Protesters crowd the Indiana statehouse
(
IBEW)
Indiana House Democrats once again walked out on Tuesday, denying Republicans the quorum they need to proceed with the
anti-union, anti-worker bill they're trying to rush to a vote. This walkout was in response to Republicans
blocking amendments and debate on the bill in committee. In fact, Republican abuse of the process at least
temporarily escalated the Democratic walkout:
Tuesday, even some of the handful of Democrats who have not participated in the walkout were angered by how the GOP handled the hearing.
Rep. Peggy Welch, a Bloomington Democrat who has not taken part in the boycott, decided to join her colleagues in the walkout Tuesday after watching a recording of the hearing.
"I felt like that committee hearing did not show respect to the institution, to the Constitution, to rules and legislative tradition," she said. "It's hard to have a discussion or to ask questions or to offer amendments if you're not allowed to. . . . This goes beyond 'right to work.' It was a total disrespect of the democratic process."
Some Democrats also boycotted Gov. Mitch Daniels' State of the State address, which "was like none Indiana had ever seen before, with protesters booing in the Statehouse hallways and empty seats which should have held Democrats." Daniels managed to get called out for misrepresenting support for the bill in straight news reporting:
Daniels argued that “in survey after survey,” a majority of Hoosiers say they want Indiana to join the 22 other states with the law. That ignored the most recent poll — taken by Ball State University, the only non-advocate, non-partisan group that has taken a poll on the issue — which found that 27 percent support it, 24 percent oppose, and 48 percent are undecided or don’t have enough information to choose a side.
That's despite the $600,000 of misleading ads featuring Daniels, and representative of the "keep people ignorant, rush the bill through, and when in doubt, lie" strategy Republicans have been employing here.