A Senate committee Tuesday approved language that would amend Indiana's constitution to require the General Assembly to pass a balanced budget. This is the amendment's second time in the legislature.
Former governor Mike Pence first pushed the balanced budget amendment in 2015. It easily passed the General Assembly that year. If it passes again, this session or next, it will go to voters for their approval in the 2018 general election.
But some lawmakers question the amendment's usefulness. Senator Mark Stoops, D-Bloomington, voted against the amendment and notes the Indiana Constitution already bars the legislature from creating debt, except in emergencies.
"It does seem to me to be more about somehow restating that Indiana is committed to a balanced budget," Stoops says. "I think we've shown that we already are."
But amendment author Senator Brandt Hershman, R-Buck Creek, says he wants language in the constitution that's, as he puts it, harder to manipulate.
The amendment allows the legislature to create an unbalanced budget with a two-thirds majority vote of the House and Senate.