Editorial: Lawmakers need to set these 3 priorities

Setting priorities, and sticking to them, is essential in the General Assembly’s time-pressed “short” session. That’s especially true in this year’s session, which starts Tuesday, when lawmakers are expected to consider a number of high-profile, complex issues.

Here are three topics that should command legislators’ time and attention:

Expand the state civil rights law

Extending civil rights protections to LGBT Hoosiers is both the right thing to do and the necessary thing.

Lawmakers already have a civil rights bill, albeit a flawed one, in front of them. Senate Bill 100 includes the essentials -- protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing and public services. But it also includes numerous exemptions that demand careful review, and it features one fatal flaw — an override of local human rights ordinances.

SB 100 needs considerable work, but it’s a good faith start. Lawmakers now need to finish the job.

Find an alternative to ISTEP

Hardly anyone is satisfied with the state test for student achievement in its current form. Educators and parents complain that it consumes too much time and delivers results that don’t accurately reflect students’ abilities.

A series of problems in administering and grading the test have undercut its credibility and deepened longstanding frustrations.

Sen. Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, and others proposed several potential alternatives to ISTEP in the 2015 session. Those alternatives, such as a replacement of ISTEP with the national NWEA test, deserve fresh consideration in light of another year of missteps involving an exam taken by more than 500,000 students every school year.

The stakes are simply too high for students, educators and the state to continue to accept a test as deeply flawed as ISTEP.

Develop a long-term transportation funding plan

The temporary shutdown of northbound I-65 near Lafayette this summer dramatically highlighted a long festering problem in Indiana. Our transportation network is in bad shape.

Gov. Mike Pence and Statehouse Democrats have offered competing road funding plans that rely heavily on short-term fixes such as spending down state reserves. House Republicans have taken a more long-term approach with their proposal to increase gas and cigarette taxes as well as consideration of turning portions of I-70 and I-65 into toll roads.

The toll road idea would appear to be a political nonstarter. But at least Republicans in the legislature are thinking about solutions that go beyond the next few years. And that’s essential.

In the short session, lawmakers need to develop a funding plan that provides for adequate maintenance of roads and bridges for the next several years. Simply spending down reserves won’t get the job done.

They also should take this opportunity to begin a longer-term discussion about the state’s overall transportation needs, one that in addition to highways includes consideration of the future of rail.

The every-other-year short session sometimes has been viewed as unimportant and even unnecessary. Not this year, not with these major issues. The time may be short. But the ways in which lawmakers address these three topics in the weeks ahead will shape Indiana for years to come.