State lawmakers set priorities as legislative session draws to a close
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — State lawmakers are in a mad dash to the finish line as the end of this year’s legislative session rapidly draws near.
What does legislative leadership want to push through? Could bills that are dead come back to life?
State House Speaker, Republican Brian Bosma said legislation about Indiana’s economy and workforce lead their sprint to the end.
“We’ve already come to a conclusion on a number of our other key provisions, including funding for schools,” Bosma explained. “We have some of our opioid in both addiction treatment and correction items that are critical to us.”
What isn’t successful? Democratic Minority Leader, Terry Goodin, said they are not fully happy with the two workforce development bills still on the table.
“Those two (bills) still don’t address the issue of trying to get a ready workforce available for the jobs of today,” Goodin explained.
Tuesday, Democratic leadership said they want education funding in focus.
“(We’ve) still not seen (House Bill) 1001 come out with a fix to the mess-up with the school funding formula that happened,” Goodin said.
Bosma believes the gun debate will be difficult to agree on. Democrats said that’s not resolved and they’re anxious to see where it goes.
“There’s not been much in the way of legislative policy objection to the church school exemption,” Bosma explained. “We’ve got 36 hours to bring it to a successful conclusion.”
Last week, a bill that would lift a ban on light rail crashed and burned. Could it come back on track?
“I hope so. We’ve got our fingers crossed,” Goodin said. “It’s a real discussion. Those are the issues we need to be talking about. Workforce development and light rail is being brought into that as we move forward.”
“It’s being discussed,” Bosma said regarding the lifting the light rail ban. “I don’t think that’s a critical issue. Indianapolis made it on the top 20 of Amazon’s list with the current prohibition in place.”
Bosma says CBD oil legislation is moving, but there’s apparently some disagreement among people in conference committee about if labeling should be strict or not.
Representative Goodin said with the “Abracadabra” —-his real words—of the legislative authority, really any language that has passed one chamber is still eligible to go into a conference committee report and could become law if the majority party—Republicans— decide to do that.