Governor says he's proud of lawmakers during 2012 session

At the Indiana Statehouse Monday, Gov. Mitch Daniels said he is proud of what lawmakers accomplished.  He commended lawmakers on big achievements this year and since he has been governor.

However, Democratic leaders are saying there have been many failures in the session.

"I want to highlight full-day kindergarten,” said Gov. Daniels. “This has been an eight-year endeavor of this administration."

Lawmakers passed House Bill 1376 on the last day of the short session, adding $80 million to fund statewide full-day kindergarten.  Additionally, the same bill will increase tax refunds for some $3.3 million Hoosiers next year.

The legislature also added more money for Indiana State Fair victims, increasing from the $5 million cap to $11 million to pay out the claims.

However, minority leader Pat Bauer believes there was more to be done on that issue.

"Who is responsible?” said Bauer. “We've never determined who was responsible. We sort of ignored it and focused on what the governor could have done on his own as he's done so many things."

Bauer said the greatest failure of the session were cuts to Child Protective Services. Both Bauer and the governor will tout the new statewide smoking ban as somewhat of a success when it takes effect in July.  The legislation will ban smoking in restaurants and most work places, but not in casinos or bars.
“I’ll accept it as an achievement, but I think we could have done a lot better," said Bauer.  

"We'd only ever gotten half this far before, so not knowing what it might take and what compromises would be part of it, I always knew that if we were going to pass anything at all, it was going to have some exceptions," said Gov. Daniels. 

Fox59 asked the governor what he wishes he got done in the eight years he has been in office.  He replied bringing in more dollars into classrooms and more funding for higher education.