mike Bohacek, R-Michiana Shores, expressed his confidence in the bill’s future with TheStatehousefile.com.
“It will go through, no problem at all,” Bohacek said repeatedly.
The key moments of the meeting saw three bills pass the Senate.
SB 80, which attempts to grammatically clean up and clarify areas of Indiana State Code, passed unanimously, having received verbal support from Sen. Greg Taylor, D-Indianapolis.
SB 127, which among other provisions clarifies that a battery-charged security device is a separate item from an electric fence, passed the Senate unanimously.
Finally, SB 199 is a bill that changes how many candidates in a primary election are needed to agree to the presence of poll watchers at election sites, from 26% of candidates to just two candidates. The bill passed the Senate unanimously, but Sen. J.D. Ford, D-Indianapolis, while supporting the bill, warned his colleagues of its potential implications.
“This reminds me of the old adage, there are too many cooks in the kitchen,” he said.
Schyler Altherr is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.
