Legislative Update

We now have less than a month until the Indiana General Assembly must statutorily end its legislative session (April 29th). In all likelihood, however, session will end earlier. Both the Senate and House calendars have April 24th as the anticipated last day. There are sure to be some late nights ahead as both chambers work to get through committees, debate bills on the floor, offer up last minute amendments to the budget, and try to hash out difference between House and Senate versions of bills. Further complicating things, since it is a budget year, any bill that impacts the budget must be approved by the Ways and Means Committee in the House and the Appropriations Committee in the Senate.

While the list of bills left alive has whittled down considerably, we are still tracking a number of pieces of legislation. First, it is important to note that the Governor can sign bills as they are passed. He doesn't have to wait until session is over to sign them all at once. Here are a few bills we've been following that have been signed into law by the Governor:

SB 199--Provides that 2 or more candidates of a political party may sign a written statement indicating their desire to name a watcher to be present at a county primary election
HB 1122--Authorizes law enforcement officers to order someone to stop approaching if the officer believes the person's presence within 25 ft of the officer will interfere with their duties
HB 1289--Defines "employment social enterprise"

A handful of bills have passed both chambers but simply await the Governor's signature. We are also tracking some bills authored, co-authored, or sponsored by legislators representing Monroe County. Some of these bills include:

SB 4 (Authored by Sen. Koch) -- Deals with long haul water pipelines and water transfers
SB 126 (Sponsored by Dave Hall) -- Requires municipality that initiates annexation process to with the court a petition approved by signatures of at least 51% of owners of non-tax exempt land in annexation territory
SB 176 (Authored by Sen. Yoder) -- Aims to tackle nursing shortage through increased eligibility to state-accredited programs
SB 287 (Sponsored by Rep. Heaton) -- Requires school board candidates to list party affiliation or to list as independent candidate
HB 1080 (Authored by Rep. Mayfield) -- Authorizes Ellettsville to collect food & beverage tax
HB 1245 (Authored by Rep. Hall) -- Allows counties with state parks to impose surcharge on entrance fees to use for public safety & infrastructure improvements

Many of these bills and others face an uncertain future until signed by the Governor. Many still have to be heard various committees, may get hung up on legislative procedures, or--in rare cases--fall victim to what we call a strip and insert where the bill is stripped of its existing language and replaced with language from another bill that passed its original chamber and hasn't been voted down. As always, you can keep track of all the bills on the Indiana General Assembly's "Legislation" tab here.

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