Lawmakers and their terrible, horrible, no good, very bad time of session
Christmas is hands-down my favorite time of the year. And the end of session is hands-down my least favorite.
That's because for months, the General Assembly has chugged along at a reasonable pace, hearing bills, listening to Hoosiers, making changes, passing measures — even compromising a time or two.
And then we hit the final few weeks, and all best practices go out the door.
I'm going to lay out three examples we have seen in recent days that don't bode well for a transparent and accountable legislature. It's also why trust in public service continues to erode.
1 – The massive property tax measure. Senate Bill 1 went from 46 pages when introduced as Gov. Mike Braun's reset plan helping homeowners. It grew under Senate Republicans to 91 pages. And after House Republicans added another amendment, it is a stunning 354 pages. The GOP folded in tangentially related and even unrelated bills (possibly to harvest votes). And it made the product so endlessly complicated that even someone who has covered Indiana's property tax system since it was redesigned after being found unconstitutional is struggling to grasp it all.
It now includes a bill that had been moving just fine on its own – Senate Bill 518 – and looked like an easy win for the GOP. It provides property tax sharing in some local school districts for public charter schools. It's a perfectly good debate to have but now the measure is in this will, which likely means Democrats won't support it.
The newly amended version has long sought business tax break in a phaseout of the business personal property tax cut. This comes even though the purpose of the bill was long said to be about giving homeowners relief from massive assessment and bill spikes.
Oh yeah, and it also dissolves a school corporation in southern Indiana has almost all virtual students, which has nothing to do with the bill.
Heck, the bill isn't even titled property tax relief anymore. It's now local government finance.
2 – Reviving things that already failed once due to lack of support. In the first half of session House Bill 1662 had robust hearings, passed out of committee and then died on the calendar because it didn't have the votes. The bill has been labeled by critics as criminalizing homelessness. Now at this late hour, it was suddenly put into Senate Bill 197 via an amendment. No one following the issue had notice of the amendment so there was no public testimony. And it is likely headed back to the Senate to see if they 'concur' or accept that change. Mind you, senators haven't heard one iota of testimony on the concept.
3 – Brand new language. We're in the fourth month, and yet still putting in language that has never even passed a committee. Several bills filed at the outset were bans on advertising marijuana. But none of them passed a committee vote in the first half. So, instead, a Republican lawmaker added it to a BMV bill he authored while it was in a Senate committee. The agency was none too pleased, and the language was removed the next week. But never fear, the language was added again – this time to Senate Bill 73 on utility trailer sales. The language hasn't passed a single chamber, and most lawmakers have heard no testimony on the pros and cons of such a move. But it would very well become law anyway.
Yes, the session isn't over until the session is over. And every day counts. But leaders can't be happy with some of the shenanigans that are just considered to be ho-hum legislating. For the majority of session, cooler heads prevail and then when the end nears everyone forgets that it matters just as much how a law is passed as what is passed.
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