General Assembly faces partisan issues

The Indiana General Assembly, Indiana’s legislative branch, will address several highly partisan issues this year. The first thing will be to pass a balanced budget, which is required by the state constitution every two years.

“So at the same time as we have reduced revenue coming into the state, we have increased responsibility,” State Senate Minority Leader  Vi Simpson, D-Bloomington, said.

State Sen. David Long, R-Fort Wayne, president pro tempore of the Senate, said he is also concerned about the state’s revenue. But he said Indiana is better off than most states.

“Indiana has been much more fiscally conservative in governing,” Long said.
For the Democrats, the next issue in the legislative agenda will be the unemployment insurance system in the state.

Simpson said the system is broken and needs to be fixed.
However, Long said the Republicans’ next biggest concerns are jobs and education reform.

The Republicans said they hope to turn over more flexibility and power in operating public schools to the schools themselves and to begin rewarding good teachers.

After the General Assembly goes back into session in January, legislators will tackle the redistricting process. Every 10 years, the U.S. Constitution requires the state legislatures to redraw congressional district lines according to new census information.

This can become a long process, as where the lines are specifically drawn can affect which party’s candidates are elected to congressional offices for the next 10 years.

“I have supported for a long, long time introducing legislation to change, moving that away from the very partisan environment of the legislature into a nonpartisan commission, and our caucus will be filing legislation to try and do that this year,” Simpson said. “In the past, the Republican caucus has not supported that initiative.”

But though the process is often very partisan, Long is confident in Indiana legislators’ ability to compromise.

“Indiana will get done probably sooner than any other state,” Long said.
Simpson said it is sometimes hard for the parties to reach a compromise on these legislative topics.

“How well the two parties can work is really a matter for the majority party to choose,” Simpson said.

And for the next two years, the Republicans will have majorities in the State Senate, State House of Representatives and in the state executive branch with Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels.

“To have all three in the hands of one party has happened before, of course, and it’s happened both full-Democrat and full-Republican, but more often at least one of those three would be the opposite party,” James H. Madison, an IU professor who researches Indiana history, said.

Madison said when one party is in absolute control, the checks and balances built into the system are lost. But he said it’s important to remember the Republican Party was elected into this majority fairly by the people.

Long remains confident in his party’s ability to work with the Democrats in the Senate.
“The Senate has always acted in a bipartisan manner,” he said. “We reach across the aisle more than people believe.”

He said the Republicans plan to include the Democratic leadership in all their discussions on the big issues being addressed this year.

Simpson said her concern isn’t the mainstream Republican Party but rather the members of the “radical right.”

“They have an entirely different agenda than the more moderate Republican and Democrat parties, so it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out,” she said.

Simpson said she hopes the State Senate can address these issues quickly and not get stuck debating highly polarizing issues like gay marriage, immigration or abortion rights.

And, at least in focus, the two parties’ leaders are in agreement: They both said the economy, jobs and education need to be addressed.

“We do the people’s business,” Long said. “And we do it with our Democratic colleagues.”