House Speaker Brian Bosma told the editor of TheStatehouseFile.com in an interview last week that while he’s happy to see such a massive Republican victory in the election, he’s counseling members of his party to “tread lightly” with their colleagues on the other side of the aisle.
As they appear to have done across most of the country, Republicans did very well at the Statehouse level in Indiana. With Tuesday’s results, Bosma’s party improved its House of Representatives supermajority, increasing what was already a 69-31 edge to 71-29.
The Senate, where the Democrats already were pretty well emasculated, increased its Republican majority by three seats, giving them 40 seats to the opposition’s 10.
Bosma is a conservative, no doubt. Under his leadership, the House has pushed through many bills dear to the hearts of conservatives; think the right-to-work law or charter schools or vouchers to help pay for private education for families of modest means.
Treading lightly almost certainly will not mean a new conservative agenda for the coming legislative session will be forsaken just out of politeness. Conservatives will have plenty to cheer about as that agenda moves forward in a Legislature where they hold all the cards, with lawmakers sending bills to an equally conservative governor who for the most part will be more than happy to sign them.
What better way to show the nation that a state’s chief executive knows how to run a smooth operation that really gets things done — what better credentials can there be for a serious run for even higher office?
Still, even with this almost guaranteed success for his party (and perhaps partly because of it), Bosma has shown a willingness to find other ways of moving forward in the direction he’s chosen than trampling the opposition.
He was instrumental in pushing aside the attempt by opponents of same-sex marriage to put the question of a constitutional ban on such marriages to the voters. He has said that despite the growth of the Republican caucus in the House with last week’s victories, he does not plan on reducing Democrats’ committee numbers.
House Democrats admit they’re essentially powerless to influence the process, at least by any action they can take. With the Republican supermajority, they can’t just walk out to deny a quorum and thus a vote on bills they hate — a maneuver that blocked an early attempt at passage of the right-to-work measure.
But they point out they still have the power of speech and will be there to make their case as the loyal opposition.
That’s good. And it appears that the Speaker of the Indiana House understands that. It’s past time to bring sane discussion back to political rhetoric rather than the hysterical contentiousness of recent years. Perhaps, unlikely as it seems, Indiana can lead the nation back to reason.