Dan McFeely, writing for the Indianapolis Star, is reporting that the Democrats will retain control of the Indiana House. At the moment, it looks like the balance will remain 51 to 49 in favor of the Democrats. There are apparently two that are too close to call officially, but lean to the Republicans. In the Lafayette area, Republican Randy Truitt is clinging to about a 20 vote lead over Democrat John Polles to replace outgoing Democrat, Joe Micon.
A more fluid situation exists around Anderson where Republican challenger Kelly Gaskill holds a 34 vote lead over Democrat Scott Reske. However, “it might be midday before election officials in Anderson are done counting an estimated 12,000 ballots that did not get counted last night due to a voting machine problem.”
This is pretty big news. With such a slim majority in the House and a Republican controlled Senate and Governor’s office, the state Democrats won’t be able to steer the ship, but they should hopefully be able to provide a throttle to some of the more incorrigible state Republicans. Gov. Daniels doesn’t seem to get too excited about the social issues that drive some of his fellow Republicans, but he doesn’t seem generally inclined to get in their way. By the same token, I doubt he is going to break too many Democratic arms on those social issues, particularly if they play nice on the economic issues that seem to interest Gov. Daniels more.
This is a good thing. Daniels was a much better Gov the last two years when he was forced to work with the Dems.
And I don’t want to listen to Bosma and his issues with prayer and gay marriage.
d