The General Assembly has wrapped up its work for the year nearly six days early, with a final flurry of bills.
Legislators closed the session with a 14-hour marathon which cut Hoosiers’ taxes, eliminated Indiana’s gun permit requirement, established oversight of bail charities, and required the Hoosier Lottery to get their approval before expanding online offerings. The blitz of final votes came five days after legislators joined with Governor Holcomb to bring Indiana’s two-year health emergency to a close.
Senate President Pro Tem Rod Bray (R-Martinsville) boasts legislators found a way to cut taxes without putting the state at risk if the economy turns bad. He and House Speaker Todd Huston (R-Fishers) both say the session has put the state on track for continued economic growth.
A majority of Democrats joined Republicans in supporting the tax cuts, though some grumbled the relief is too small. House Minority Leader Phil GiaQuinta (D-Fort Wayne) isn’t one of them. He says for many people, even the 45-dollar income tax cut the average household will get will mean a lot.
But GiaQuinta and other Democrats say freezing gas taxes would have meant more. And he says the session’s biggest achievements were the bills opponents managed to stop. A bill setting guidelines for teaching about racism died in the Senate not once but twice. And legislators watered down a bill to block workplace vaccine requirements — it helped that COVID cases dropped 97-percent from the first day of the session to the last. Huston says the end of the Omicron wave softened the tone of the vaccine debate.
In the final vote of the session, the Senate rejected a bill which would have allowed obscenity prosecutions against schools and libraries. The proposal was originally part of the bill pushing back on critical race theory. It got folded into a 21-page bill mashing up a wide range of legislation, and was voted down 29-21 without debate. Bray says the hodgepodge of barely related provisions may have meant there was something for everyone to dislike.
