The most recent session of the Indiana Legislature could be coming to an end sooner than it’s cut-off date, according to Democrat State Senator Jim Arnold, of LaPorte.
“We are required to be out of session by March 14th,” stated Senator Arnold. “The strong rumors and all indications are they are going to shoot to be out of here no later than March 9th which would be a week from Friday. There are still plenty of work to be done and a lot of issues to be discussed and voted on. I think it’s a real probability and most of us are hoping that’s the case.”
Senator Arnold was asked if the right to work measure was too time consuming and pushed back many important pieces of legislation.
“There were 815 bills filed in the two chambers this year – 415 in the Senate and 400 in the House. 108 bills were passed out of the House that came over to the Senate, 140 bills passed out of the Senate that came over to the House so we did get a substantially large number of bills out of both chambers even with the right to work.”
Even though the right to work legislation was passed and signed by the Governor, the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150 has filed suit in federal court.
“I knew that this lawsuit was going to be forthcoming and now it has, in fact, been filed. I know it’s been filed before and it’s been heard in other courts in other states and it’s always been upheld. Perhaps they think they have a different twist on it, maybe some different input on why this bill should not be enforced. I can only hope that maybe that’s the case because I am very anti right to work as people are well aware of. I’m hoping for the best, but I would expect that the courts are probably going to see that it probably meets the standards and it probably will be put into effect. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
