A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

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Archives for September 2010

Secretary of State: Charlie White – Election Law Not His Strong Suit

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I’ll admit it. Election Law is not my strong suit. Title 3 of the Indiana Code gives me a headache. But, there is a very significant difference between me and Charlie White. He’s running for Secretary of State, and I’m not. As Eric Bradner reports (and a ton of others) for the Evansville Courier Press, White has been violating residency requirements for his current position as a town councilman for Fishers, Indiana. White does not live in the district he represents.

Advance Indiana also makes the point that White is a Republican county chairman and an attorney. If it’s anyone’s job to know the residency requirements necessary to serve in office, it’s White’s. His defense is that “he didn’t know” his residence was outside of his council district.

This matter makes it difficult to believe that, as Secretary of State, White would make an effort to know the laws he is supposed to enforce and, if he did know them, to faithfully enforce those laws.

White has given his Secretary of State opponent, Vop Osili, a major campaign issue in a race that voters typically fail to notice. Osili has responded to this with:

“If these charges are true, this is not only alarming and troubling, but it also raises questions to as whether this individual should be given the public’s trust to oversee elections and the voting process.

As our state’s Chief Administrator of Elections, the Secretary of State should set the standards for integrity, and fairness with regard to voting and the election process, and of course adhere to the letter of the law—not bend or break the rules to suit personal gains.

Update Hoosier Access offers a weak defense:

[U]nless you’re a diehard political junkie such as myself the last thing on your mind when you buy a house or rent an apartment is which voting precinct it is located.

Again, Charlie White is running to be Secretary of State – recognizing election law violations and enforcing them is one of the primary jobs of that office. In addition, he is a county political party chairman and an attorney. Also, White was “too busy” for such niceties.

Other offices and other factual scenarios might make this residency violation incidental, but for this race, it seems like a pretty central issue.

AP Stylebook: 11 Years is “Age-Old”

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The tone of this Associated Press article on nutty things Tea Party heroine Christine O’Donnell has said on camera was striking to me. It’s generally dismissive of using past statements to evaluate the woman.

You see, it’s not that O’Donnell talked about dabbling in witchcraft on the Bill Maher show in 1999, rather Maher is “digging up” clips. But this paragraph is what I really noticed:

Opponents have been unearthing unflattering age-old television clips. Her campaign didn’t immediately return a telephone message Saturday, but she has in the past dismissed previous comments.

So I guess there are no clips of modern vintage? And how many years is “age-old” in the AP style book? Is the War in Afghanistan about to become “age-old”? Will the inevitable hero worship of things Reagan supposedly did or said be described as “age-old”?

It’s just such an odd editorial choice.

Talk Like a Pirate Day

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Just a reminder that September 19th is Talk Like a Pirate Day. Arrr! Three sheets to the wind, mateys!

‘Tis a Day holy to the Pastafarians, for whom Pirates are divine beings. As Bobby Henderson pointed out in his letter to the Kansas Board of Education urging them to give equal time to the theory of the Flying Spaghetti Monster along side evolution and intelligent design, global warming is due to the decline of pirates:

You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s. For your interest, I have included a graph of the approximate number of pirates versus the average global temperature over the last 200 years. As you can see, there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature.

So, Talk Like a Pirate & Fight Global Warming!

Hoosiers Remain Safe From The Scourge of Bare (Female) Breasts

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Standing as a thin shield between Hoosiers and a plague of bare (female) breasts, Judge Cale Bradford wrote an opinion rejecting a 16 year old girl’s fourteenth amendment claim that it’s a violation of the Constitution’s equal protection guarantees to outlaw the public display of female breasts while allowing men to flaunt their nipples freely.

But Judge Bradford knew better. He recognized that, in its ultimate wisdom, the Indiana General Assembly recognized that a girl’s chest is a threat to public safety where a man’s chest is not. (I paraphrase). The reason? Men’s nipples are not erogenous zones. So, if you thought otherwise, you now know better:

We do not believe that it can be seriously disputed (and C.T. does not) that Hoosier society, in general, considers the female breast to be an erogenous zone but does not consider the male breast to be one: public display of the former is almost certain to cause offense and unease while public display of the latter is not.

