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News-Sentinel.com Your Town. Your Voice.
Opening Arguments

Super duper

Maybe a long shot, but doable:

Indiana Republicans are hoping to score a rare kind of victory this November: winning enough seats to claim a “super majority” in both the House and Senate while taking the governor’s office as well.

Holding that kind of one-party power hasn’t happened in Indiana since 1964, when Democrats took control of the Statehouse in numbers large enough that they didn’t need a single member from the other party to cast a vote.

[. . .]

To get total control, they need to up their numbers in the Indiana House. They won majority control in 2010 by taking 60 of the 100 House seats, giving them power to push some major legislation including the new “right to work” law that bans mandatory labor contracts for employees. Their goal is to get 67 seats this time around to get a quorum-proof super majority. With that, they could keep doing business even if House Democrats walked out like they did in 2010 and 2011 – bringing the legislature to a stall.

Not really looking forward to the possibility, though I'd certainly prefer this to total Democratic control, given the two parties' general approach to fiscal matters. Even when it doesn't "corrupt absolutely," absolute power can lead to arrogance and complacency, neither conducive to thoughtful deliberation.

In the General Assembly races for which we endorsed this year, we picked Democrats in two of the races. "Preventing a supermajority" wasn't the reason, but it's not a bad bonus.

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