For longtime Gary legislator, being booed on Indiana House floor opened up the wounds from a lifetime of racism chicagotribune.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from chicagotribune.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Weekly Statehouse Update: Session Reaches Halfway Point, House GOP Approves Budget
FILE PHOTO: Peter Balonon-Rosen/IPB News
The Indiana General Assembly wraps up the first half of its session: the House passes the state budget, the Senate shackles the governor over emergency powers and elimination of Indiana’s handgun licenses is a step closer.
Here’s what you might have missed this week at the Statehouse.
House Republicans tout in their budget $378 million in new spending for K-12 education – about a third of which will go to private school vouchers – and grants for small business recovery, student learning loss, law enforcement and regional economic development.
Editorial
Lack of disciplined leadership results in long-festering resentments boiling over
“All . will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect and to violate would be oppression.”
– President Thomas Jefferson, in his first inaugural address, 1801
The angry eruption in the Indiana House last week shouldn t surprise regular observers of the General Assembly. Frustrated Democrats clashed with a handful of GOP caucus members who increasingly have shown disdain for long-accepted norms of civil debate and deliberation.
Black Indiana lawmakers seek reprimands after confrontations
The Indiana Black Legislative Caucus called Tuesday for lawmakers who sparked confrontations with Black legislators last week to face reprimands and for all lawmakers to undergo mandatory anti-bias training.
Posted: Feb 23, 2021 2:34 PM
Posted By: AP
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) The Indiana Black Legislative Caucus called Tuesday for lawmakers who sparked confrontations with Black legislators last week to face reprimands and for all lawmakers to undergo mandatory anti-bias training.
The request came after tempers flared among Indiana House members on Thursday. Black lawmakers were shouted down and booed by some Republicans during a debate and some verbal altercations took place in hallways.
Feb 23, 2021 / 07:17 PM EST
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) “Enough is enough.”
Those words came Tuesday from the chair of the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus after Thursday’s heated exchange of words between state lawmakers. The caucus members demanded action.
State Rep. Vernon Smith, a Democrat from Gary, said, “I’ve been here 31 years. I’m in my 31st year and I’ve never been booed on the floor, and we’ve had some challenging and difficult discussions.”
Those boos happened as two Democrat representatives, Smith and Rep. Greg Porter of Indianapolis, voiced concerns about racial inequality in House Bill 1367.
According to an online digest, the bill would establish a two-year pilot program in the John Glenn School Corp., based in Walkerton, to initiate a process to disannex certain territory from the existing school corporation boundaries and annex other territory. Walkerton is about 20 miles southwest of South Bend. The Associated Press reported that the bill would allo