INDIANAPOLIS — The top Republicans in the Indiana Legislature declared Thursday they were through negotiating with boycotting Democrats and would start working around them.
The Democrats who've brought the Indiana House to a four-week standstill said they don't plan to return from Illinois despite efforts to increase pressure on them with higher fines and stronger rhetoric. The Democrats fled Indiana to prevent the House from voting on bills that they consider anti-labor.
Their rejection of a compromise offered on one of the bills prompted House Speaker Brian Bosma to declare Thursday that "time has expired" and Republicans will move on without them.
"I made it very clear that we were done with this back and forth, moving target," Bosma said. "We've moved as far as we can possibly move and it's time for them to return to the chamber."
Bosma and Senate President Pro Tem David Long said the Senate would start hearings next week on a state budget plan that stalled in the House after the walkout. The Senate also will work on advancing other proposals without waiting for the House Democrats to return.
Long said he tried to stay out of the House dispute, but it was "disingenuous" for the boycotting Democrats to claim they were negotiating.
"It has become pretty clear that this has become a shifting target as far as what it would take to get them to return. Every day it changes," Long said.
The two Republican leaders said they would work in the coming days to determine which issues the Senate would take up.
Before the Democratic walkout began Feb. 22, Republicans — with wide majorities in both the House and Senate — had been advancing a broad agenda that included expansion of charter schools, state vouchers to help parents send their children to private schools, strict limits on collective bargaining for teachers, an Arizona-style crackdown on illegal immigration and prohibiting union representation fees from being a condition of employment at most companies.
But even with the Senate working to move some bills forward, no final legislative action can take place without the return of the House Democrats because the state constitution requires two-thirds of members present to conduct business. Republicans have more than a two-thirds majority in the Senate.
Republicans increased the fines against absent Democrats to $350 a day beginning Monday — up from the $250 a day that was imposed starting last week. Bosma said Republicans on Monday also would consider a formal censure against the 39 Democrats taking part in the walkout.
Democratic Rep. Win Moses of Fort Wayne called the larger fines "a poke in the eye" that would only increase the boycotters' resolve.
"Increasing the fines or stopping negotiations, trying to bludgeon us back into sitting in here while they do their will won't help," Moses said.
Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels called Bosma's decision to stop negotiations sad but necessary.
"The speaker has bent over double backward to meet, really, unreasonable demands, and it's still not enough," Daniels said.
The legislative session is scheduled to end April 29 and Daniels would be forced to call a special session if that deadline passed without approval of a new two-year state budget to replace the current one that expires June 30.
House Minority Leader Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, said it was "good news" that the Senate was starting budget hearings because he believed senators would give a closer look to the financial impact of the charter school expansion and other matters pushed by House Republicans.
Bauer said Democrats didn't expect to return Monday, when the House is next scheduled to meet.
"We don't see the welcome mat there with $100 added to our fines," he said.
The latest breakdown came after Bauer received what he called a "great letter" Wednesday evening from Bosma, saying Republicans would amend a bill changing the regulations covering wages and other matters for workers on government construction projects.
The current bill pending in House would increase the point at which projects were exempt from the state's prevailing construction wage law from $150,000 to $1 million and remove school districts and state universities from its requirements. After that bill became the focus of Democrats' objections, its sponsor offered to lower that level — first to $500,000 and now to $350,000 — and delete the school and university exemptions.
Bauer responded in a letter Thursday morning that the new offer was a "positive step" and "with further discussions I believe we could resolve these issues as soon as the early part of next week."
But that apparently won't happen, after Bosma declared an end to negotiations Thursday afternoon.
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