Indiana House Speaker Brian Bosma plans to spearhead efforts to create a new statewide jobs council and give families scholarships so children can attend preschool as part of an agenda focused on fighting Indiana’s stubborn unemployment rate by closing the state’s “skills gap.”
A sweeping plan to overhaul Indiana's criminal sentencing laws cleared its first hurdle in the Legislature on Wednesday with the support of law-enforcement groups that had scuttled similar efforts the past two years.
Sen. Karen Tallian’s proposal would reduce the penalty for possession of less than 2 ounces of pot to an infraction punishable by a fine. But the amount has caught the attention of at least one antidrug advocate.
Under the legislation, state utility regulators could order Indiana Gasification LLC to make refunds to gas customers every three years if the price of synthetic gas it produces from coal is greater than the market price of natural gas over the period.
A Republican state lawmaker is reviving the debate over specialty license plates one year after the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles suspended a gay youth group's plates.
A proposal to write Indiana's same-sex marriage ban into the state constitution may be on hold as Republican leaders ponder its fate this year, but the House and Senate sponsors are charging ahead anyway.
As the controversial provision spreads to other states in the region, Indiana is likely to give more weight to its other selling points.
Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard on Friday vetoed a City-County Council redistricting plan, likely setting the stage for a lengthy court battle. He wants to stick with the lines drawn by Republicans in late 2011, before newly elected Democrats took control.
Lawmakers are engaged in a playground game of "who goes first," daring each political party to let the year end without resolving a Jan. 1 confluence of higher taxes and deep spending cuts that could rattle a recovering, but-still-fragile economy.
Senate Education Committee chairman Dennis Kruse said he would not introduce a creationism measure again this year, choosing a lighter tack instead. His new proposal, he said, would encourage students to question a broad range of topics in the classroom.
State Rep. Ed Clere plans to introduce a bill that would give municipalities explicit powers to create land banks, which can sell surplus property for redevelopment. He also wants to include a revenue source to support land-bank operations and eliminate tax-foreclosure sales as a form of investor speculation.
Economic development typically tops the chamber’s agenda, and for the upcoming session the pro-business organization is backing Gov.-elect Mike Pence’s idea for a new state-sponsored research institute.
Key Indiana legislators from both parties are looking at decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana.
The $1.3 billion transit plan for Hamilton and Marion counties is one of a few lingering issues — along with Sunday alcohol sales and a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage — likely to appear before lawmakers in 2013.
Circuit Judge Dennis Carroll said in a 27-page ruling Tuesday said that Indiana law gives municipalities the right to lay off employees because of economic conditions.
How deep are the roots in J. Murray Clark's political family tree? What still stings from the former state GOP chairman's tenure? How does he view the party today? What about fundraising tips? Clark has answers.
Tax cuts being pushed by gubernatorial candidates are hardly guaranteed a rubber stamp from lawmakers, and a state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage could win quick approval next year, Republican House Speaker Brian Bosma said Thursday.
State Sen. Brent Steele, R-Bedford, said he’ll introduce legislation in the 2013 legislative session that would make possession of 10 grams or less of marijuana an infraction, rather than a criminal offense.
More oversight of Indiana’s specialty license plates is needed to ensure that the groups who benefit spend the money appropriately, according to the chairman of a legislative panel reviewing the plates.
Three state senators say Indiana's attorney general effectively nullified their votes when he opted not to defend sections of a state immigration law he said were rendered invalid when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down similar sections of an Arizona law.
