INDIANAPOLIS | The nitty-gritty work of writing Indiana’s laws most of the time gets done not in the glittering House and Senate chambers, but in dreary, plain committee rooms scattered throughout the Statehouse.
It is there representatives and senators go through legislative proposals line byline, make changes they decide are needed and hear the opinions of lobbyists and other Hoosiers affected by each measure.
House and Senate committee chairmen, nearly all Republicans, have tremendous power to advance or stop proposals assigned to their committees because all legislation must win committee approval to get a final vote by the full chamber, and the chairman decides — sometimes in consultation with the top Democrat, known as the “ranking member” — what gets a committee vote.