A little more than a month ago, Governor Mitch Daniels and the Indiana GOP presented the Indiana House Democrats with a radical agenda that, among other things, would have drastically curtailed collective bargaining rights and eviscerated public education. The House Republicans seemed intent on ramming these extreme measures through the legislature as quickly as possible.

The House Democrats, appalled at the potential damage the Republican proposals would do to working Hoosier families, were not content to simply vote “nay;” instead, they responded with a drastic measure of their own. Minority Leader Pat Bauer led his caucus in a walkout that denied the Republicans the quorum needed to pass legislation, an effective equivalent of the long-accepted practice of filibustering in the U.S. Senate.

These are some of the bills the House Democrats knew that, as written, would do great harm to public education, as well as the economic well-being of many middle-class Hoosiers.

HB 1468: Right to work. Places the government between employers and their workers. It weakens theability of working people to bargain for fair wages and safe work environments.

HB 1585: Right to work for Public Employees.  Removes collective bargaining rights at the local level.

HB 1479: Private Takeover of Public Schools.  Allows the state of Indiana to take over poorly performing schools and for these schools to be managed by for-profit companies.  It removes local decision-making in schools.

HB 1003: School Vouchers.  Allows a family of four making over $80,000 a year to receive taxpayer dollars to send their children to a private school. 

HB 1216: Public Works Projects and Common Construction Wage.  Weakens the ability ofgovernment to ensure that tax dollars are paid to the best and most qualified workers on public works projects, and that these tax dollars are spent at home.

The 39 Indiana House Democrats relocated to a hotel in Urbana, Illinois (out of state, lest Gov. Daniels pull a “Walker” and send state troopers after them), and met nearly every day to develop amendments to the GOP budget and the proposals listed above. Negotiations began between the Republican and Democratic leadership.

These negotiations were anything but a smooth affair. Republicans postured and threw their weight around, levying massive fines against the absent Democrats (which, interestingly, were passed by a small House panel of Republicans, but may require a full chamber vote to withdraw or waive). But Rep. Bauer and the Democrats pressed on.

After almost five weeks, the Democratic and Republican House leadership reached a compromise.

Provisions of the compromise include (but are not limited to):

• Right-to-work legislation is off the table, preserving collective bargaining rights; 

• The permanent ban on public employee bargaining is off the table in the House; 

• Enabling legislation for private takeover of public schools is off the table in the House; 

• Private school vouchers will be limited to 7,500 students in the first year and 15,000 in the second year, rather than the largest voucher program in the nation the Republicans had proposed; 

• Rather than an outright ban of Project Labor Agreements as Republicans wanted, PLAs still can be included with projects passed by public referendum; and 

• The threshold for applying the common construction wage to projects would be $250,000 for 2012 and $350,000 for 2013, rather than the job-killing $1 million threshold the Republicans wanted.

Democrats clearly struck a significant blow against a legislative agenda that was anything but “Hoosier mainstream.” Rep. Bauer shared his thoughts on the compromise with TPM.

"We won a battle," House Democratic leader Patrick Bauer told TPM in an interview."But the war is not over."

Bauersaid his side won "moderation" in several Republican proposals by fleeing Indiana for more than month. He said House Republicans have promised to drop some laws opposed by organized labor supporters, including a permanent ban on collective bargaining for state workers and a bill that would have turned Indiana into a so-called "right-to-work" state.

On education, the signature policy program for Daniels, Bauer… won promises from the state House to alter Daniels' proposal to provide private school vouchers to a vast number of Indiana households. Under the deal worked out by the House leaders, the number of vouchers will be capped at 7,500 in the first year and 15,000 in the second. Also, the income level required to qualify for the vouchers has been reduced from around $100,000 per family to $61,000. Bauer called both concessions a big win for public school supporters.

Some are buying into the notion, pushed by Gov. Daniels and the Indiana GOP, that the Democrats got only “modest concessions” in exchange for their return to Indianapolis.

But there’s nothing “modest” about preventing an end to collective bargaining in Indiana.

Avoiding the scaling-back of wages for public works projects is much more than a “modest” victory for the working families depending on that pay.

Preventing out-of-state corporations from taking over Indiana schools is more than a “modest” concession to Hoosiers concerned about the future of public education, as is curtailing what would have become the largest voucher program in the country, had the Republicans gotten their way.

Given the potential damage the GOP’s extreme right-wing agenda would have done to Indiana public education, workers’ rights, and the well-being of Hoosier families, it’s difficult to argue that the legislative standoff in Indiana resulted in anything but victory. Pundits can argue which side won what and how this all affects Gov. Daniels’ presidential ambitions all they want, but one thing is clear: this battle’s real winners were Indiana’s working families.