Aim Media Indiana
Like a bad penny, efforts to harass and threaten school and public librarians keep turning up in the Indiana General Assembly, whose members lack the courage to vote in regular order on a censorship bill after feeling some heat on it.
Lawmakers understand that this week, the last week for this session, is shenanigans time. This is how it works:
If there is a bill so repugnant that it was shouted down by the public, or whose contents are so ridiculous that lawmakers were forced to back down in something resembling shame, now is when they’ll sneak those measures into other bills when they think no one is looking, then ram them through in the closing hours.
It’s as Hoosier as pork tenderloin sandwiches.
It shouldn’t be like this, but it is, and everybody knows.
The legislature’s deadline to wrap up its business is Friday, and lawmakers still might sneak in a bill that would allow librarians to be arrested for performing their duties. Who knows what else they might do. What’s to stop them?
Niki Kelly, longtime Statehouse watcher and editor in chief of Indiana Capital Chronicle, succinctly described what happens as the adjournment deadline nears. Lawmakers, she wrote, “move language from one bill into another; create massive amendments with new concepts that haven’t been vetted; and insert completely unrelated language into other measures.
“… These aren’t issues that suddenly popped up and required change at the last minute. They are strategically done to limit public uproar — and public transparency,” Kelly wrote.
And that is what lawmakers conspicuously indicated to Indiana Capital Chronicle’s Casey Smith likely will happen with vague and troublesome legislation that would allow librarians to be prosecuted for furnishing material that someone might find “harmful” to a minor.
“Republican House Speaker Todd Huston said … his caucus is still considering a last-minute addition” of that language, Smith reported Friday.
“House Education Committee chairman Rep. Bob Behning, R-Indianapolis, also did not comment about the library language when asked Thursday by the Indiana Capital Chronicle. He said last week that the issue ‘is not done yet.’”
Behning is showing particular cowardice. Earlier this month, he called this bill, Senate Bill 12, for a hearing in the House Education Committee. But rather than put the matter to a vote then, Behning held the bill. He didn’t want to put lawmakers on the committee in the uncomfortable position of actually voting on a bill that could jail librarians after the public lopsidedly testified against it.
In the normal course of business, SB12 would be dead.
But Behning knew that the contents of this disgraceful bill could simply be grafted onto another bill somewhere in the closing hours of the session. Quietly.
Supermajority Republicans then could pass it without all the fuss that tends to come with open assaults on the First Amendment.
It looks like that may be the plan. Houston and Senate Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray could use their power as leaders to halt this, but they both signaled to Indiana Capital Chronicle that an end run was coming.
Lawmakers can do that if they choose. But they should realize the public is watching, and we’re wise to their shenanigans.
