The Annual Report of the General Assembly’s Administrative Rules Oversight Committee (pdf) has an interesting discussion of replacing the Administrative Law Judge system for adjudicating matters overseen by the state’s administrative agencies with a centralized “office of appeal.” The committee ultimately recommended against such a proposal because the people who testified before the committee were supportive of the current system.

The idea is, however, that a centralized office of appeal would allow for judges who are more independent of the agencies whose decisions they are reviewing. It’s hard to escape the feeling that an agency’s Administrative Law Judge might be biased toward the agency. A judge coming out of a completely different administrative department who reviews decisions from a variety of agencies would presumably have an easier time being independent.

However, the various people providing testimony to the committee seemed well satisfied by the ALJ system, saying that it allowed for judges with expertise in the particular administrative areas and a consistency of decisions. The witnesses were a lawyer who practiced frequently before the Office of Environmental Adjudication; a deputy director of the Department of Natural Resources; and the Chief Environmental Law Judge for the Office of Environmental Adjudication.

For my part, on the hand full of occasions when I have practiced in front of an administrative law judge, I have had mostly negative experiences when compared to my experiences with a wide variety of trial court judges. Admittedly, this could be mostly a matter of my lack of familiarity with this particular legal subculture — the codes of procedure only tell half the story in any of these settings. There are generally any number of unwritten rules that frequent players just know. (For example, traveling west central Indiana doing collections, every court does things just a little bit differently, and you just have to get to know the system.) In any case, the ALJs I have run across seemed to be inconsistently focused on technical rules. By which I mean, they almost make a fetish of some of the rules while casually ignoring others. And the game is figuring out which is which.

But, like I said, my experience here is limited — maybe 6 to 8 matters across 3 administrative agencies. Probably not a big enough sample to draw a conclusion.

Karl Kurtz, continuing his regional review of the election at the Thicket, takes a look at the Midwest. There is party balance in midwestern legislatures with, if my math is right, an 11-11 chamber split with Republicans controlling all of 4 states (the Dakotas, Kansas, and Missouri), the Democrats controlling all of 4 states (Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois), and a party split in 3 states (Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan.) Nebraska has a non-partisan thing going on.

With respect to Indiana:

The title of “ticket-splittingest” state probably belongs to Indiana (in competition with Vermont in the East). Sen. Barack Obama carried the state with 50 percent of the vote to Sen. McCain’s 49 percent by winning only 15 of 92 counties. But Republican Governor Mitch Daniels was reelected with 58 percent of the vote, winning 77 of the state’s 92 counties. Obama carried Indianapolis by 105,000 votes, but Daniels managed a 50,000 vote majority in that city. With all of this split-ticket voting at the top of the ballot, the net change in the Legislature was a gain of only one seat in the House for the Democrats. The Senate remains under Republican control by a 33-17 margin.

Sooner or later, I think wireless Internet connectivity is going to be fairly ubiquitous and generally treated like a utility. Richmond is making steps in that direction with the opening of a “free” wireless hot spot in the center of the city. (I put the word “free” in scare-quotes because, I recognize, nothing is free; just the method of payment shifts around.)

The Center City Wi-Fi District will provide free wireless Internet access to businesses, retailers, students, residents and visitors in an area encompassing the city’s central business district. Also included in the network are the Historic Depot District and the Old Richmond District.

The Wi-Fi initiative was made possible with the support of Summit Computers, Parallax Systems, Urban Enterprise Zone, Main Street Richmond Wayne County, and Belden Wire and Cable. The Center City Wi-Fi Network was designed and constructed by Parallax and Summit Computers.

It’s believed to be the largest free Wi-Fi hot spot in Indiana.

Howard Dean is stepping down as DNC chair. He has certainly left the Democratic Party much stronger than he found it. His main influence on the Democratic Party has been a commitment to a 50 state strategy and to being unapologetic about his party.

Under Terry McAuliffe, Tom Daschle, and the party machinery that preceded Dean, the Democrats were focused on a limited geographic area, on raising money from a limited number of big donors, and on trying to get people to ignore the fact that they weren’t Republicans. Dean had a more aggressive and populist approach which worked — with an assist, it must be said, by the shortcomings of Republican approaches coming to fruition.

Now, I see that McAuliffe has filed the papers necessary to set up a run for Governor of Virginia. Virginia is outside of my bailiwick, but I’m not a big fan of McAuliffe and suspect that Virginia can do better.

SusanG at DailyKos has an entry entitled, “Too big to fail. Or to pay taxes. Or to be identified.” In part, she cites a Bloomberg news article which reveals:

The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn’t require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.

So, are they just looting the joint or is something more respectable going on? “Trust us,” seems to be the answer.

Karl Kurtz, writing for NCSL’s the Thicket, has an interesting article about the party swap that seems to have occurred between the Northeast and the South. The Northeast has come to be solidly controlled by the Democrats while the South has come to be solidly controlled by the Democrats Republicans. Therefore, he notes that, in effect, the “system of 1896” also known as the “Fourth Party System” has been turned on its head. From 1896 through 1932, Republicans controlled the northeast and Democrats controlled the South.

