Second half of 2012 General Assembly arrives quietly

WISHTV.COM

Jim Shella

Updated: Feb 7, 2012 4:42 PM

The Indiana General Assembly entered the second half of the 2012 session today in a new atmosphere.  Gone are the protesters as well as the controversial right to work bill that drew them to the Statehouse.  The Statehouse hallways are suddenly quiet, eerily quiet.  “Almost like the difference between day and night,” says state Senate doorkeeper Bill Hart.

Where crowds chanted and jeered last week, state officials including Attorney General Greg Zoeller,now pass unmolested and without security.  State police are still there, but not many of them.  And they are no longer posted outside the governor’s office where the floors mats they stood on are now home to a charity collection bin.

“And there’s just a different atmosphere in the air about the Capitol today and it’s, quite frankly, refreshing,” said Rep. Mike Karickhoff (R-Kokomo.)

But there is still work to be done.   Action awaits on a statewide smoking ban, more compensation for state fair victims, as well as education funding and local government reform..

“The lobbyists are starting to come back now,” says doorkeeper Don Horton, “and we’re in the second half of the session so the noise level will pick up a little bit as they all return.”  Among them are labor lobbyists but they’re taking a new low key approach, too.

“The edge is off,” says Rep. Karickhoff.  “People are friendlier.  People are saying hi to one another and I think that’s gonna be helpful for us.”

A protest of historic proportions is just a memory.

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