Indiana legislature takes small step to counter Holcomb’s authority

(The Center Square) – The Indiana legislature debated a bill late Monday that would allow it to go into an emergency session within 30 days of the governor declaring a state of emergency.

The bill is sponsored by Rep. Matt Lehman, R-Berne, the House floor leader.

It is the answer to the question of what the Republican legislature will do to curb Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb’s power to act after declaring an emergency – to shut down businesses, issue a mask mandate, order non-elective surgeries be halted, and even tell Hoosiers not to leave their homes.

But it is not what many conservatives in the state have been hoping their representatives would produce.

If it passes, either the governor himself or a “council” made up of legislative leaders could call an emergency session of the legislature. The legislature could remain in session up to 40 days, to make laws to deal with the emergency situation. But the bill would not prevent the governor from continuing to extend emergencies, unless the legislature acted, and would not limit his powers.

“To me, we’re shifting deck chairs on the Titanic,” says Rep. Jim Lucas, R-Seymour. “We’re just moving things around and we’re not really doing anything to protect the individual against government overreach.”

Lucas has his own bill, which forbids the governor from extending a state of emergency beyond 28 days without the legislature’s OK, but legislative leaders have shown no interest in moving it forward.

The great majority of Republicans also showed no interest Monday night in amendments that would have strengthened the Lehman bill, HB 1123, and restored to the legislature its sole lawmaking authority.

Several of those amendments were sponsored by Rep. Curt Nisly, R-Milford, and one of them would have repealed the state Emergency Management and Disaster Law, which is the law the governor says gave him the authority to declare an emergency and issue more than 50 executive orders under that emergency, including the “Hunker Down Hoosiers” order.

Nisly’s amendments were defeated overwhelmingly, with the great majority of Republican legislators sticking together to support only the assertion of their authority during an emergency that is outlined in the Lehman bill.

“All summer a lot of Republicans bloviated about, you know, ‘We can’t do anything, because we’re not in session.’ And, now we are, and we’re doing about the same thing we did this summer, which was nothing,” Nisly said just before the House session on Monday.

In addressing his fellow legislators, Nisly said the state’s Emergency Management and Disaster Law is not needed as the governor already has the authority to direct state agencies to act, and can also issue non-binding proclamations.

“The laws of the state of Indiana should still apply in the time of an emergency,” he said. “The Constitution should always apply, even in times of emergency … If the governor needs to get his message and suggestions to people, to local units of government, a proclamation would be there for that purpose.”

Lehman disagreed, saying, “What is out there to protect Hoosiers that may need some sense of protection around them?”

He went on to say that the governor’s orders allowed for the temporary licensing of new health care workers and also suspended eligibility requirements for in-home meal deliveries for schoolchildren.

“The reality of it is maybe not everything that was in the executive orders we agreed with,” he said, “but there was some darn good stuff in these executive orders that protected Hoosiers and protected children and the idea that we simply toss that out with one amendment is not good public policy.”

Nisly, in his response, pointed out that the examples cited were executive orders directed at state government, and that the governor does not need executive orders to direct the actions of state government, as he is the executive in charge of the state government.

Rep. John Jacob, R-Indianapolis, told legislators that the governor, by his mandates, has turned nursing homes into “medical prisons” and kept family members out of hospice also, forcing people to die alone and in misery.

His amendments would have prohibited the state from restricting visitors to nursing homes and hospice – though the nursing homes and hospice organizations could have set their own rules and prohibited visitors if they thought necessary.

Like the other amendments, it too was defeated, with just a handful of legislators voting yes.

But the Republicans did unite to fend off attempts by Democrats to weaken a section of the bill that would prohibit the governor or any state agency from imposing any restrictions on churches during an emergency or at any other time, with Lehman saying, “that is one thing we will not have a debate on.”

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