Partisan sparring continues on Indiana budget

By MIKE SMITH

posted: 155 DAYS 18 HOURS AGO

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INDIANAPOLIS -With five days left in the current state budget, Indiana lawmakers appeared no closer Thursday to compromising on a spending plan than they were when the special session on the budget started earlier this month.

Partisan tensions ran high as Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels continued to tour the state, accusing Democrats who control the House of trying to "blackmail the state into bankruptcy."

Daniels is touting a two-year, $28.5 billion budget bill approved by the Republican-ruled Senate and says an alternative, one-year $14.5 billion plan passed by House Democrats would spend too much and devastate the state's finances. Democrats say the Republican bill would lead to teacher layoffs in many school districts, while theirs would protect education and create jobs.

Democrats also have refused to sign onto a stopgap measure passed by the Senate to keep state funding going after midnight June 30, saying it would hand over legislative spending authority to Daniels.

"Senate Bill 1 will get the attention that it deserves in the House. None," House Speaker Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, said after Senate Republicans passed that bill and their version of a budget last Tuesday.

Such sparring continued even as state government threatened to shut down. After reviewing the state constitution and laws, the Legislative Services Agency concluded only a few state institutions — including psychiatric hospitals and schools for the blind and deaf — could continue to operate without passage of a new budget or stopgap funding measure.

LSA, the General Assembly's nonpartisan research arm, cited a state constitutional provision that forbids withdrawals from the treasury except through an appropriation made by law. It also concluded that the governor does not have emergency powers to spend money to protect public health and safety.

Although private negotiations on the budget were expected over the next few days, a conference committee on the issue spent much of Thursday taking public testimony — mostly from public school officials concerned about possible spending cuts.

House Democrats said it was important to hear more from the public, even as the clock ticks down, while Republicans have stressed a need for serious private negotiations.

Meanwhile, two of the most prominent players in the debate — Daniels and Bauer — continued to clash publicly.

Daniels has urged House Democrats to "cross the boss" and vote their consciences on the budget. Bauer has dismissed such comments as rhetoric.

"Sometimes he gets all worked up and says things that shouldn't be said," Bauer said Thursday of the governor. "I just have to say that those kinds of words don't belong in a public debate."

Neither Daniels nor Bauer is a "neophyte when it comes to bare-knuckle politics," said Robert Dion, a professor of American politics at the University of Evansville. But such behavior is "not pretty" in the face of a potential government shutdown, he said.

The fact that Daniels cannot seek a third consecutive term as governor and has said he will not seek public office again, may give him a slight upper hand over Bauer in taking a hard line, Dion said. But if there is a state government shutdown, the public is likely to blame both Daniels and the Legislature, he added.

"It could be an elaborate game of chicken where it all gets sorted out in the last hours," Dion said. "That might happen, but I think there would be a real, heavy-duty, negative backlash if we step into a government shutdown."

2009-06-25 16:44:01