Indiana House Democrats Take the Right Approach on Property Tax Vote

The JG front-paged a piece about the upcoming vote on Governor Daniels' property tax package. Democrats, who control the house, have rightly decided that the Governor's plan should be treated as a package and voted on as a package:

But he said Thursday that House Ways and Means Chairman William Crawford, D-Indianapolis, would author Daniels’ bill as one piece of legislation and that early hearings were in order.

“I took the time and deliberation to determine how you do a major, complicated bill,” said Bauer, who has often sparred with Daniels. “I believe when the governor proposes a package you treat it as a package, and the governor concurred.”

This is the right approach to take. Any plan will begin to fall apart if they treat it in a piecemeal fashion and begin removing bits and pieces. Unfortunately, that's the way Republicans that control the Senate have decided to tackle the problem:

Senate Republican leaders said earlier that they planned to introduce at least 10 bills incorporating parts of Daniels’ plan Nov. 20 and have hearings on them in December, when lawmakers usually are not in session.

That is simply a terrible idea. If the Senate wants to use the Governor's plan as a framework to develop their own plan - fine. But carving a plan up into individual bills is surely asking for disaster...