| Kernan Shepherd Killed By Pat Bauer |
HOUSE SETBACK FOR REFORMS: Efforts to overhaul local government died Tuesday in the Indiana House after Democrats voted to put all the recommendations in one piece of legislation, then promptly defeated the bill (Kelly, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette).  The committee vote on a vastly amended Senate Bill 452 wasn’t strictly partisan, with one Democrat voting in favor and one Republican against. Several other Republicans initially deferred during the panel’s roll call and, when the defeat was ensured, left the hearing without casting votes. The move effectively ends any discussion of local government overhaul in the House until the end of session. Ideas that passed the Senate are still eligible to be inserted into other bills during the conference committee process in the final days of the session. The Senate sent over a handful of bills seeking to change county government structure, consolidate libraries, eliminate parts of township government and make election-related changes. But the chairman of the House Government and Regulatory Reform Committee ignored the work of the Senate and offered an amendment to combine the original versions of five pieces of legislation introduced in the Senate into one omnibus bill.
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