Looks like there was a rehash of a bill that failed last year requiring doctors to tell women that human life begins when the sperm hits the egg. SB 146 got a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, but Sen. Bray, the chairman, delayed a vote.

I have to get going, so I won’t do my own rehashing just yet. But, still, government getting in the business of legislating a scientific fact is reminiscent of the General Assembly’s 19th century attempt at legislating the value of pi.

Ryan Yencer, writing for the Muncie Star Press, has an article on Rep. Dennis Tyler’s proposal to expand gambling. Tyler’s proposal would make pull tabs, punch boards and tip boards legal for establishments licensed to sell alcohol.

Lewis Coulter, a Muncie bar and restaurant owner, said customers always came in and played pull tabs and punch boards until gaming laws changed and excise police cracked down on bars last year.

“If you don’t have something for them to do, they won’t come in,” Coulter said.

Coulter used to run eight bars in Muncie, but now only has two, the Red Dog and End Zone. He admits factory closings and declining population were factors in the reduced number of bars, along with smoking bans and drunken driving enforcement.

Back in the day, it seemed to me that drinking a lot of beer and talking to the people in the bar was activity enough. I guess there was an exception – NTN bar trivia was a big draw for me. Still, the booze was pretty much the draw. I’d feel awfully sad about my situation if I was making a bar my destination because of pulltabs and punch boards.

Eric Bradner of the Evansville Courier and Press has an excellent report on recent property tax action in the General Assembly. Some additional information concerning the property tax aspirations of the minority House Republicans is available from Niki Kelly’s report in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette.

The basics:
Shifting school operating costs to the state. (SB 1). The Senate couldn’t act on a related matter – funding the shift – because revenue bills have to originate in the House of Representatives. A bill pending in the House includes a sales tax increase from 6% to 7%. (HB 1001).

Eliminating property taxes as a source of revenue to pay for the state forestry fund and the state fair (SB 14) – small potatoes, but helps get the State off the local property tax rolls.

Extending the deadline for filing for homestead exemptions from June 11 to October 1. (SB 15)

House Republicans are pitching a plan to amend the Constitution to prohibit property taxes on homesteads – business and rental property could still be taxed. They also want to amend the Constitution to make State funding of school operating costs permanent.

Overall, the House Republicans listed 10 goals to major property tax change; nearly all are identical to Daniels’ with a few exceptions.

For instance, while the governor wants to impose a cap on local government spending, the House Republicans also think the state should abide by its own spending cap.

Also, under the GOP proposal, all future school construction would be funded through local option income taxes instead of property taxes.

[tags]property taxes[/tags]

SB 16 concerning the elimination of elected township assessors has passed the Senate Local Government and Elections Committee by a 5 – 4 vote.

In its introduced form, the bill would transfer property tax assessment duties from elected township assessors and township trustees to the county assessor. It also provides that each appraiser that performs assessments on behalf of a county property assessment contractor must have a level two assessor-appraiser certification, and requires the department of local government finance to consider before approving the contract the contractor’s experience, training, and number of employees.

Township assessors, unsurprisingly, oppose the measure. Also among those opposing the measure was Republican Mike Young of Indianapolis:

Sen. Mike Young, R-Indianapolis, was among the lawmakers who voted against the plan, saying that it makes sense to eliminate township assessors in a small county with only a few thousand residents, but not in large counties like Marion.

There has been no evidence, he said, that there will be fewer errors or greater efficiencies when assessing duties are consolidated in the county office.

But Sen. Connie Lawson, the Danville Republican who is chairwoman of the committee and who authored SB 16, said the state needs to change, even if it costs more to hire additional professional employees to replace the elected assessors.

“If we have to put more money into the assessment system to get it right, then that’s what we need to do,” Lawson said.

The roll call vote doesn’t seem to be available yet on the General Assembly’s web site so I don’t know who else opposed the measure. The fiscal analysis is indeterminate as to whether this will actually save money, but it provides a nice summary of the township positions:

Currently, townships with a population of more than 8,000 elect a township assessor. Townships with a population between 5,000 and 8,000 may elect a township assessor if the legislative body of the township adopts a resolution indicating that a township assessor is necessary and the resolution is filed with the county election board. A township trustee in a township with less than 5,000 population serves as the township assessor. In 2000, there were 1,008 township assessors in Indiana, 827 of whom are trustee-assessors.

[tags]SB 16-2008, Kernan-Shepard, townships[/tags]

Here is a bill that is a decade or two overdue. HB 1146 concerns the effect bankruptcy has on judgments pertaining to motor vehicle accidents.

Indiana has a nice little legal feature designed to encourage folks who operate motor vehicles to comply with the motor vehicle insurance laws. If you have a civil judgment entered against you because of a motor vehicle accident (up to the minimum insurance required) and you fail to pay the judgment within 90 days (presumably because you don’t have the money and were not properly insured), the judgment holder can apply to have your license suspended until you pay up. I do this routinely in my subrogation collection practice against uninsured motorists, and it provides much better leverage against debtors than I have in my average collection case.

When implementing this tool, Indiana tried to hedge against bankruptcies. Currently IC 9-25-6-7(b) says that a bankruptcy discharge won’t lift a license suspension. A court case from, seems like, 15 or 20 years ago essentially said, “nice try, but federal bankruptcy law trumps Indiana state law and, it doesn’t matter what the state law says, the discharge voids the license suspension.”

So, it’s nice of the Code Revision Commission to recommend cleaning up this code provision. Such a thing can’t really be included in the technical corrections bill because it’s not purely technical. But, it should be an uncontroversial clean up. Carrying this sort of legislation is, by the way, mostly thankless. So, I’m happy that Rep. GiaQuinta has taken it upon himself to move this legislation through the process.