Indiana Dems: Voters should decide right-to-work

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - Democrats in the Indiana House of Representatives threatened another walkout Friday morning over the right to work issue. The threat led to a concession by the House Speaker.

The Democrats now say that the right to work issue should go to the public in a statewide referendum. They threatened to walk out again if Republicans took steps to prevent a vote on the referendum idea.

Democratic Leader Pat Bauer called reporters to his office this morning to say he had reason to believe that Republicans would use a parliamentary maneuver to rule a Democratic amendment out of order when the right to work bill will be debated next Tuesday.

A referendum would give Democrats a second chance to kill right to work. "It's time to have the people involved in this process," said Rep. Bauer. "I think that that will eliminate some of the outrage, some of the outrage of the public."

"I think it's a very reasonable amendment to offer," said House Speaker Brian Bosma after a pair of closed door meetings with Bauer, "and we indicated there'd be full and fair debate and discussion here and I indicated we wouldn't use parliamentary means to avoid the referendum."

The Speaker says he doesn't know how a vote on the referendum suggestion will come out but said he's not afraid of the outcome. Unlike other states Indiana has never had a statewide referendum on policy question like right to work.