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Tim Lanane Response Transcriber Were actually finishing up the second week
of session and I know there’s been a lot of discussion about the Right to Work for
less bill and indeed it does overshadow what we’re doing but there are many other issues
that we’re dealing with. In fact, this idea that perhaps we wouldn’t be able to get
other things done without some urgency, is not true.
As you might know we thought there’s been some urgency to work on the human trafficking
law of the state of Indiana and we have passed a law that would of course make it a crime
to deal in the very heinous act of trafficking in humans. We needed to close some loop holes
with the super bowl coming up. Unfortunately, an event like the super bowl does present
an opportunity for those who choose to engage in that those illegal activities to take advantage
of that situation. So we closed a loop hole to make it clear that even if a person does
not know that the individual with whom they are trafficking is under the age of sixteen,
that is not a defense to that person. So we passed that bill, it came out of the senate
without any votes against it and is over to the house.
Likewise in the house, they have passed a version of the comprehensive or nearly comprehensive
non smoking bill which will be now taken up in the senate. Again, this is something we
are hoping to put into place before the super bowl. The debate will continue on that issue
as to do you exclude every facility or do you, do you exclude any facility, I should
say, from this scope of the bill. As I understand it, the bill does exclude casinos, certain
types of tobacco bars I guess you might say. Oh and I think there’s an exception for
private clubs. I have been on record and I continue to be on record as favoring a comprehensive
total ban. Certainly I think the employees of the casinos and mersinos deserve the same
protection as other employees do but I’m willing to talk about it.
So, those are just a couple of the bills that are continuing to go down the track. I look
forward to your comments, please contact me with your thoughts on anything pending before
the Indiana general assembly and I’ll be talking to you soon again.