-By Warner Todd Huston
While everyone has been focusing on the Nazi signs being carried by “teachers” in Wisconsin, Indiana’s fleebaggers have finally come home and the state’s legislature has gotten down to business. The result has been some great conservative victories for school choice and pro-choice legislation.
Hoosier Access has the finer points and details, but I’ll give an overview of two great pieces of legislation that passed down at the state’s House in Indianapolis.
The first great bill that came out of the legislature was HB 1003, a school choice bill. This bill gives parents a voucher so that they can choose the school that best fits their child’s needs. This bill puts Indiana at the leading edge of school choice and let us hope other states join Indiana at a school reform that is truly meaningful.
The House also passed HB 1210, what Indiana Right to Life is calling one of the most comprehensive pieces of pro-life legislation in the country. The bill…
… carries multiple provisions including the establishment of the state’s interest in protecting pain-capable unborn children after 20-weeks gestational age, opting-out Indiana from abortion coverage required under state health exchanges under the new federal health law, and a requirement that women considering abortions be given an expanded range of information provided both orally and in writing.
Also, HB 1474 tightened teen abortion reporting procedures to help track down child sexual abuse. Of course, abortionists routinely break these sorts of laws so let’s hope that Hoosier authorities begin prosecuting them when they do.
The House also passed a state budget that holds the line on spending and does not raise taxes.
Naturally all this has to be OKayed by the State Senate but the GOP has a super majority so it is likely that it will pass easily.
Now, this is the sort of work that can get done when you have a comfortable Republican controlled legislature, folks. Let us hope that we see this sort of success replicated all across the country in the coming years.
Kudos to Indiana. I like Indiana’s new tourism slogan “restart” yourself in Indiana. Well, it fits the Hoosier legislature, too. They’ve “restarted” for success.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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