From 1932 through the 1960s, the New Deal Coalition saw Democrats making some inroads in the north following a Great Depression triggered backlash against the Republicans. For me, it seems that the New Deal coalition started eroding in the 60s partially because it was running out of steam, but also as a backlash to the Civil Rights movement. After the Voting Rights Act was implemented, Lyndon Johnson said that the Democrats would lose the South for a generation. Whether because of race relations or other factors, in fact, we have seen the South shift from Democratic to Republican between the 60s and 90s as the Dixiecrats gradually became Republicans. (I wonder if Georgia Democrat Zell Miller’s angry tirade at the 2004 Republican National Convention was the culmination of that process.) Now, the Northeast has come to be controlled almost entirely by Democrats where once it was a Republican stronghold.

Democrats control 17 of the 18 legislative chambers in the Northeast (19 of 20 if you prefer to call Maryland an eastern state) after the 2008 election. The only exception is the Pennsylvania Senate.

Kurtz has another article entitled “Reverse coattails in the South” which shows the effect of this election enhancing Republican dominance in the old Confederacy (my term, not his.)

In some ways, it seems this Regional battle between North and South keeps coming into play again and again and again, with race frequently playing a central role. There are brief respites as other issues grab our collective attention, but the default tension in our politics seems to be Plymouth versus Jamestown over and over.

The Legislative Services Agency has posted county property tax studies for 2007-2008 (pdf). It has summaries for 66 counties. For example, in Tippecanoe County, the average homeowner for 2008 saw their property tax bill decrease 28.8% with 98.2% of homeowners seeing decreases. Without the added
homestead credit paid for by slot machine licenses for horse tracks and increased sales taxes, the average tax bill would have increased by 5.9%, and 75.0% of homeowners would have seen property tax increases.

The increase in property tax levies were largest due to Lafayette School Corporation’s debt service and capital project fund levies.

I went to Mt. Carmel, Pennsylvania via Euclid Ohio for a wedding this weekend. I tried to post a bit about I-80 through Pennsylvania a couple of days ago, but WordPress seems to have eaten it. I’m happy the road exists for our little excursion, but there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of reason for it to exist, particularly given the difficulties of building a major road on that rough terrain. There weren’t any major population centers to speak of in the 200+ miles between Youngstown, OH and Danville, PA where we got off the road.

As for Ohio, what is the penalty for driving in the right lane when you’re a slower vehicle? Clearly it’s not the death penalty since a few brave souls do it, but the penalty must be awfully steep given how many slow vehicles hang out in the left or center lanes despite having a vacant right lane beside them.

I am very impressed with my kids — we did the entire 650 mile or so drive home today without a lot in the way of breaks, and they held up beautifully. On the one hand, they have a DVD player that I didn’t have when I was a kid; but on the other hand, they are basically strapped into their seats whereas back in the benighted 70s, my siblings and I roamed the backseat freely without much concern for safety. Cole spent a bunch of time today with his notebook and crayon; mostly drawing super heroes, occasionally asking me how to spell stuff.

And then, it never fails, I got home with about 40 seconds left in the Colts game. So, I had to rush into the house to turn on the game and watch the last couple of plays. Sounds like the defense really stepped up. I love Bob Lamey, but I’m not sure his play calling is the most accurate. I don’t know how many times he’d excitedly blurt out the play as he hoped it had happened only to have to correct himself with what actually happened. Mostly of the “He caught it! No he didn’t” variety. Still, that’s a pretty big deal to go into Pittsburgh with a struggling Colts team and come out with a win. Maybe I should have just swung by Pittsburgh while I was in the area.

Dan McFeely, writing for the Indianapolis Star, is reporting that the Democrats will retain control of the Indiana House. At the moment, it looks like the balance will remain 51 to 49 in favor of the Democrats. There are apparently two that are too close to call officially, but lean to the Republicans. In the Lafayette area, Republican Randy Truitt is clinging to about a 20 vote lead over Democrat John Polles to replace outgoing Democrat, Joe Micon.

A more fluid situation exists around Anderson where Republican challenger Kelly Gaskill holds a 34 vote lead over Democrat Scott Reske. However, “it might be midday before election officials in Anderson are done counting an estimated 12,000 ballots that did not get counted last night due to a voting machine problem.”

This is pretty big news. With such a slim majority in the House and a Republican controlled Senate and Governor’s office, the state Democrats won’t be able to steer the ship, but they should hopefully be able to provide a throttle to some of the more incorrigible state Republicans. Gov. Daniels doesn’t seem to get too excited about the social issues that drive some of his fellow Republicans, but he doesn’t seem generally inclined to get in their way. By the same token, I doubt he is going to break too many Democratic arms on those social issues, particularly if they play nice on the economic issues that seem to interest Gov. Daniels more.