Aside from the weirdness of suggesting that erogenous zones have to be covered up — hats over those ears, people! And no sandals for you toe freaks! — there’s a chicken & egg problem here. If female breasts were on display 24/7, I’m pretty sure the offense and unease would disappear.

The outcome here doesn’t really bother me. Women have been able to thrive and advance themselves even without the right to flash people in passing cars at 4 a.m. But where Bradford gets into trouble and opens himself up to smart asses like me is when he tries to pretend something like this is rational. It’s not. It’s utterly arbitrary. But some things are just like that – we make folks toe the line on made up customs as part of living in our society. (I think cults do this too, come to think of it.) For example, why some words are “bad,” swear words has no real rhyme or reason. But, you don’t go saying them in front of your mother if you have any respect. (Criminalizing this stuff is troublesome, however.)

Anyway, I think Judge Bradford probably should have said, “it makes no real sense, but we’ll leave it up to the legislature to change it.” Or follow it to its logical conclusion and overturn it because it serves no particularly rational purpose.

Bi-partisan support for Vote Centers

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Dorothy Schneider, writing for the Journal & Courier, has an article about the support for vote centers among Lafayette-area lawmakers. Sen. Alting and Reps. Klinker, and Truitt all expressed support for continuing vote centers in Tippecanoe County. The idea for these centers is that you can go anywhere in the county to vote and get a ballot that is appropriate for the precinct in which you reside. So, for example, I have been able to vote downtown instead of having to go back to the voting location closest where I lived.

Tippecanoe County Clerk, Linda Phillips, says that ending the pilot program in the county – set to expire in 2011 absent further legislative action – will cost the county at least $50,000.

In 2009, Gov. Daniels vetoed a bill that would have allowed vote centers. Secretary of State Rokita disagreed with the Governor. In 2010, it got bogged down with a measure that would have allowed more permissive absentee voting.

Update A reader advised me that their understanding of the Governor’s objections in 2009, really didn’t have much to do with vote centers at all, but with some other provisions in the 2009 bill, notably those having to do with provisional voting and the procedures for establishing satellite voting (which is something different from vote centers) locations. So, the likelihood is that the Governor would go along with a clean vote center bill.

Recognizing the Obvious Enhances Credibility

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I’m not known for my sensitivity (college friends in particular will be laughing at the understatement just about now), but I found myself cringing at the “she was asking for it” theme of commentary in the Ines Sainz/Jets matter. (See, e.g. — CBS puts a question mark at the end of the headline forwarding the theme, so I guess that makes it o.k.) The short version is that a very attractive sports reporter was the subject of some inappropriate conduct by the New York Jets when covering them during practice. I haven’t researched it too extensively, but the reports I came across were actually fairly light on the exact nature of the alleged harassment. What I’ve gleaned is that one of the practice units was running plays in her direction to get close to her – overthrowing passes, etc., some of the Jets were throwing out catcalls in the locker room, and possibly her pigtails were dipped in an inkwell. (Frankly, I think a lot of the media attention is simply a pretext for showing her picture a lot; kind of like mainstream media about porn criticism so often seems to be an excuse to indirectly profit off of pornography. I don’t think this story would be getting much attention if she was unpleasant to look at.)

A lot of the reaction I’ve come across (sports radio, Facebook threads) are either leering – a Yahoo sports reporter being interviewed joked that he’d have to do a thorough investigation, making sure to do an extensive interview with her. (I.e. “she’s hot, I want to be close to her, I don’t give a shit about whether or not anything inappropriate happened.”) A Facebook thread had a guy saying, in effect, “she dresses like a whore, what does she expect?”

So, that type of reaction really knocked me back. But, I think maybe the communication breaks down to some degree, not because folks think women should be harassed, but because there is a tendency to ignore an elephant in the room – in this case, the woman’s sexuality is being marketed. It’s not an accident that her employer, Azteca, didn’t give the job to an ugly woman. It’s not an accident that she dresses in a manner calculated to display her attractiveness. I’m guessing that her employer gets more viewers as a result, and I’m guessing that her prospects as a sports reporter have improved as a result. Now, these factors don’t justify or excuse harassment any more than a tight dress justifies rape. But, sexual attraction is being manipulated for a commercial purpose. When that attraction manifests itself in an inappropriate manner, I think you at least have to recognize that attention from that attraction (if not the specific reaction) was a desired response.

