COMMENTARY | When the 31 Indiana Democrats decided to extend their boycott until Monday, they probably expected the fines that Speaker of the House, Brian Bosma imposed on them. They may have even expected a bit of flack from Indiana citizens who would like to see their representatives show up for work. What they most likely didn’t suspect was for the Speaker of the House to show blatant disdain for the very people he represents.
The boycotting democrats are facing their third day of $1,000 fines. The Speaker of the House has imposed these fines in the hopes that they will encourage Democrats to end the boycott of the existing referendum of the Right-to-Work bill. Democrats, who wish to give the people more of a voice in the processing of this and future bills, walked out. They plan to return Monday after reviewing the changes to the law.
Expectations are that the Right-to-Work law will take even more from the citizens of Indiana than the floundering economy already does. Furthermore, they’d like to see the people have more of a say-so in whether or not this law is active after November. In response to the action taken by democrats that could allow for Indiana residents to have a direct part of passing laws, Bosma is reported by the Post-Tribune to have voiced a desire to clear the “cloud of constitutionality” from members of House.
As Speaker of the House, Bosma isn’t doing the republicans any favors in the eyes of Indiana residents when he makes statements like the one above that could be interpreted to mean that the Constitution needs to have less influence over lawmakers.
Bosma shows even more disregard for Indiana citizens when he was unable to collect the fines from paychecks of the democrats who say they need the weekend to look over the changes to the bill. When he was unable to collect fines due to a restraining order put in place by the Marion County Superior Court, he is quoted by the Post-Tribune as making statements to the effect that they would get the fines from the Democrats “regardless of what one little county court says.”