Vote on daylight-saving postponed until next week

INDIANAPOLIS -- The Indiana House will not vote until next week on legislation that would mandate statewide observance of daylight-saving time, the bill's chief sponsor said Thursday.\nRepublican Rep. Jerry Torr of Carmel said some House members still had questions about the bill, and some were absent because of illness or deaths in their family, so a vote would not take place until Monday or Tuesday.\nTuesday is the deadline for legislation to clear its house of origin and move to the other chamber during this legislative session.\n"We need Democrat votes and I am certain we will have all the votes we need to pass this bill on Monday or Tuesday before the deadline midnight Tuesday," Torr said.\nThe bill is backed by Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels, and fellow Republicans control the House 52-48. But Torr has repeatedly said that Republicans would need some Democrat support to reach the 51 votes needed to pass it.\nAlthough daylight-saving time has been a polarizing political issue for three decades, it traditionally has not been a partisan one. Many lawmakers are torn over the issue because they say their constituents are evenly divided and passionate in their beliefs.\nBut House Democrats have accused Daniels and Republican lawmakers of pushing legislation the Democrats consider partisan power-grabs, and daylight-saving time has become entangled in political wrangling between the two parties in that chamber.\nRegardless, this is the first time since 1995 that such a bill has made it to the full floor of either chamber. It failed to clear the House that year and has not been voted on by the Senate since 1983, when it was soundly defeated 46-4.\nSenate President Pro Tem Robert Garton, R-Columbus, said Wednesday that he did not know what committee he would assign the bill to if it passes the House, but it would not be one with "the purpose of blocking the bill."\nHe said if it cleared a Senate committee, his "sentiment right now is it will pass the Senate." \nTorr said he was confident that would be the case.\n"We've got some great people lined up to sponsor and co-sponsor the bill and shepherd it through the Senate," Torr said, "and I have every expectation that it will pass the Senate and go down to the governor and we'll be changing our clocks on April 3rd."\nCurrently, 82 of Indiana's 92 counties are in the Eastern time zone, but 77 do not observe daylight-saving time. Five counties in southeastern Indiana are in the Eastern zone and do observe it. \nThe northwest corner and five in the southwestern corner are in the Central time zone and observe daylight time, which next begins April 3.\nAlthough the bill would mandate that all counties change their clocks twice a year, as 47 other states do, it would not make any changes to time zones.