When you’re arguing a legal case, or any other case, I would guess; it’s always a good idea to acknowledge inconvenient facts and explain them as best you can. You shouldn’t ignore them because the opposition will be sure to highlight those facts and cast them in as negative a light as possible. I think there is a similar dynamic in these sorts of discussions. Here, there might be a reluctance to come out and say that Azteca is, to one degree or another, selling sex because there is a fear that this suggests that harassment is justified. But I think that’s a mistake. I think you have to acknowledge the inconvenient fact and explain that it doesn’t matter: “The way someone is dressed is not an excuse for being impolite,” or whatever your explanation might be.

From my experience, discussions about race and drugs come to mind as other areas where inconvenient facts are glossed over or ignored. In the case of race, I recall well-meaning people telling me as a kid that it was wrong to treat people differently just because their skin color is different. Of course it is. But, even though I agreed with the premise of treating people equally and with respect, I tended to dig in my mental heels because, even (or maybe especially) as a kid, I noticed that it was not simply a matter of skin color. There were other differences — not differences that justified disparate treatment — but there were differences other than skin color. “Wait a second, if it’s just skin color that is different, why do I feel like I can make a pretty good guess that someone is black when I hear them on the radio or telephone?” And the omission can be pernicious. I recall in the early 90s there was a big brouhaha over “ebonics.” It became a punch line for disgruntled white people. And it had some resonance for me; a resonance I think could have been avoided had those well-meaning racial equality talks in my youth contained some mention along the lines of “whites and blacks frequently have different speech patterns. Here’s why. And here’s why it doesn’t matter.” Again, I think you have to acknowledge the differences but explain why they don’t affect the underlying point.

(And the underlying point in racial and gender relations is captured well, as so many things are, by some advice from the movie Road House: “Be nice . . . until it’s time not to be nice.”)

With respect to drugs, the elephant in the room that rarely gets discussed is that they make you feel good. There’s a reason people take them. I think that has to be acknowledged when you explain to kids why they should be avoided or their use should be moderated. Otherwise, they’ll figure you’re even more full of shit than they would have otherwise. I remember a health teacher who got this right, in my opinion. He told us, “I don’t take drugs, not because they’re horrible, but because I’m afraid I might like them too well.” And then he went on to tell us about the negative consequences of drug abuse.

In the Sainz matter, if people making the point that the Jets acted inappropriately would first acknowledge that Sainz and Azteca are using her appearance to make money by exploiting physical attraction, then maybe we could move past that to the more important point that Rex Ryan is a colossal asshole and his attitude infects his team, making basic politeness something of a challenge.

The Indiana BMV Sucks . . . but you already knew that

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So, I was in an auto accident back in mid-June; very minor stuff. I was stopped at a red light, and a guy rear-ended my car, some healthy damage to the back corner of my car, but nothing else really. It was a hassle, but everyone in the chain has performed admirably; with one notable exception.

The guy who hit me, apologized, was very nice, and was insured. The Lafayette Police Department officer was on the scene promptly, and took care of business efficiently. I called and reported to my insurer but indicated that I was going to get my car repaired under the other guy’s insurer, State Farm. The State Farm claim rep didn’t give me any hassles, just asked where I wanted to get my car fixed and hooked me up with a rental vehicle. It was a Saturn, so I took it to Bob Rohrman Collision, and they took a look, wrote up an estimate, and got it fixed within a couple of days.

The LPD officer had advised me that I’d be getting a notice from the Indiana BMV asking for proof of financial responsibility – apparently they are requiring that of everyone who gets in an accident under IC 9-25-5-2, regardless of fault or lack thereof. Eventually, on July 30, I got the notice from the BMV with the form for providing proof of insurance. It instructed me to give it to my insurer who was to complete the form and provide it to the BMV prior to September 7, 2010 to show that I was, in fact, insured at the time of the accident. On August 16, I called my insurance adjuster on the claim and faxed the form to her. On August 17, she faxed and mailed the verification.

