I was talking with a highly-placed local Republican not long ago, and we had an interesting conversation regarding the possibility of the Democrats repeating their Illinois vacations during the short session that's coming up.
Article IV, Section 11 of the Indiana Constitution reads:
Section 11. Quorum
Section 11. Two-thirds of each House shall constitute a quorum to do business; but a smaller number may meet, adjourn from day to day, and compel the attendance of absent members. A quorum being in attendance, if either House fail to effect an organization within the first five days thereafter, the members of the House so failing, shall be entitled to no compensation, from the end of the said five days until an organization shall have been effected.
Does anybody else read that to mean that a quorum must be present to open the session, and is otherwise silent -- or at least ambiguous -- about whether or not that quorum must be maintained once the session is actually open?
The point being that, in 1851, when the present state Constitution was adopted, was the intent of requiring a quorum simply to prevent the legislature from organizing before a sufficient number of legislators had assembled? Remember, they didn't have paved highways and cars back then. They barely had trains, and in fact it wasn't till the mid- to late-1850's that rail travel really got started up. In 1851, it was horseback from most places or nothing -- and the legislature met during the coldest, snowiest months of the year. What do you do if you're trying to get from Evansville to Indianapolis on horseback in a blizzard, or when every creek and river is overflowing its banks? How long is it going to take you to get there, hoping all the way that those bastards from Indianapolis haven't already opened the session and are voting in things you don't like? Thus, a quorum required to organize.
I think you could make a plausible case that when the Democrats abandoned their positions last year, both houses of the legislature could legally have continued their business without them.
[UPDATE 2 Jan] I forgot to mention that the real question this raises is whether or not it is actually possible to break the session's quorum once it is established, short of adjournment. My friend said that he did not believe that the writers of the 1851 Constitution had that in mind and that the Republicans could have overridden the quorum requirement by the simple expedient of not adjourning after the Democrats walked out.
This is why I need an editor; the whole post made no sense without that paragraph.
