INDIANAPOLIS —Staffers, journalists and 254 registered lobbyists. School groups and sports teams, organizations that have scheduled events and individuals that lawmakers have lined up to testify on their bills.
They all qualify for preferred access to the Statehouse under new security policies — including a maximum capacity of 3,000 people — that Gov. Mitch Daniels’ administration has announced just before Wednesday’s start of the Indiana General Assembly’s 2012 session.
Those who don’t make the cut: Hundreds of pro-labor protesters who could to pack the Statehouse each day to oppose the “right to work” measure that Daniels and majority Republican legislative leaders intend to push.
They’ll join other members of the public who have two options. They can convince a lawmaker to add them to a guest list counted as part of that 3,000 before others are admitted in, or they can stand in line at the one Statehouse entrance that is open to all — until the cap is reached.
Controversy over the new rules bubbled up Tuesday, just before the start of a session where the debate over “right to work” — which allows workers to opt out of paying union dues — will start immediately.
House Speaker Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis, announced that a rare joint House-Senate committee meeting will take place Friday morning. The House’s labor committee is expected to vote to send the measure on to the full chamber then.
Protesters are all but guaranteed. The question is how many will be allowed in.
The guest list portion of the new security policy preserves the activities that are traditionally part of Indiana’s legislative sessions — and that were in some cases interrupted, Republicans said, during the 2011 session’s protests.
“There were people that canceled their trips to the Statehouse because of the protests last year, and never came up,” said state Senate President Pro Tem David Long, R-Fort Wayne. “It’s a fine line to walk.”
In typical years, universities, lobbyists and special interest groups hold luncheons, news conferences and rallies on the second floor, outside the governor’s office and a level below the General Assembly.
High school state championship teams and community leaders are honored by the House and Senate with resolutions. Lobbyists and other individuals — in many cases, they’ve contacted legislators beforehand — pack committee rooms for hearings on certain bills.
With “right to work” looming, though, this year is anything but normal, and some are questioning why any groups should be able to move to the front of the line.
“Lobbyists are guaranteed a voice for their clients, but the average Hoosier has no such guarantee,” said state Senate Minority Leader Vi Simpson, D-Ellettsville. “If they can silence working people now, then they can silence anyone on any issue with which they disagree. Who will be next?”
State officials said they began to consider a maximum crowd size for the Statehouse once it became clear labor groups would mount daily protests.
“As soon as we saw that it was going to be a very busy session, we began to sit down and work on this,” said Rob Wynkoop, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Administration, which worked with the Indiana Fire Marshal and the Indiana State Police to develop the crowd caps.
Because about 1,700 people — mostly state employees, but also lobbyists and journalists — have identification cards granting them access to the Statehouse, there will be room for about 1,300 other people each day.
That means the cap is likely to be reached on at least some days. Wynkoop said last year, on days with smaller crowds, about 900 people came to the Statehouse. On the General Assembly’s “organization day” in November, 1,900 people showed up.
“It’s not a category issue,” he said. “We’re not stopping anybody from coming into the Statehouse. What we do want to do is ensure that everyone who wants to use it can continue to use it.”
That was a problem during the 2011 legislative session, he said, as labor groups’ daily protests interrupted other scheduled events.
“There was a high school science project that got disrupted because of the amount of people that were in there. There were other events that were canceled last year,” he said.
The crowd caps aren’t the only new security policies.
One of the building’s elevators has been marked specifically for legislators and their staffs. A media entrance to Daniels’ press secretary’s office is being blocked.
Signs larger than 2 feet by 2 feet are banned, as is “creating a volume of noise that disrupts the work of the executive, judicial or legislative branches of government, or any committee thereof,” although that’s not defined.
And the Indiana State Police told a student working at the Statehouse on Tuesday that she could not bring a full can of Dr Pepper, packed in a lunch bag, into the building — despite the fact that Dr Pepper is sold in cans in a number of Statehouse vending machines.
The Dr Pepper, Wynkoop said, is “potentially dangerous.”
Meanwhile, Cpt. David Bursten, a spokesman for the Indiana State Police, referred to media questions about the new policy during a heated news conference Tuesday as “demagoguery.”