INDIANAPOLIS | Democrats drove a stake through Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels' local government reform plan Tuesday, dealing a potentially fatal blow to an issue at the heart of his legislative agenda.
The House Government and Regulatory Reform Committee, led by Rep. John Bartlett, D-Indianapolis, amended five separate reform proposals into one bill. And the Democratic-controlled panel voted 1-7 to kill the combined measure as Republicans stormed out in protest.
"Certainly I'm disappointed," Sen. Ed Charbonneau, R-Valparaiso, said after an election reform measure he co-authored fell victim to the House maneuvering. "This is a long process but sometimes a pretty ugly process."
The legislative surgery got off to a bad start when Rep. Steve Stemler, D-Jeffersonville, bucked fellow Democrats and voted against the amendment to combine the five proposals. That forced Chairman Bartlett, a rookie legislator, to hastily recess the committee.
The panel returned minutes later and took more than three hours of testimony on the efforts to eliminate townships, reorganize library districts, streamline county government and adopt a handful of election reforms. The amendment to lump all of those proposals into one bill prevailed the second time around on a 7-5 vote.
Reps. Earl Harris, D-East Chicago, and Mara Candelaria Reardon, D-Munster, voted to defeat the combined measure.
Candelaria Reardon said she supported the library reorganization bill and the bid to streamline county government but couldn't stomach the township abolition effort.
"Our best chance of getting true reform is not doing it all at once," she said. "We've got a great township trustee in (North Township Trustee) Frank Mrvan, and I don't think we have the same problems that Calumet Township has in our efficiencies."
During the hearing, Griffith Town Council President Rick Ryfa chronicled the town's attempt to escape from the tax burden of Calumet Township, which is dominated by Gary. Democrats, meanwhile, argued the recession should stymie the attempt to shift temporary poor relief delivered by townships to the county level.
Democrats, including Candelaria Reardon, also argued against Charbonneau's contribution to the reform agenda, which would prohibit public employees from serving elected office within the same unit of government for which they work.
"In the town of Lowell, that was a real problem," countered Sen. Connie Lawson, R-Danville. A police officer making budget decisions on the Town Council, she said, "basically became the police chief's boss."
Meanwhile, critics contend the move would strap police and firefighters with a prohibition of holding office that is now reserved for convicted felons.
Procedurally speaking, several of the separate reform measures approved by the Senate remain alive in the House. But after the combined measure failed Tuesday, Candelaria Reardon said she does not expect House leadership to give the individual proposals another try.
