Daylight-saving time bill stuck in the House

INDIANAPOLIS -- It will be difficult to revive legislation that would mandate that all of Indiana observe daylight-saving time, the Senate's leader said Wednesday, a day after the House failed to advance the contentious bill.\nHouse Democrats refused to take the floor Tuesday as the deadline passed to advance proposals to the Senate, derailing dozens of bills. Included among those was the daylight-saving time proposal, which Gov. Mitch Daniels strongly supports.\nWhile many bills that fail to clear legislative deadlines can be revived later, some are not. Senate President Pro Tem Robert Garton, R-Columbus, said it could be difficult to amend daylight-saving time legislation into another bill.\n"The daylight-saving time issue should stand on its own," Garton said.\nUnder Garton's leadership of the Senate, which stretches back to 1980, the chamber has traditionally adhered to strict guidelines prohibiting bills from being amended with language not relevant to the original legislation.\nGarton said that he could not immediately think of a "home" in which daylight-saving time could be resurrected. The issue might be a priority for Daniels, but Garton said the Senate would not alter its strict rules for anyone other than Senate Republicans.\n"The standards haven't changed," Garton said.\nSimilar daylight-saving time bills have failed in the General Assembly at least 24 times in past three decades.\nRep. Jeff Espich, R-Uniondale, also said he thought it would be difficult to find a Senate bill that could be amended to include the time-change legislation.\n"I think it probably is a casualty," Espich said.\nSen. Teresa Lubbers, R-Indianapolis, was planning to be the Senate sponsor of the bill before it was derailed in the House.\n"I thought they would handle it on the House side," Lubbers said Wednesday. "I really thought we would have a bill coming to the Senate. They've put us in a very difficult situation."\nSen. Robert Meeks, R-LaGrange, said the Senate should not take up an issue that would put senators on the "hot seat" with voters unless they knew it would pass the House.\n"Why should we put all our folks in harm's way over that issue?" Meeks said Tuesday. "They (House members) ought to be the ones to take action first. They apparently don't want to."\nCurrently, 77 of Indiana's 92 counties do not observe daylight-saving time. There are five counties in southeastern Indiana on Eastern time that do change their clocks twice a year. Five counties in northwest Indiana and five in the southwest are on Central time and observe daylight time.