Gotta hand it to the new Democrat majority in the Indiana House of Representatives – after taking advantage of a brutal national political environment that clearly favored anti-Republican candidates to narrowly wrest control away from Republicans – what do they do?

Fumble.

Their moment to shine, their chance to show that they’re in power due to their vision, and not a national tide, their chance to show a unified vision to the voters of the Hoosier state – and they flub it.

What happened?

Democrats who narrowly control the House failed to pass their own property tax restructuring plan Tuesday when two of their party members joined all present Republicans in voting against the bill.

Members voted 49-48 for the bill, but it takes 51 votes to pass or defeat a bill outright. Because it was not defeated by at least 51 votes, the legislation could still come up for another vote.

Among other things, the bill would have allowed local governments to raise local option income taxes as long as 60 percent of the new revenue was used to pay for property tax relief.

Read the entire AP article here and see that Republicans truly tried to work with the Democrats to craft a bill that was acceptable to everyone – and Democrats tried to ram through a bill that was unpalatable even to members of their own caucus.

Boy, talk about a blind spot.