Around the state

Daylight-saving bill clears house panel\nINDIANAPOLIS -- A bill that would mandate that all of Indiana observe daylight-saving time advanced to the full House on a party-line committee vote Wednesday, but some Republican supporters said Democrats were making it a partisan issue and could kill its chances of clearing that chamber.\nRepublicans control the House 52-48, but Republican Rep. Jerry Torr of Carmel, the bill's sponsor, said he doubted he could get 51 GOP votes to pass the bill and send it to the Senate. That means he would need at least some Democrat votes and suggested he might not get any because of partisan politics.\nAll six Republicans present during Monday's meeting of the House commerce committee endorsed the bill, and all five Democrats, including a co-sponsor of the legislation, voted against it.\nIt marks the first time since 1995 that such a bill made it to the full floor of either chamber in the General Assembly.\nIt failed to clear the House that year, and similar efforts to mandate daylight-saving time statewide have died numerous times during the past three decades.\nTensions among House Democrats, out of power for the first time in eight years, have been rising in recent days. Among other things, they claim that some bills being pushed by new Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels and House Republicans are partisan power-grabs. \nMandatory death penalty proposed\nCROTHERSVILLE, Ind. -- A state legislator from the southern Indiana town where a 10-year-old girl was abducted and killed last month has proposed making the death sentence mandatory in some cases of those convicted of murdering a child.\nRep. Terry Goodin, D-Crothersville, authored the amendment to a bill that is eligible for a vote on the House floor this week.\nThe measure would require death sentences for those convicted of murdering someone younger than 18 while also committing crimes such as child molestation, rape, kidnapping or criminal confinement.\nAuthorities have said they believed Katlyn Collman was abducted and slain last month so she would not tell others about methamphetamine activity she had seen in her neighborhood.\nGoodin said he considered the bill before Collman's death, but the highly publicized crime brought it to the forefront.\n"It brought the awareness that this wasn't in the statutes," Goodin said. "I've had people back in the district say enough is enough."\nGoodin's twin brother, Jerry, is an Indiana State Police sergeant and is among those investigating Collman's death. Terry Goodin is also superintendent of the Crothersville Community Schools, of which the girl was a student.\nCharles James Hickman, 20, is facing murder charges for Collman's death, which was the first homicide in 25 years in the town of about 1,600 people some 40 miles north of Louisville, Ky.\nThe Jackson County prosecutor has not yet decided whether to seek the death penalty against Hickman.\nLegislators advance bill to expand school choice\nINDIANANPOLIS -- A legislative committee approved a bill Wednesday to allow parents to transfer their children at state expense to other public, private or charter schools if their current public school fails to meet federal standards.\nThe bill, which was passed by the House Education Committee on a 6-4 party-line vote, would also give tax credits to parents of children who attend such "schools of choice."\nBill supporters, including more than 200 parents and students who visited the Statehouse, say the legislation will give parents the power to improve their children's education.\n"We are giving parents and children more options," said bill sponsor Rep. Bob Behning, R-Indianapolis.\nBut opponents, including all four Democrats on the committee, said allowing students to change schools and take the state's funding with them would drain money from public schools and leave the most-needy children stuck in schools with declining resources.\n"We need to fix education for all children," said Rep. Vernon Smith, a Gary Democrat. "This is a Band-Aid approach."\nUnder the proposal, more than 50 Indiana schools are not meeting progress as defined by the federal No Child Left Behind Act. About 25,000 students in 16 counties could leave those schools and go to private or charter schools or other public schools that are meeting the standards.\nThe money the state would normally pay to a public school to teach that child -- about $9,000 per student, according to a recent government efficiency report -- would instead go to the new school.\nSome said it wasn't right to turn over public money to private schools that may be run by churches.