His decision—announced in a Statehouse address streamed online—follows in the footsteps of a handful of other governors across the country, including three of Indiana’s neighboring states: Michigan, Illinois and Ohio.
The governor also signed legislation that will eventually put more money into the state’s unemployment trust fund, a move that comes as the coronavirus outbreak has led to a jump in unemployment claims.
The governor said the decision will be up to Secretary of State Connie Lawson, a Republican who oversees the Indiana Election Division.
A former Senate budget writer said the hit to the state budget could be bigger than during the Great Recession, when state revenue dropped 15% over two years.
Two weeks ago, Italy had 1,700 cases of coronavirus and had reported 34 deaths. Now, Italy is reporting an estimated 25,000 cases and more than 1,800 deaths.
More than 200 of Indiana’s nearly 300 districts have closed after consultations with local health officials. But, in at least 21 states, officials have ordered closures to try to stop spread of COVID-19.
It was a fortuitous decision by legislative leaders heading into January to seek adjournment sine die by March 11 or 12.
Trump also told reporters at a White House briefing that he had his temperature taken before stepping into the room and it was “totally normal.”
Agreement calls for spending tens of billions of dollars on sick leave, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other measures to address the unfolding COVID-19 crisis.
The party leaders did not suggest any delay in the May 5 primary itself.
Despite a push from Indiana House lawmakers to clarify in state code whether Attorney General Curtis Hill could remain in office if his law license is suspended, state legislators failed to pass a bill before adjourning this year’s session Wednesday night.
The provision emerged at the Statehouse last month as a last-minute attempt to block the Indianapolis City-County Council from implementing two ordinances designed to protect tenants from predatory landlords.
Just in the past month or so, lawmakers have debated proposals to prohibit cities from regulating landlord-tenant relations, allow the attorney general to step in when a local prosecutor decides not to pursue a case, and cut funding to IndyGo—which might stop construction of future bus rapid-transit lines.
IPL said a typical household customer would likely pay an extra $1.50 a month in the first year. That monthly amount would increase by $1.50 each year, or by a total of $10.50 a month by the seventh year.
House Bill 1279, authored by Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso, initially only addressed a regional development group in northwest Indiana. But an amendment sought to put teeth in a 2014 state law that required IndyGo to raise private dollars to help finance its mass transit operations.
The city is just six months from a tentative opening for the first piece of the justice campus project, the 37,000-square-foot Assessment and Intervention Center. Construction on other buildings in phase one is well underway, and the city has started planning for phases two and three.
House Speaker Brian Bosma is turning control over to Rep. Todd Huston, who isn’t wedded to policies of the past simply because they were justified when enacted and once worked.
The new language, which was added to a bill this week, would effectively make it illegal to panhandle in all of downtown Indianapolis.
Sen. Aaron Freeman, the Indianapolis Republican and former city councilor who authored the legislation, said his goal is not to cripple the bus system’s operations but to hold IndyGo accountable to a 2014 law that required it to fund some of its operations with private funds.
Each year, one item seems to arise unexpectedly—innocently or intentionally—that seems to consume, as Statehouse denizens observe, all the time and calories.
