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Sunday, November 23, 2008

Ind. Courts - Yet more on: God and prayer continue in Indiana headlines

Updating this ILB entry from Friday, Nov. 21, here is an interesting item from the Niki Kelly and Benjamin Lanka authored Sunday column in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, "Political Notebook:"

Lost in the return of clergy-sponsored prayer at the Indiana Statehouse last week was a little-noticed rule change the House instituted that might help stave off future prayer lawsuits.

One of the reasons the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana could present such a comprehensive recitation of all the Christian prayers when it unsuccessfully sued in 2005 was the videotape record of the prayers.

But House members changed the rules Tuesday during Organization Day so that video record might no longer exist.

In the past, the first order of business has been to call the house to order, which is the official start of the legislative session day – and the video recording.

Next were the prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by the roll call.

But under the new rule, the invocation will come first – before the House is called to order and the video is turned on. This makes the prayer less a part of official session business and also makes it voluntary, according to several Statehouse sources.

Unfortunately, the House Rules are not available online at the moment. Go to this page, click "Senate Standing Rules" and you get the Senate Rules; click "House Standing Rules" and you get an error message. Hopefully the House Rules will return soon.

Another alternative would be to look at the House Journal for the opening day, which was Nov. 18th. However, if you go to this page and click "House Journals", you reach, at the moment, an empty page.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 23, 2008 08:23 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts | Indiana Government