A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

SB 54 – Mandate Attorneys

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Sen. Boots has introduced SB 54, an interesting bill about paying for mandate attorneys. From time to time, Judges will issue mandates – for example telling boards of county commissioners and county councils that the County needs to pay court staff more than other county employees. Often times this will lead to a legal fight between the county government and the judge. Adding insult to injury when the Supreme Court upholds the prerogatives of its fellow judges over a competing branch of government is the fact that the county then has to foot the bill for the court’s private attorney.

Sen. Boots would change the second part of the equation. Instead of allowing the court to hire a private attorney to defend the mandate action, with the huge legal expenses that can sometimes entail, the Attorney General’s office would provide legal services to the court — in the same way the Attorney General defends judges and prosecutors when they get sued in their official capacities.

SB 60 – Faithless electors

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Sen. Zakas has introduced SB 60 addressing the issue of faithless electors. This bill appears to implement a process to ensure that Presidential electors vote for the candidate the elector has promised to vote for. As I presume everybody knows by now, in Presidential elections, citizens do not get to vote for the Presidential candidate directly. Instead they vote for a slate of electors who will presumably cast electoral votes for the candidate who won the majority of popular votes in the state. My understanding is that some states have penalties for “faithless electors” and some do not — these are electors who vote for someone other than the candidate to whom they are pledged. Sen. Zakas’ bill would essentially void any faithless electoral vote cast and allow the remaining electors, presumably still faithful, to go find someone who will also vote the right way.

I’m not aware of this ever being a problem in Indiana.

SB 39 – Natural Resources Doctrine

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Sen. Meeks has introduced SB 39 entitled “responsibility for implementing natural resource doctrine.” I’m not familiar with environmental law, but I suspect the law has something to do with the recent scandal involving DNR’s approval of allowing BP’s Whiting plant to dump more toxic waste into Lake Michigan.

Requires the department of natural resources (DNR) to implement the public trust doctrine with respect to public freshwater lakes. Requires the natural resources commission to adopt rules identifying at least one division in DNR to implement the public trust doctrine with respect to public freshwater lakes. Adds “wildlife” to the definition of “natural resources”.

Well, on further review, maybe this doesn’t have anything to do with BP’s Whiting dumping. Sen. Meeks bill amends IC 14-26-2 which concerns “public freshwater lakes” – the term is defined specifically to exclude Lake Michigan. IC 14-26-2 sets forth some “public rights” with respect to these lakes. My best guess is that nobody at DNR is particularly in charge of enforcing these public rights and, therefore, this statute, as implemented, is more or less worthless. Perhaps Sen. Meeks is trying to make sure that it’s somebody’s job to look out for these rights. Just a guess, though.

Update Looks like Sen. Meeks’ SB 41 involves public freshwater lakes as well

[tags]environmental law[/tags]

Wabash River Corridor – Lafayette Area

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The Journal & Courier has a story about the Wabash River Enhancement Corporation, an organization devoted to planning for the river’s future in the area. The organization is raising money to develop a master plan through a study conducted by an independent firm with public input.

Health, recreation, education, economic development and environmental management will all be part of that master plan.

. . .

Part of that plan will be the approximately 450 acres the city owns along the riverfront from Riehle Plaza to Sagamore Parkway, Dennis said.

“We’re looking at park related ideas,” Carson said. “We’re still in the idea stage.”

Even though it’s long-term, this is still pretty exciting stuff for me. It seems like the river should be a major feature for Lafayette and West Lafayette. To me, it seems largely ignored at the moment. For all I know, though, this could be for good reason. Maybe the Wabash is just too mean and unpredictable for any kind of major development.

Right now, we have Riehle Plaza and the foot bridge over the river to West Lafayette. A fair distance west of the River, in West Lafayette, major development has taken place along what we call the Levy: a hotel, some restaurants, and shops. Closer to the river, there is a playground and a fair amount of park ground. On the west bank, aside from the plaza, there isn’t much to speak of — mainly just old development slapped up seemingly in spite of rather than because of the river. Along the river is a path that varies between paved and dirt and the quality of both varies considerably as well.

With no idea about environmental feasibility or impact, I have visions of open green space with good views of the river backed with restaurants and bars with open air seating. I’d like green spaces where people congregate, watch and get watched; where people exercise and play with music and general commotion in the background. Maybe get the Wabash cleaned up enough for safe swimming and light boating and whatnot. Maybe we could learn a trick or two from the Pearl Street mall area in Boulder, Colorado.

2007

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The week between Christmas and New Year’s Day always seems like a good time for reflection. But, reflecting on 2007, I’m finding it hard to get a sense of the year. It seems like it was *hard*. It’s a good bet I expended more energy. At work, we moved our offices, I shattered my previous billable hour totals, and I found myself exposed to a number of novel (to me) types of legal cases. At home, my two little kids got more active. I increased my ability to run from about 3 or 4 miles up to about 9 or 10 miles. And, for fun, I climbed some 14,000 foot mountains. No wonder I’m feeling a little wrung out just about now.

