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The bill count topped 1,200 before the end of January, and that figure, of course, doesn’t include the scores of amendments you’ll see before the end of April. Some will include the vaunted “strip-and-inserts” that effectively transform a given bill into a totally new concept you thought had died.
Many of these proposals will not progress. Only about one-third may even become the subject of a committee hearing.
Sometimes bills are introduced simply to appease a constituent or special interest, but lawmakers quietly make it clear to leadership that they have no stake in seeing them enacted. They may also introduce a bill to make a point, but not a law. Or they may place a concept in front of colleagues to begin a dialogue in what could be a multi-session process of passage.
Leaders might decide to bar a controversial bill from advancing to protect their caucus members from having to vote on it, and committee chairs might just not be amenable to the subject matter or find a topic too time-consuming.
But many major bills are already advancing and meriting committee hearings. This year, we seem to be seeing groups of three bills emerging in broad issue areas.
Three K-12 areas will see action. Funding will be the major budget issue, with school funding reform and direction of dollars to voucher schools driving debate. The education governance policy and political battle opened up in committee just as Milken educator awards were being bestowed, and you should keep an eye on practice matters as well: testing (and costs), teacher evaluations, district takeovers.
Energy legislation is already winning some of the spotlight. Utilities and energy consumers are battling over net metering and increased costs for the use of solar energy; municipalities and municipal electric utilities against investor-owned utilities and rural electric cooperatives over service territories—and we’re already wrapped up in this year’s messy version of the attempt to shape a new energy-efficiency framework.
Agricultural interests are fighting to extend the moratorium on increases to property taxation for farmland. While the first attempt sailed through committee, business and residential taxpayers are wary about further tax shifts. Local units of government and neighbors oppose a move to regulate large-scale animal feeding operations at the state (and not local) level, and the far-reaching Right to Farm measure returns.
The Statehouse crowd largely senses that this is finally the session in which major gambling-law changes will be made, with land-based gambling possibly looming, along with favorable tax changes to complement similar 2013 gambling tax breaks, and live dealers for table games at the racinos under consideration to help stem the flow of declining casino revenue.
The same committees handling gambling issues will also be reviewing long-standing laws on sales of alcohol, with Sunday sales (anathema to the package liquor stores) and direct-to-consumer wine delivery up for discussion, along with a big lobbying push from Hoosier craft brewers who need beer-production limits lifted to be able to grow their businesses—but which threatens the three-tier distribution system.
The stuff of government will also receive attention.
Three big-ticket items include more money for 1,300 new prison beds (despite a legislative understanding that 2014’s criminal code revision meant fewer inmates), more money for child and family caseworkers, and more money for the State Board of Accounts to hire auditors to review spending of state and local funds. The common theme: more cash to beef up unheralded government functions.
Finally, constitutional matters could assume center stage. While election-related issues such as repeal of the 17th Amendment providing for direct election of U.S. senators and changes to legislative redistricting might not garner attention outside the limestone, changes to gun laws (open carry, campus carry, and driver’s license notations of permit-holders) might gin up suspicions.
Certain to generate controversy: religious-freedom measures to be debated in February, including allowing businesses to discriminate based upon owners’ religious beliefs, and exempting religious institutions receiving state and local government contracts from religious-discrimination restrictions.•
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Feigenbaum publishes Indiana Legislative Insight. He can be reached at edf@ingrouponline.com.
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