House Republicans hope to revise at least 40 bills

INDIANAPOLIS -- Republicans who control the Indiana House pledged Wednesday to use all their power to revive at least 40 bills that failed to clear their chamber by a key deadline last week, many of them derailed because of a walkout by Democrats.\nTheir priority salvage list included bills that would mandate statewide observance of daylight-saving time, give Gov. Mitch Daniels' inspector general power to prosecute government crimes and establish several economic development initiatives.\nHouse Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, acknowledged that procedural rules and time constraints would make it difficult to resurrect many of the bills by amending them into legislation that is still alive. He said Republicans had identified potential homes for some of the bills, but not all of them.\nHe also acknowledged that it could be tough to revive the daylight-saving legislation, but said his caucus was committed to keeping that and other legislation alive.\n"We will not wait until the last six days of the session to pass critical legislation as has been the practice of the past," he said.\nHouse Minority Floor Leader Russ Stilwell, D-Boonville, said he had not had enough time to fully review the list, but said House Democrats could probably support many of the bills. But he also said some were "pretty obnoxious," and that Republicans were still taking what another top Democrat referred to as a "my way or the highway" approach to negotiations.\nRepublicans have a 52-48 majority in the House, but Democrats refused to take the floor and provide a quorum on a deadline day last week for bills to clear their chamber of origin.\nDemocrats said the move, which derailed about 130 bills, was justified because some bills backed by the Republican governor and House Republicans were partisan power grabs.\nThey especially faulted legislation that would give Daniels' self-created inspector general the power to prosecute alleged government crimes if local prosecutors failed to file charges within six months. Democrats said that would allow a governor's appointee to conduct political witch hunts, but Daniels and Republicans said it is needed to root out government corruption.\nDemocrats also are strongly opposed to a bill that would require voters to show government-issued IDs to cast ballots, saying it could inconvenience some residents and disenfranchise voters to the GOP's benefit. Republicans say it would help prevent voter fraud.\nAlthough House Republicans included the voter ID measure on their list of bills to be revived, it is already alive because similar legislation passed the Senate and is now before the House.\nHouse Republicans also want to revive a bill that would allow parents to transfer their children at state expense to other public, private or charter schools if their current schools failed to meet federal standards. But Republicans failed to get that bill past a procedural step so it could be considered on the floor, so it was not derailed by the Democrat boycott.