Leadership and chairmanships in the Indiana House are starting to take shape for the 2009 session. Bryan Corbin, writing for the Evansville Courier Press, has an article entitled Dems’ roles in House expanded. The main focus of the article is that, having expanded their majority in the House, the Democrats have elevated Dennis Avery (D-Evansville) to the chairmanship of the Budget Subcommittee of the House Ways & Means Committee.
Other positions noted in the article are: Kreg Battles (D-Vincennes) being promoted to the chairmanship of the House Elections and Apportionment Committee. (Battles will always have a place in my heart as replacing Troy “I’ll Never Vote For It” Woodruff who renegged on his promise not to vote for Daylight Saving Time and subsequently losing his seat.) Trent Van Haaften, D-Mount Vernon, again will chair the House Public Policy Committee. And Rep. Russ Stilwell, D-Boonville, again will be House majority floor leader and vice chair of the House Rules and Legislative Procedures Committee.
This is a reminder of what a huge thing even a small majority is in the House of Representatives. By having more than 50 votes, a party gets to appoint the Speaker of the House who, in turn, gets to appoint all of the committee chairs. The Speaker assigns all of the introduced legislation to a committee. The committee chair for a particular committee gets to decide whether a piece of legislation gets a hearing in committee and becomes eligible for a vote.
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