INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -
House Republicans presented a 2015 legislative agenda Tuesday that calls for
rewriting the state’s school funding formula, as well as lawmakers’ own
ethics rules.
Flanked by members
of his leadership team, House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, said the
group planned to spend the upcoming session focused on the budget, schools,
ethics changes and public safety measures. He also announced that a
nonprofit serving victims of domestic violence, which won a funding fight
with Republican Gov. Mike Pence last month, would be honored as the House’s
charity of the year.
Lawmakers return to
the Statehouse in January for their so-called long session, which is a
four-month meeting that will be dominated by the crafting of the state’s
next two-year budget. Several other issues have already been teed up for the
session, from talk of regulating fenced-in hunting to a possible expansion
of gambling.
Bosma, who is
looking to protect a GOP supermajority in the Indiana House in the upcoming
elections, delivered some of the first definition of the session Tuesday. He
paraphrased former Gulf War leader Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf to make the point
that he would be focused on a handful of issues rolled out Tuesday.
“As Schwarzkopf
said, no matter what else happened we got those things done,” Bosma said.
The ethics
overhaul, which is likely to include stricter rules for what lawmakers must
disclose publicly, follows a scandal involving House Speaker Pro Tem Eric
Turner, R-Cicero. An Associated Press investigation found that Turner had
millions of dollars at stake through his family nursing home business when
he successfully fought a ban on nursing home construction.
Turner, who has
consistently said he did nothing wrong, announced last month that he would
resign if re-elected to take a job with a megachurch group in Atlanta.
Turner has long played a top role writing tax legislation for House
Republicans. He wasn’t at Tuesday’s news conference.
Bosma also said his
caucus would examine an overhaul of how the state pays for schools, with an
eye toward getting more money for suburban and rural schools. He noted that
some school districts get as little as roughly $5,000 per student, while
others get as much as $9,000 per student.
In an about face
from previous years, he also announced that support for public schools would
be a priority, but made no mention of “education reform.” Bosma also didn’t
mention campaign politics during the rollout, but the state’s teachers
unions have targeted a handful of House Republicans in the upcoming
elections.
House Minority
Leader Scott Pelath, D-Michigan City, is looking to break the 69-31 edge
Republicans enjoy in the House. He said Bosma and House Republicans
routinely “took a meat cleaver” to the state’s public schools.
“If you close your
eyes for a moment, some of what the House Republicans advocated today
sounded like they were reading from a book written by House Democrats,”
Pelath said in a statement.
Bosma also cast
doubt on any effort by Pence to push sweeping tax changes in the upcoming
session. But he said he would be open to small measures, including a
“simplification” of the tax code.