Government reorganization plans in jeopardy-WEB ONLY

After some bumbling and rumbling, a Democratic-controlled
Indiana House committee dealt a blow yesterday to efforts to reorganize local
government – a top legislative priority of Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels.

The Government and Regulatory Reform Committee voted to combine five local
government bills into one, and then one Republican joined six Democrats in
defeating the bill, preventing it from getting to the full House. The move
outraged one GOP member, who joined a few other Republicans in declining to vote
on the revamped legislation.

Each of the five bills originated in the Republican-led Senate, but one to
consolidate some small school districts never cleared that chamber, and many
provisions in the others were changed significantly. House Democrats sought to
combine the bills in their original form into a single bill.

The bills initially would have eliminated township government, nixed
three-member county commissions in favor of a single county executive, and
required library districts to consider consolidating, among other things. The
bills stemmed from recommendations made by a commission created by Daniels and
led by former Democratic Gov. Joe Kernan and Indiana Chief Justice Randall
Shepard.

The legislation could be revived late in the session, but House Speaker
Patrick Bauer (D-South Bend) has said all along that he did not consider major
restructuring of local government to be a high priority this session.

Marilyn Schultz, executive director Mysmartgov.org, a group lobbying for the
Kernan-Shepard recommendations, said it was clear that the intent was to kill
the legislation in the House.

“Let’s figure out a way we can kill this in an unusual way,” Schultz, a
former Democratic legislator and state budget director, said in describing the
political maneuvering.

“I think there were members of both caucuses who were getting a lot of heat
from their constituents because they really want to see reform, and so this was,
you know, kind of a storefront hearing so they can say they gave it
consideration, and nobody was in favor.”

The governor’s office declined to comment on the committee’s actions.

A first vote on amending the original bills into one failed on a 6-6 vote,
with most Democrats in favor and most Republicans against. If the 244-page
amendment had passed, it later could have died of its own weight – containing
too many provisions for a majority of the House to pass as a whole.

Democrats control the chamber 52-48.

Democratic Rep. John Bartlett of Indianapolis, chairman of the committee,
called a 10-minute recess after the tie vote to confer with House leaders on how
to proceed. The panel then heard public testimony, much of it from township
trustees who opposed elimination of township government, before voting again on
whether to amend the bills into one.

The panel voted 7-5 to do that, with three Republicans joining four Democrats
in favor. The panel then voted whether to endorse the overall bill.

Six Democrats and one Republican – Rep. Tim Neese of Elkhart – voted against
the bill. Democratic Rep. John Barnes of Indianapolis voted for the bill, but
Rep. Phil Hinkle of Indianapolis and the other Republicans walked out, with
Hinkle demanding with shouts to meet privately to discuss matters.

Bartlett then slapped down the gavel and declared the bill dead. He blamed
Republicans for killing it.

“The Kernan-Shepard report was the report that the governor gave us,”
Bartlett said. “So the amendment included everything he was asking for. Then the
Republicans didn’t want to support that. So if they can’t support it, then we
couldn’t support it.”

Hinkle had asked that a vote on the amended bill be delayed.

“I really question the assumption that we on the Republican side of the aisle
aren’t willing to step up to the plate and support some of the Kernan-Shepard
report,” he said.