Right to Work on fast track thru senate

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - The right to work bill will be signed into law before the Super Bowl, if GOP leaders in the Indiana General Assembly get their way. The bill has been put on a fast track designed to end with a final Senate vote on the right to work bill next Wednesday.

"There shouldn't be much to talk about," says Senate President pro tem David Long. "It should be a fairly smooth process."

It's all about ending the Statehouse protests before the Super Bowl. "The concerns about action during the Super Bowl have now become bona fide threats, open," says House Speaker Brian Bosma.

Democrats object but, in the Senate, there are too few of them to break a quorum and derail the plan which the minority leader calls shameful.

"I think there's an effort to shut down debate and dissent," says Sen. Vi Simpson, "and get these people out of the Statehouse and that's too bad."

Labor leaders, meantime, dodge questions about potential Super Bowl disruptions. "Our focus right now is on defeating this legislation," says Nancy Guyott of the AFL-CIO.

Meantime, there's word the White House is interested in this right to work battle. 24-Hour News 8 has learned that Vice President Joe Biden attempted to reach House minority leader Pat Bauer yesterday to offer his support for what was then a Democratic walkout. Bauer says he didn't take the call because he had already decided to end the walkout.