While the Democrats are in Urbana, Illinois, Ted Hayes took the opportunity to talk with Representative Robert Behning at the Statehouse Wednesday afternoon. Behning has been a Republican member of the House since the mid 1990’s representing an Indianapolis District.
Ted led off with a question about what the representatives left behind have been doing.
“Obviously we’ve been coming in everyday, just like we hoped our Democrat colleagues would and we’ve been trying to get a quorum established and we haven’t been successful in doing that. We have been doing a number of things behind the scenes, trying to educate ourselves better on some of the bills that are in front of us and some of the bills that are coming over from the Senate.”
Behning said the meeting between Speaker Bosma and Minority Leader Bauer Wednesday afternoon gave hope that the walkout would end soon. Then at 3:00 p.m., that hope faded.
“When we tried to get another quorum this afternoon, Representative Brown said that it’s going to require Speaker Bosma and Representative Bauer, in a closed room, to negotiate a deal. The deal is going to have to take some of these issues off the table. I know our caucus is committed to making sure the process works the way our Constitutional Fathers intended. We want to give the Minority the opportunity to vote and participate, but we’re not going to give them the ability to dictate to the elected majority, that was selected by the people of the State of Indiana the ability to tell us, or Hoosiers, what will be heard or not be heard in the Indiana House.”
