Legislators have wrapped up their work for the year — without a BSU/MCS bill.
The House reached the midnight deadline without voting on five bills, including two sought by Governor Holcomb: extra funding for school safety and a framework to regulate self-driving cars. House Speaker Brian Bosma complains the Senate adjourned at mid-afternoon on the next-to-last day and put things behind. Senate President Pro Tem David Long says everyone needed for negotiations stuck around — he says there were just some difficult issues, and some difficult people. He singles out Valparaiso Representative Ed Soliday, House Republicans’ negotiator on self-driving cars and two other bills — he says senators complained to him that Soliday had “a meltdown” and delayed the process.
Long says a special session is a possibility, but Bosma says while the bills which died are important, “the Republic will survive.” One of the bills that died was the proposed bill that would enable Ball State University to take control of the financially-troubled Muncie Community Schools.
As the clock ticked down, Holcomb drafted an order to extend the midnight deadline by an hour, but Long and Bosma both say they’d never heard of the law he based that order on, and didn’t want to trot it out for the first time in the heat of a contentious session.
Legislators did pass two job-training bills, the legalization of cannabis oil and a boost in school funding. on the session’s final day.
Democratic Senator Tim Lanane of Anderson is questioning the priorities of the Republican supermajority in the 2018 legislative session. Sunday alcohol sales, increased gun access and the banning of eyeball tattoos – Lanane asks, “Are those really the things Indiana should be prioritizing?” The Senator expressed frustration that Republicans defeated Democrat bills at every step of the process.
