House Minority Leader Brian Bosma used his property tax cap countdown clock as a prop in a media availability again today.

Maybe that’s why House Speaker Pat Bauer felt the need to come up with a prop of his own.  Bauer had a My Man Mitch bobble head doll on his desk for his availability. 

At one point the Speaker said, “The governor’s with us here and he agrees with me almost all the time.” 

That’s when he hit the bobble head so that the doll would nod.

(BTW, the My Man Mitch bobble heads were sent to the 2008 Daniels campaign by a donor.  The campaign deemed them inappropriate.  How Bauer got one, I don’t know.)

Don’t expect Indiana House Speaker Pat Bauer to permit a vote on a constitutional ban on same sex marriage in response to the news that a judge threw out a statutory same sex marriage ban in Iowa.

Bauer pointed out today that 4 Indiana judges have upheld the statutory ban here.

Indiana House Minority Leader Brian Bosma confirmed today that he received a “note of protest” from House Speaker Pat Bauer over the clock projected on a wall outside the House chamber.  The clock counts down to the deadline for passing permanent property tax caps this year.

“He (Bauer) didn’t think having holograms in the Statehouse was OK,” said Bosma.  The clock is not a hologram, he pointed out, but facetiously said he has technicians working on one.

“I responded by keeping the clock up,” said Bosma.

-Governor Mitch Daniels and Speaker Pat Bauer trade some pretty pointed rhetoric in the media at this time of year but, apparently, they are still civil to one another face to face.  Bauer and Sen. Vi Simpson met with Daniels this morning and left looking serene.  Daniels said it was, “A good meeting.”

-Larry Curl is a former township fire chief and one of the people lobbying to protect township government.  Because he was in the hallway today after the defeat of Kernan/Shepard proposals yesterday, I asked why.  “The fire’s out!” I said.   “It could be in the rekindling stage,” was Curl’s answer.

-Senator Mike Delph wants to change the redistricting process to make it more fair.  He promises a resolution next week.  How many of his fellow Senate Republicans (who hold a 33-17 majority) do you think want to change things now?

I moderated a discussion by a panel of lawmakers last week where someone in the audience suggested that there is no need for new laws.  Take a year off, he said,  maybe two.

I explained that there is a need for a new state budget, if nothing more, and one lawmaker suggested that most of the new laws are really revisions to existing portions of the Indiana code.  Therefore, there are not exactly “new laws.”

Nevertheless, House Speaker Pat Bauer reports that the Indiana House passed 243 bills in the first half of the 2009 session (120 in the last three days.)  

If that sounds like a lot, consider that it is just one-third of the bills that filed at the beginning of the session.

House Speaker Pat Bauer no longer makes reference to the Kernan/Shepard report insisting instead that it should be renamed the “Shepherd Report.”  He said that yesterday and repeated it today.  What followed on both occasions was a series of puns referencing sheep.

Yesterday he suggested the proposal had lost its shepherd.  Today he suggested that it was sheared.  He says it looks like a “raw animal.” 

I get the feeling he’s not giving the government consolidation proposal serious consideration.

Rep. Tim Brown (R-Crawfordsville) created a buzz and earned a rebuke from the Speaker with his speech during the budget debate in the Indiana House. 

Brown said that the unusual one year budget proposal would permit a new budget in an election year and, with it, the opportunity for the majority Democrats to garner more campaign contributions.  Said Brown, “A vote for this budget is a vote for pay-to-play.”

Minority Leader Brian Bosma, from his seat, said loudly that the comments were not endorsed by Republican Leadership.  House Speaker Pat Bauer took to the mike to lecture Brown saying, “You are not to impugn the ethics of any member!”

House Speaker Pat Bauer imposed a new restriction in the Indiana House of Representatives today:  No notes from the hallway.

Normally, doorkeepers deliver dozens of notes to lawmakers requesting they come to the hallway for a conversation with a lobbyist or a constituent.  Recently the volume of messages and the traffic to and from the hallway has reached an unacceptable level in the Speaker’s view.

No word on how long the restriction will last.  In the meantime, look for big crowds around the doorways at recess time.

House Speaker Pat Bauer misplaced his car keys today.  He was at a meeting in the governor’s second floor office this morning and they fell out of his pocket becoming lodged between the seat and the back of a chair.

When they poked someone attending an afternoon meeting with Mitch Daniels, the governor’s staff set about finding the owner of the keys.  Since Bauer was a candidate, someone took the keys to the Statehouse parking lot and tested the key fob on the Speaker’s car.  It worked!

That caused the governor make a rare visit to Speaker’s third floor office to personally deliver the missing keys.  In the process one lawmaker tried to make a case to the governor about an issue he cares about, and lobbyists buzzed about the possible reasons for a face-to-face meeting.

He just brought the keys back.  Nothing more.

The guy who once compared lawmaking to the creation of sausage had today in mind.

The Indiana House of Representatives passed an amendment today calling for a state stimulus plan with a price tag of $1.5 Billion dollars.  That’s what the document said, $1.5 Billion.  What it was supposed to say was $1 Billion.  There was a drafting error.  Nobody caught it till after the vote.

So, just fix it, right? 

Not that simple.  That would require another vote and the vote would be to reduce the stimulus plan by $500 Million dollars.  That might be campaign fodder for some. 

That’s why amendment author Brian Bosma, the House minority leader, requested and received a private meeting with House Speaker Pat Bauer to discuss the matter.  Bauer disclosed only minor details from the meeting  but said he will “take a look” at the problem.

Maybe the state Senate can fix it.