INDIANAPOLIS -- The Indiana Supreme Court said Friday it would step into a legislative dispute over the collection of $1,000-a-day fines imposed on Democrats who boycotted the House to protest a right-to-work bill.

The attorney general's office asked the high court to intervene after a Marion County judge blocked the House from collecting fines through payroll deduction. Attorney General Greg Zoeller said the dispute belongs in the Legislature, not in the courts. He said that under constitutional separation of powers, a court cannot interfere in the workings of the legislative branch.

"Under our Constitution, disagreements between legislators over legislative rules should be hammered out and decided within the legislative branch, not the judicial branch. Because the plaintiffs brought this internal dispute to the trial court, the State now must ask a higher court to send the dispute back to the Legislature where it fundamentally and properly belongs," Zoeller said in a statement.

Democratic attorney Mark GiaQuinta said the court agreeing to hear the case was "not necessarily a bad thing because it was going to end up in the Supreme Court anyway." He said he believed it was not up to the Legislature to determine the constitutionality of its own action. That was the courts' role, he said.

In a related development Friday, Judge David Dreyer extended his order blocking the collection of the fines for another 10 days.

House Minority Leader Pat Bauer didn't return a phone call seeking comment.

The House voted 54-44 Wednesday to make Indiana the nation's 23rd right-to-work state. The measure is expected to face little opposition in Indiana's Republican-controlled Senate. Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels is expected to sign it.

Indiana's vote came after weeks of protest by minority Democrats who boycotted the House and denied it a quorum to conduct business despite the threat of fines totaling $1,000 a day.

GiaQuinta said he had found no previously recorded cases in the United States where a majority party had seized the compensation of a minority party.

"It's confiscation, pure and simple," he said.