Governor signs minimum wage, animal cruelty bills

INDIANAPOLIS – Gov. Mitch Daniels signed several bills Friday, including one that would tie Indiana’s minimum wage to the federal rate and another that would make it a crime to commit sex acts with animals.\nDaniels vetoed a bill that would increase attorney fees in some cases where Medicaid liens are recovered.\nIndiana’s current minimum wage of $5.15 an hour is the same as the federal rate. State Rep. John Day, D-Indianapolis, filed legislation that would increase the state rate to $7.50 per hour, but settled for a compromise that passed that would tie future increases to the federal rate.\nLegislation in Congress would have increased the rate to $7.25 over two years, but Democrats attached it to an Iraq war spending bill that President Bush vetoed after Democrats included a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops.\nCongressional Democrats can revive the minimum wage proposal, which Bush has pledged to support, in another bill.\nThe animal cruelty bill Daniels signed would make it a Class D felony, punishable by up to three years in prison and a $10,000 fine, to kill an animal with the intent of threatening, intimidating, coercing or terrorizing a household family member.\nIt also would make sexual intercourse or deviant sexual conduct with an animal a Class D felony.\nDaniels said he vetoed one House bill because it would mandate a threefold increase in the lawyers’ share of recoveries in certain personal injury cases where a Medicaid lien exists against any compensation a plaintiff might obtain. Those would include cases in which there was no demonstrable prospect that total recoveries to reimburse Medicaid would increase as a result.\n“The more likely outcome of higher attorney fees would be less money flowing back to taxpayers and the Indiana Patient’s Compensation Fund,” Daniels wrote in his veto message.