BY The Associated Press
INDIANAPOLIS -- Gov. Frank O'Bannon says he will sign legislation lowering the threshold at which drivers are presumed drunk if it reaches his desk in 1999, but is reluctant to make it a priority. That reluctance could doom the measure for the upcoming legislative session, says its top backer in the General Assembly.
The governor said he has a full legislative agenda, and indicated this week that pushing hard for a tougher drunken-driving law isn't likely to be part of it.
"They (legislators) always say, 'Well, if the governor's for it, he can twist arms and do it,"' Mr. O'Bannon said. "Listen, I've got so many things to twist arms about, you've got to pick and choose what those can be."
Sen. Thomas Wyss, R-Fort Wayne, is introducing legislation for the ninth consecutive year that would lower the threshold for drunken driving from 0.10 percent blood-alcohol content to 0.08 percent.
He and other proponents point to medical evidence showing that everyone has impaired driving skills at 0.08, and that lives have been saved in states that have adopted the lower limit.
But lobbyists for the alcohol and tavern industries say the
measure targets social drinkers and would do nothing to convince chronic drunken drivers to stay off the road.
Mr. Wyss said earlier this month that he might not even give the bill a hearing in the Public Policy Committee he chairs unless Mr. O'Bannon offers strong support for it.
"I told the governor that unless we have his bully pulpit to push this, we'll be in the same spot as in previous years," Mr. Wyss said. "My cue will be from the governor. Either he's totally committed or not. If not, I doubt whether the bill will have a hearing."
The bill passed the full Senate only once, in 1990, but died in the House. It was narrowly defeated in Mr. Wyss' committee last year.
The measure has been backed by the Governor's Council on Impaired and Dangerous Driving, chaired by Attorney General Jeff Modisett, and it will be part of the commission's legislative agenda again in 1999.
