The vote in the Indiana House was 56-to-39 Monday evening in favor of the mass transit bill backed by Mayor Greg Ballard.  The bill is the first step toward a new mass transit system that could someday include a light rail line.

It calls for referendums in Marion and Hamilton Counties on an increase in the local option income tax of .3%.  “Employers will be attracted to the area where they think they can get employees to their jobs,” said author Rep. Jerry Torr (R-Carmel,) “because that’s a big issue.”

“This is a substantial step toward cooperation between a city and its suburbs,” said Rep. Ed DeLaney (D-Indianapolis.)

Rep. Mike Speedy (R-Indianapolis) spoke out against the bill.  “Yes this is a very risky bill,” he said, “and frankly for my tax dollars and those in my district it’s too risky.”  The bill now goes to the state Senate and an uncertain future.

This is the third attempt to pass a transit bill in the General Assembly and the first time it has passed the House.

The mass transit bill backed by Mayor Greg Ballard cleared a big hurdle in the General Assembly today.  “The bill just passed out of the Ways and Means committee 20-to-2.”  That’s how Rep. Jerry Torr (R-Carmel) announced the news to a rally on Transit Day at the Statehouse

Torr is the bill’s author and he explained the benefits to the committee.  “Cleaner, nicer, quieter buses,” he promised, “and some routes that would be quicker and so forth.”  The idea of better transit in Marion and Hamilton Counties, and eventually beyond, won support from Democrats, including Greg Porter of Indianapolis who said, “It’s about getting people to work.”

There was also support from Republicans, including Rep. Todd Huston (R-Fishers.)  “I’m also quite confident in the fact that when you look at the way our city’s handled large projects in the past,” said Huston, “that we’ve shown the capacity to do it and do it right.”

Supporters are optimistic.  “The general bumper-to-bumper traffic is just adding more frustration to my days trying to get around,” said business owner James Brigham.  And Jerry Torr expects a repeat of the 20-to-2 vote in the full House.  “I suspect,” said Torr, “that pretty much reflects what percentage we might get on the House floor.”

The transit bill is on track but there is trouble ahead in the state Senate where key lawmakers worry about the long term viability of a mass transit system.  Nevertheless, the transit bill has already advanced farther than it did in two previous efforts.

Mayor Greg Ballard (R-Indianapolis) was at the Statehouse Wednesday seeking the ability to raise taxes. Those taxes would be used to build a better mass transit system.

What the Mayor and others want is the authority to hold a 2014 referendum in Marion and Hamilton Counties so that voters could decide if they are willing to pay more for better buses. A committee in the Indiana House heard the bill that could lead to an increase in the county option income tax of .3%.

This is the third try at legislative approval for mass transit improvements but this time there is a different focus. Gone, for the time being, are the dream concepts of light rail and rapid transit, replaced by an emphasis on buses that would permit people to get around this area without the need to own a car. Rep. Jerry Torr (R-Carmel) says the result would be, “Expanded bus service, with nicer, cleaner, quieter buses than what we have now.”

Mark Miles, the past president of the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership, told the committee that the plan would double the amount bus service in Marion County and could establish bus service in Hamilton County.

“If we don’t build it they will not come,” said Mayor Ballard while making the case that it’s all about attracting corporate talent, “and if we don’t build it, the young people who grew up here, may not stay.”

There will be no vote on the transit bill until next week.

Stewart Alexander of Riverside, California  is in Indianapolis campaigning today.  He’s the Socialist Party candidate for President and a write-in option for Indiana voters.  He’s here because two Socialists are on the Indiana ballot in races for the Indiana House of Representatives, John Strinka in Carmel and Ron Haldermann in Indianapolis.  Strinka is running against Republican Jerry Torr, Haldermann against Democrat Cherrish Pryor.

None of the three has a chance of winning election, by the way.    The most interesting thing Alexander has to say is that Barack Obama “is not a real socialist.”  His platform includes an immediate 50% cut in the military budget.

There’s a socialist running for a seat in the Indiana General Assembly and his name will be on the ballot in Hamilton County.  John Strinka is a warehouse worker who collected more than 450 petition signatures, enough to get his name on the November ballot.

As he delivered them to the state election division wearing his Socialist Party t-shirt, co-director Brad King said he’s the first socialist candidate to qualify for the ballot in Indiana since the early ’80′s.  “I think it’s a victory for American democracy,” says Strinka.

