Archive for the ‘Legislature’ Category

Precinct Committeemen in State Senate District 21 are about to have their phones ringing off the hook for the next two weeks getting calls from candidates courting their vote.  That’s because the date for the caucus to replace Senator Drozda has been set.  It will be taking place at 10:00am on April 26 at the Howard County GOP headquarters.  At this point, St. Rep. Jim Buck of Kokomo is the leading candidate to replace Senator Drozda who officially stepped down yesterday.

Earlier this year, State Senator Jeff Drozda surprised everyone as he announced he was resigning from the State Senate. It turned out his job was transfering him to South Carolina. Unknown was when he was going to officially step down. But reliable sources tell me that Senator Drozda is going to officially step down this coming Monday.

Still not known is when the caucus the replace Drozda will take place. But my guess is this will be something that they may want to take care of before the primary. The heavy favorite to replace Drozda is Jim Buck of Kokomo.

The caucus to replace State Senator David Ford took place today. Attorney and Wells County Councilman Travis Holdman was chosen to fill the rest of Senator Ford’s term.

Via Mitch Harper and Fort Wayne Observed:

Travis Holdman was selected to serve as Indiana’s newest state senator at a District 19 caucus held at Bluffton High School. Mr. Holdman was selected on the fourth ballot. He is filling the vacancy created by the death of the well-respected David Ford.

Read the rest of Mitch’s post here.

Republican Bob Heaton and former Indiana State Sycamore star is running against Democrat Vern Tincher for HD 46. He will begin running the ad below in Terre Haute tomorrow.

(Written by and re-printed with permission from Fort Wayne News)

Gary Snyder is running for State Representative and is saying all the right things to attract conservatives to his side in the District 50 Republican Primary in Huntington and Whitley Counties. Sndyer talks the talk and sounds like a good choice to send to Indianapolis where more conservative Republicans would be a welcome alternative to the squishes we have too much of right now. Problem is, Snyder has some skeletons in his closet that folks in Whitley and Huntington counties might not know about, especially since he just moved there about one year ago. So we’re going to do what we do best here at Fort Wayne News. We’re going to make the truth known and let voters know what Gary Snyder is hiding in his race to become the next State Representative in District 50.

(Find out what’s being hidden below the fold) (more…)

Last week, Hoosier Access broke the story of State Representative Jim Buck getting the endorsement of the Indiana State Chamber PAC to replace State Senator Jeff Drozda after he officially resigns in May. Today, the State Chamber made it official with the following press release.

INDIANA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE ENDORSES
REP. JIM BUCK FOR STATE SENATE

INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana Chamber of Commerce, the state’s leading small business and business advocacy organization, announced today its endorsement of Rep. Jim Buck (R - Kokomo, HD38) for election to the Indiana Senate, District 21. Buck is running in the Republican caucus election to fill the remainder of retiring Sen. Jeff Drozda’s term. The endorsement was made by Indiana Business for Responsive Government (IBRG), the political action division of the Indiana Chamber.

(Read more about the Chamber’s endorsement below the fold.) (more…)

Barring any crazy antics by Speaker Bauer (which can never be ruled out), we have a deal…a compromise if you will, on the property tax crisis. And it does include a constitutional amendment. Time to celebrate this compromise.

I love that band!

Can anybody say, the end of the Short Session in the General Assembly? There are plenty of events on the schedule for Hoosier Access to cover, including a live blog of the closing hours of the General Assembly….that is if Pat Bauer doesn’t keep the Session from going into a Special Session as well as upcoming Hoosier Access Radio interviews with Lt. Governor Becky Skillman and 2nd CD candidate Luke Puckett. By the way, can anybody tell me why “The Hair” decided to not to bring the House into session all week when serious property tax reform needs to be passed? Does he want a special session to take place at tax payer expense? (Update - There’s been a compromise…Thank You!)

Anyway, the spotlight around here (being Indy) has been the 7th CD Special Election. With MC Juggernaut (aka Andre Carson) coming out victorious the battle for the Democrat primary has already begun in full force with David Orentlicher “officially” announcing yesterday, Woody Myers ready to run ads and Carolene Mays fundraising across the district. But this race has eight full weeks to percolate with fun stuff. My guess is, though, it won’t hardly take that long.

Let’s not forget that Indiana is actually going to mean something this year in presidential election. For starters, Barack Obama is gracing us with his empty message of “hope and change” (or maybe that was someone else’s message and he’s just “borrowing” it this year) this weekend. Oh to be a fly on the wall of his meetings with various super delegates. I can only imagine how many time disgraced former Democrat Governor and Hillary backing super-delagate of New York Elliot Spitzer will be brought up.

The thing is, the fun never stops around here, though we may pause to get some work done. Indiana’s most prominent conservative blog promises that! (Thanks TBB for the compliment!)

Carlin Yoder, candidate for State Senate in District 12, announced today that he is the first candidate in the Republican Primary race to sign Americans for Tax Reform’s “Taxpayer Protection Pledge”.