So, imagine my surprise this weekend to receive a Notice of License Suspension dated September 7, indicating that they had suspended my license because they had not received proof of financial responsibility. First thing this morning, I called my adjuster with some concern. Her response, “Oh, they do this all the time.” She provided me with a copy of the fax confirmation sheet, showing that she had, in fact, faxed the copy to the BMV. They got it 3 weeks early, couldn’t process their paperwork, but could spit out a license suspension notice.

So I have absolutely followed every rule in this situation – I had insurance, I was not at fault for the accident, I turned in proof of insurance well advance, and the Indiana BMV is still screwing with me.

Any legislators who happen to read this thing – here is a nice hanging curve ball to knock out of the park politically. Nobody likes the BMV, they have a system that appears to be very broken (from my adjuster’s reaction, I am far from the first person in this situation), and an angry electorate would presumably enjoy seeing an unresponsive bureaucracy raked over the coals a bit. As for a good legislative fix – perhaps mandate that the BMV is not permitted to suspend any licenses under this provision until they have processed all certificates of compliance received by the bureau on or before the particular due date.

Bastards.

Interim Study Committee Information

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During the summer and fall, the Indiana General Assembly operates sporadically in the form of interim study committees. If you are interested, you can get information about the interim schedule here.

For example, I see that the regulatory flexibility committee is going to meet tomorrow at 9:30 and receive a report from the IURC on the state of various utility industries in Indiana, the deployment of video services, and cloud computing technology. On September 28, it will meet again and discuss public and private funding sources for 211 services, funding parity for 911 services, and alternative pricing programs for natural gas.

The child support and custody advisory committee will also meet on the 14th, at 1:30, to discuss child support enforcement and the number of people who are in prison for failing to pay support.

CAFOs in Indiana

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Seth Slabaugh has a very good article in the Muncie Star Press about the rise of CAFOs (confined animal feeding operation) in Indiana, east central Indiana in particular, under the Daniels administration. Gov. Daniels had hoped to double pork production, but that hasn’t happened. He has dialed down the goal to 3% per year increases.

The short version is that we don’t want to be like North Carolina. Apparently they allowed unfettered growth without regulation (libertarian paradise!) which caused all manner of environmental problems. The response of local regulators is (and I paraphrase), “pshaw! couldn’t happen here. We’re much smarter than those dupes in North Carolina, and our soil is better for this kind of thing. Apples and oranges!”

Under the Daniels’ administration philosophy, I think what has saved Indiana from a lot more environmental problems from increased CAFO pig production is that the hog market has been in the toilet for the past few years. There are good operators out there who want to do things the right way, but the fact is they won’t survive for very long if the economic advantages, even if those advantages are short-term, are stacked in favor of the guys who take short cuts.

Wine Growth in Indiana

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Niki Kelly, writing for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, has an article on how wine leads growth in Indiana alcohol sales. Beer is still the overall leader, selling 124 million gallons to wine’s 10 million gallons, but wine has been growing at a bigger clip. (That’s even if you consider the fact that you’re likely not going to consume the same volume of wine in a sitting as beer.)

Some of the comments in the article track my experience as well. I have always been more of a beer drinker and will probably remain that way for the foreseeable future. But, in general, my interest in wine has increased. (It probably doesn’t hurt that my sister-in-law is a huge wine fan.) The availability is up and prices are not intimidating. I was pretty amazed at the selection in our local CVS the other day. And you can buy a decent tasting, non-headache-inducing bottle for $7-$8.

The article talks about the increase in alcohol sales even in the face of the recession. But, my recollection is that alcohol sales are historically recession-proof anyway. I was going to suggest that maybe as a society we are developing a more relaxed attitude toward alcohol. But, I don’t think that’s the case. Old timers in the legal profession recount times in their youth when the old timers in their day would fairly routinely drink a fair amount at lunch and whatnot. The crusade against drinking and driving has increased awareness of the dangers of drinking irresponsibly. So I’m not sure how you would explain the overall increase in alcohol purchases. Maybe it’s just that the available stuff has gotten so much better: more wines available, more craft beers available. It’s not just Budweiser and Paul Masson (no relation) wines. Maybe we’re drinking a little differently – not just swilling a lot of crappy alcohol to get drunk, but also drinking good stuff because it tastes good. (Or maybe I’m just projecting the change in my own drinking habits from my early 20s versus my late 30s.)