IN Governor calls for Special Session

Governor Holcomb is bringing legislators back in May for the first special session in nine years.

The regular session ended last week with chaos and finger-pointing after the House ran out of time with a half-dozen bills still unvoted on by the midnight deadline, including two of Holcomb’s legislative priorities: a five-million-dollar boost in Indiana’s school-security grant fund, and a regulatory framework for self-driving cars.

Holcomb says he’s disappointed the self-driving car bill didn’t pass, but says it can wait till next year. But he says the school-safety bill and two others can’t wait. He says legislators need to align Indiana’s tax code with the federal tax reform which took effect in January — the Indiana Chamber has warned it’ll cost businesses at least 100-million dollars in productivity if they have to separately calculate their income in two different ways. And the governor is asking legislators to approve a 12-million-dollar emergency loan to the cash-strapped Muncie Community Schools.

Republicans had been pushing a bill which would have turned over management of the Muncie schools to Ball State.