Parts of Gov's plan may still have life

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - Indiana House Minority Leader Brian Bosma promised to revive portions of the Kernan-Shepard Report Thursday. It's part of an effort to create a scaled-down debate on government consolidation.

Bosma said the Democrats in the Indiana House used a charade to kill the governor's plan to eliminate township government and most county elected offices. He's referring to a confusing and chaotic public hearing on Tuesday that ended with the death of Kernan-Shepard.

"It just seemed, in retrospect and even at the time, to be designed just to kill all these measures and not have an opportunity to have them debated through the rest of this session," argued Bosma.

Republican Governor Mitch Daniels hopes to revive at least some of his proposals before the session ends at the end of April. Bosma has promised to draft amendments for that purpose.

"We believe that they oughta be acted on. We'll give the Democrats the opportunity to do so," said Bosma.

House Speaker Pat Bauer (D) and the Democrats have the ability to block that effort, but may not.

"I think it's fair to say that, if they have an amendment that's appropriate, then we'll hear the amendment and see what the vote is," said Majority Leader Rep. Russ Stilwell (D).

Nothing is truly dead until lawmakers go home.

Representative Bosma plans to start with the least controversial proposals, including one to move school board elections to the fall and the one to move municipal elections to an even-numbered year.

Plans to eliminate county and township offices may, in fact, be dead for this year.