Carlin Yoder Signs “Taxpayer Protection Pledge”

Challenges Opponents to Join in Pledging to Never Support Tax Hikes

Goshen – Republican candidate for State Senate Carlin Yoder announced today that he has signed Americans for Tax Reform’s “Taxpayer Protection Pledge”. The pledge states: I, Carlin Yoder, pledge to the taxpayers of the 12^th District of this state, that I will oppose and vote against any and all efforts to raise taxes.

Yoder is the first candidate in the Republican Primary Election for Indiana’s State Senate District 12 to sign the pledge. “Taxpayers in the 12^th District deserve to know that I will be their biggest advocate in Indianapolis,” said Yoder. “I will never support a tax increase if elected to the Indiana State Senate and I hope my opponents will join me in signing this pledge to show the voters our district that they too will show leadership and backbone in protecting taxpayers in our district.”

“Much of what troubles me about the current debate in the state legislature regarding tax reform is that we have heard next to nothing from the politicians there about cutting wasteful and reckless spending at the state and local level,” said Yoder. “I will work to fight against wasteful spending in the legislature and in local government and work toward cutting senseless state mandates that hurt local governments and force them to raise taxes as well.”

Yoder was endorsed by State Representative Marlin Stutzman last week.   

Now that we’re in the final week of the General Assembly Session the stakes to find a solution to the property tax problem have increased.  For Hoosiers, the problem has always been the same: we’re watching our property tax bills go through the roof and we can’t afford that.  For Republicans at the Statehouse the problem has been finding a plan that provides immediate relief and leaves open the possibility of future, and more extensive reform, if revenues allow for it (here I am referring to the House GOP Caucus’ plan in January to try and eliminate residential property taxes, a goal that the Governor has said he supports for down the road).  For Democrats the plan has always been the same: help create the problem, then let the Republicans try to develop a solution, and then come back with your own “solution” when it’s too late. 

A few weeks ago we had the Democrats advocating a half-baked solution of indexing property tax caps to personal incomes.  Then in the past few days the Democrats unveiled a new plan (after the Republicans brought forward their compromise) that takes the Governor’s one percent cap on residential property and one percent sales tax increase and pretty much strips everything else away.  The referendums, gone; the cap on local spending, gone; the constitutional caps on property tax rates; gone.  The Democratic “plan” really amounts to a stripped down version of what Republicans have already brought forward.

Now the question is whether or not Speaker Bauer and his fellow caucus members will actually compromise on their “plan” and support the true compromise put forward by Republicans.  If the General Assembly fails to pass property tax reform before the end of the session at the end of this week, then Governor Daniels has raised the possibility of a special session.  I can’t imagine legislators, especially those facing primary races, enjoying being called back to finish the work they failed to do. 

Update: Brian Howey on Saturday posted a piece on property taxes that was not to friendly to Democrats.

[The Directors of Hoosier Access are pleased to have Lt. Governor Becky Skillman, who is giving us this exclusive, to give us her view on the current situation with the property legislation in the legislature.]

Property Tax Legislation Must Be Immediate and Permanent

By Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman

This week, Senate and House Republicans came together to outline their joint proposal for property tax reform, a plan that goes a long way towards providing Hoosier taxpayers immediate and permanent relief. Throughout the session, Governor Daniels has been accepting of modifications to his property tax proposal. He does, however, insist that the four basic pillars of the plan – immediate relief, permanent protection, assessment reform and local spending control – remain in place in the final version. The Republicans have maintained these must-haves.

The version of tax reform put forth by the two Republican caucuses reflects several concessions to Democrat members. The Governor has agreed to these compromises in order to provide the best solution possible to all Hoosiers. He has agreed to phase in the circuit breaker caps, raising the earned income tax credit, increasing the renters deduction, just to name a few. That said, the Governor and I expect the same cooperation from Democrats in both chambers.

As a former legislator myself, I am confident that all 150 legislators would prefer to pass a lasting and permanent property tax package now instead of going back year after year – as they have been doing – to tweak the law. While the Republican compromise plan is not anyone’s first choice, it is certainly better than status quo. And like the Governor has said, anyone who can’t agree on this plan is not ready to protect Hoosier homeowners.

As Jim notes a couple posts below, the social conservatives have awoken to the possibility of yet another significant expansion of gambling here in Indiana (to say nothing of it being bad public policy for a variety of reasons that I have already blogged about).

Urging 80,000 plus people to contact the Governor and tell him to veto something is a lot, particularly when he needs those same folks come November if he wants to keep his job.

I don’t agree entirely with the Indiana American Family Association’s reasoning behind opposing the bill, but I agree with their objective.

Whether on moral, fiscal, or ethical grounds, HR 1153 is bad legislation and should be vetoed by Mitch Daniels.

They’re even starting to pick up on it in the letter and opinion sections of the newspapers.

(Read more after the leap) (more…)