Strinka hopes to unseat Republican state Representative Jerry Torr, an unlikely goal, but he has others, too.  “And I want people to see what Socialists stand for and primarily, the simplest way I can put it to you,” he said, “is that prosperity should be for everybody, not just a few and that’s what we’re working for.”

“I’m fairly confident that voters in Carmel are going to choose capitalism over socialism,” says Torr, who is unconcerned but also not surprised.  He was the author of the controversial right to work bill and it’s a motivating factor for Strinka.  “You can do nothing in the Statehouse and stay popular and win elections,” says Torr.  “If you’re gonna do bold things you’re always gonna tick somebody off.”

Strinka thinks he can win, but even he admits that Carmel, the heart of the district at stake, is anything but a socialist hotbed.

More than 20 state lawmakers will not seek re-election this year.  The partisan atmosphere in the Statehouse has become too much for some of them.  Combine that with the redistricting that made re-election tougher for others and you have an exodus.

Representative Jeff Espich of Uniondale will not seek re-election after serving 40 years in the General Assembly.  Espich, a Republican, will give up his post as chairman of the House Ways and Means committee, in part, because the redistricting process threw him into the same district with a fellow Republican, but he also says the job has changed. “The right to work fight, I think, wore on a lot of us,” says Espich.  “It certainly took any joy or pleasure out of being here.”

Retiring Democrat Dave Cheatham of North Vernon has a similar view.  He says the legislature is much more partisan than it was when he first elected in the ’80′s.  “So, it’s hard,” says Cheatham, “for someone who’s a moderate to find middle ground.  Issues become more extreme.”

In all, 19 state Representatives will stay home after Election day, along with 2 state Senators, and others worry that their expertise and experience will be missed.  “I think folks who believe in term limits really don’t understand how important some of that institutional knowledge can be,” says Rep. Jerry Torr (R-Carmel.)

Bob Kuzman, retired lawmaker turned lobbyist, says it could even cost taxpayers money.  “Not saying that the work product will be bad,” he says, “but it will just take more time, I believe, to shape it.”

And there is more at stake every year.  “The cost is higher,” says Espich, “the price is higher, the things we in government do have a bigger impact on people’s lives so our philosophies matter more.”  Even so, Jeff Espich says he’ll miss it.

Two other lawmakers with a tenure of 40 years or more are also stepping down.  Democrats Chet Dobis of Merrillville and Bill Crawford of Indianapolis won’t seek re-election.  12 of the 19 retiring members of the Indiana House are Democrats.

The right to work bill is suddenly the hottest issue in the General Assembly.  But one lawmaker has been working quietly to get it passed for 9 years.  Carmel Republican Jerry Torr first filed a right to work bill in 2004.  He tried to convince the governor to support it even before Mitch Daniels took office.

It now appears that his persistance will pay off.

Rep. Torr admits to experiencing some heartburn in the effort to win support for right to work.  When asked if there days when he wonders what you got into, he says, “I do, but I really think this is important public policy for the state of Indiana so I don’t have any regrets.”

The idea that has prompted vigorous union opposition was first presented to Torr by a South Bend businessman in 2003.  He says he studied it,  and instructed house staffers to do research.  “And I became convinced that it would be a job magnet for Indiana,” he says, “especially without a right to work border around us.”

That means that if Indiana passes right to work it will become the only right to work state with no right to work states as neighbors.  “But I’m not anti-union at all,” says Torr.  “In fact I believe the right to work law makes a union stronger because it makes it more responsive to the individual members.”

Torr says he is disappointed in the tone of some of the opposition and the behavior of some of the Democrats who have fought him on it.  He encouraged, he says, by the prospects that right to work will be become law this year.

And while it would be a big accomplishment for him, Representative Torr says he worries that a vote for right to work will make some of his fellow Republicans political targets.  Nevertheless, his plans call for a right to work win in the Indiana House next week.

Rep. Jerry Torr, chairman of the House rules committee, reports that GOP members of the Indiana House who were absent today will not receive their per diem, same as the Democrats who are absent.

The unions behind the Statehouse protests are providing pizza for demonstrators (by the way the rumor that Rep. Jerry Torr, the author of the right to work bill, owns the Hot Box store that delivers them is false.)

Today the order was reduced considerably.  Yesterday 500 pies were distributed throughout the Statehouse, today the number is 200.