John Krull, publisher, TheStatehouseFile.com

By John Krull
TheStatehouseFile.com 

INDIANAPOLIS – The end came almost as quiet as a whisper.

The 2014 legislative session of the Indiana General Assembly finished with a soft flurry of activity.

In the last days of the session, lawmakers, working almost in a hush, met in conference committees and moved to the governor’s desk bills limited either in geographic scope or in sheer ambition.

Making the march toward becoming law were measures designed to allow Central Indiana to decide it wants a mass transit system, create a small pre-kindergarten educational pilot program, give businesses some tax breaks while still allowing local governments some control over their revenue sources and spend some more money on Indiana’s battered roads.

The last three items on the list – pre-K, business tax breaks and road money – were on Gov. Mike Pence’s agenda, but in much larger form. Pence put the best face he could on a bad situation and told the legislators that theirs was a “job well done,” but the reality is that, if Christmas came this year in March for the governor, it was a pretty meager one. He only got a sliver of what he asked for from Santa.

The only real storm and noise at the session came over a strange, misguided bill designed to allow guns onto school property. At the conference committee hearing on the bill, lawmakers decided it was less important to hear testimony from those opposed to the measure – gun control advocates, teachers and other educators – than it was to bully and berate them when they tried to talk.

The National Rifle Association liked the bill. Gun-control advocates, the Indiana State Teachers Association, the Indiana Association of School Principals, Indiana Association of Public School Superintendents, Indiana School Boards Association, Indiana Urban School Association, and the Children’s Coalition of Indiana didn’t like it.

The NRA won.

The NRA is coming to Indianapolis for a convention in April. Maybe, while they’re here, the NRA’s top officials will find a few minutes to stop by the Statehouse and carve the organization’s logo into the Statehouse’s stone walls.

They clearly own the place and everyone should know that.

The gun bill was about the only tumult that came in the session’s waning days.

Such a quiet end to the lawmakers’ work didn’t seem likely just a few weeks ago. At that time, Indiana seemed likely to tear itself in two over a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

The fight over the proposed amendment, House Joint Resolution 3, filled the Statehouse with agitated protestors on both sides of the issue. Early on, the atmosphere was testy. House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, shifted the measure among legislative committees like a pea in a shell game and the Elections Committee chairman, Rep. Milo Smith, R-Columbus, tossed an opponent of HJR 3 who happened to be a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force out of a hearing for making a silent gesture of protest.

Tempers flared, but then the House stripped a key provision out of HJR 3, the Senate refused to reinstate it and the measure got kicked down the road a couple of years. The earliest any proposed constitutional same-sex marriage ban can make it onto the ballot now is 2016.

After that, aside from a bizarre Twitter-fueled meltdown by HJR 3 supporter Sen. Mike Delph, R-Carmel, the issue faded to silence and lawmakers turned their attention to quieter matters.

Predictably, there are critics who charge that legislators accomplished little during this session and squandered opportunities to make needed changes.

The fact, though, is that the state has made many sweeping changes in recent years – including creating the most expansive school voucher program in the nation and rewriting labor law to make it more business-friendly – and not enough time has passed to determine the effectiveness of those big changes. It probably is wise to wait and see if the moves we’ve already made actually are working before we charge further down the road.

Hoosiers also have been through two bruising family battles – right-to-work legislation and the same-sex marriage struggle – in the past couple of years. It’s probably smart for us to take a break from tearing into each other.

Sometimes a little silence can be a good thing.

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

By Lesley Weidenbener
TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS – Gov. Mike Pence declared a legislative victory just 12 hours after the House and Senate adjourned for the year on Thursday night, saying he had won support for most of his agenda.

The governor’s staff handed out a list of 20 of his bills the General Assembly passed. But although they were all marked as ‘achieved,’ some of the biggest issues were only partial accomplishments.

The Republican sought pre-kindergarten classes for children of low-income families, but he got a pilot program in five counties.

He wanted to eliminate the property tax on business equipment and lawmakers voted instead to give counties the option to cut the tax.

And he sought $400 million for roads. Legislators gave him half that – but with the possibility of getting the rest later on.

Still, Pence says it was a good year.

“A lot of people thought we wouldn’t get a lot done in this session,” Pence acknowledged.

“But because the men and women who serve Indiana – frankly in both parties – were willing to roll their sleeves up, stay focused on the people of Indiana, stay focused on jobs and kids and families and schools, this has been a remarkably productive session of the General Assembly,” he said.

Pence said his administration will get to work on the kindergarten pilot program immediately.

Lawmakers assigned the Family and Social Services Administration the task of choosing the counties that will participate and coming up with $10 million for several thousand 4-year-olds to participate. Pence said Friday the agency has already found the money.

To qualify, a student’s family could earn no more than 127 percent of the federal poverty limit. That’s about $28,380 for a family of four. And parents would have to pledge to participate as well.

Meanwhile, the state will study the kids through third grade to determine whether the preschool program is effective.

House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, said lawmakers aren’t likely to move to expand the program until at least some of the study results are in.

“It’s going to take some time to get it completely functional, to get it studied,” Bosma said. “A few years to look at the pilot program would not be reasonable.”

The House had originally proposed the five-county pilot in January but members of the Senate said they were concerned about the cost of fully implementing a system. Lawmakers compromised on the plan requiring Pence to come up with the money.

But on Friday, Senate Appropriations Chairman Luke Kenley reiterated that pre-K and other spending programs must be weighed against existing priorities as lawmakers write a two-year budget in 2015.

Democrats on Friday praised the preschool pilot program. But Senate Minority Leader Tim Lanane, D-Anderson, said the state needs to do more.

“We’re going to have the opportunity now to see the benefits of early childhood ed. When we come back next year, the challenge is going to be: Let’s make a meaningful commitment to expanding this to every child.”

But House Minority Leader Scott Pelath said preschool is one of the few bright spots in a session that otherwise did little to help most Hoosiers. He said majority Republicans focused too much on helping big business.

Pence plans to sign legislation to extend the reduction of the corporate tax rate, which was already scheduled to drop to 6.5 percent in fiscal year 2016. The legislation will phase in an additional reduction, lowering every year through 2022, when the rate reaches 4.9 percent.

“The continuing reduction in corporate taxes in Indiana is shameless. It’s shameless,” Pelath said. “And there isn’t any evidence it will produce a single job.”

And the bill gives local officials the power to cut the property tax on business inventory – or abate it for 20 years for individual projects.

Republicans said Friday that cutting business taxes – and letting local officials in part decide the best way to go about it – will help boost the state’s economy.

Senate President Pro Tem David Long, R-Fort Wayne, said the legislation will create a “better environment for jobs and entrepreneurship and companies to come to our state.”

Pence also praised legislation that provides more money for state highway projects.

The compromise bill allows Pence’s administration to spend $200 million on new highway projects starting on July 1.

Then it puts the bipartisan State Budget Committee – which includes four lawmakers and the governor’s budget director – in charge of deciding when or even whether to transfer another $200 million from the state’s main checking account to the highway fund.

Pence said Friday he is considering vetoes of some of the other bills headed to his desk, but he wouldn’t provide specifics.

Lesley Weidenbener is executive editor of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.