Here at the blog, I’ve entered something not too far shy of 900 blog posts. (All of the highest quality.) Some of the topics:

    SJR 7 – Marriage “protection”.
    Colts beat the Patriots in a thriller of an AFC Championship
    Gov. Daniels tried to privatize the lottery.
    Extreme weirdness continues in Roseland.
    Craig Fry’s budget shenanigans
    The exposure of Weathervane McCain.
    Several counties shifted from Central Time to Eastern Time
    Mitch & Mitch’s welfare privatization plan hit a federal snag
    In God We Trust plates challenged for being promoted over other specialty plates
    America’s health care system continued to suck
    Alberto Gonzalez got amnesia
    Tragedy at Virginia Tech – everyone used it to grind their favorite axe
    Todd Rokita suggested that blacks were like slaves to the Democratic party
    Lawmakers continued to think the budget was a Constitutional requirement and not just a Good Idea
    Imus was a racist
    Abstinence education continued to suck
    Years of shortsighted property tax policy started coming to a head
    Gas prices continued to climb
    Iraq continued to suck
    Reverent & Free went dark
    President Bush’s popularity dropped to new lows
    Jerry Falwell died
    The 2007 General Assembly was less contentious than predicted
    Terry Record got drunk in a strip club and killed Jimmy Cash
    The minimum wage increased
    Dick Lugar continued to talk a big game about Bush’s inadequacies in Iraq
    Tax Rage ™
    Anti-Wiccan Jurist named to Indiana Court of Appeals
    Foreclosures were high in Indiana.
    Subprime lenders hit a bit of a rough patch
    A majority of Republicans say they don’t believe the theory of evolution is true
    Efforts to shift taxes from property tax payers to income and sales tax payers gained momentum
    Scooter Libby lied to a grand jury, Evansville C&P cool with that, President Bush finds his pardon pen
    Gov. Daniels unilaterally made tax decisions that the legislature approved retroactively
    Video game addiction
    The DLGF jerked around local government
    Gov. Daniels disingenuously tried to blame local government spending for the property tax increases.
    Glenn Murphy has a fun way to wake up sleeping dudes
    Voter ID winds its way through the courts
    Sectarian Government prayer case thrown out on technicality
    Lots of legislators stepping down
    War continued to suck generally
    Gov. Daniels more popular than scurvy
    Dan Burton engages in meaningless spectacles of piety
    Steve Buyer gets a challenger
    Patriots revealed as cheaters
    Pacers continue to be model citizens
    Rishawn fired
    Ballard wins
    Monticello mayor convicted
    Bush continues to spend like a drunken sailor
    Richmond High School is a dropout factory
    Monday Night Football sucks worse than ever
    Bob Sanders hurts people
    Dumbledore is gay
    Hillary was inevitable until she wasn’t
    Cheney is worse than we thought
    Senator Long took over and did a pretty good job

Even after looking back at all of that, I still don’t have a good feel for how the year was as a whole. I’m still here. My bills are all paid. My wife and kids are healthy and appear to still like me. I’ll chalk it up as a win.

SB 34 – Central Time

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Sen. Charbonneau has introduced SB 34 which would require the Governor to petition the USDOT to put all of Indiana in the Central Time Zone. This will likely go exactly nowhere this session. This sort of language should have been in the original Daylight Saving Time bill (or all-Eastern language or a specification of the desired time zone division) so that local governments wouldn’t have spent the last 2.5 years trying to clean up the mess.

Since this won’t go anywhere, I’d like to see it turn into a study committee charged with developing a petition to put Indiana all in Central Time. Economically, I think it makes sense. As Horace Greeley said all those years ago, “head west young man.” Well, the U.S. has headed west and the center of population density is shifting ever westward. Being in the central time zone would also mean that Hoosiers share more business hours in common with more people in the U.S.

The General Assembly should develop the petition with input from the Governor. Just turning it over to the Governor and telling him to submit a petition is a recipe for futility if the Governor decides to half-ass the job.

HB 1047 – Local time zone public question

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Rep. Dembowski introduced HB 1047 which provides for a time zone public question on a county’s ballot. The procedure applies only to counties that are adjacent to the Eastern/Central time line. For the public question to get on a ballot, a petition must be submitted to the circuit court clerk of the county. The petition must have a number of signatures that is at least equal to 2% of the number of votes cast in the county in the most recent secretary of state race.

A public question would then be put on the ballot as follows:

Shall the county executive of ___________ (insert the name of the county) County petition the United States Department of Transportation to initiate proceedings under the Uniform Time Act of 1966 to hold hearings in the appropriate locations in this county on the issue of whether the county should be placed in the _______________ (insert the time zone the county is currently not located in) Time Zone?

If the public question is approved, then the county commissioners must adopt a petition requesting the USDOT to initiate time zone proceedings. Once all this is done, the county has to request approval from the Governor to proceed. The Governor apparently has unfettered discretion to approve or deny permission to proceed. If the Governor grants approval, then the County Commissioners must proceed with the petition.

This strikes me as more or less useless. Currently, county commissioners can apply to the USDOT to switch time zones – without the Governor’s permission and without any sort of public referendum. All the public referendum does is force the Commissioners to take some action. But, pursuing that action to its conclusion can still be blocked by the Governor. This provision primarily takes discretion away from the Commissioners and gives it to the Governor who, by the way (I believe), can petition the USDOT without this process already.

What is useful, I suppose, is finally obtaining solid information about people’s time preferences. All sides seems to make strong claims about what the people *really* want. It seems like whichever side is currently not getting what it wants suddenly wakes up and comes out of the woodwork to raise hell about the issue. Maybe a public question could at least give us some solid numbers. But, a state wide question would probably make more sense. Just make sure you keep the county-by-county returns so you could use that data if you wanted.

Study the study

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Bryan Corbin, writing for the Evansville Courier Press, has an article on legislative efforts with respect to the Shepard-Kernan local government restructuring plan;

A Southwestern Indiana lawmaker, Rep. Dave Crooks, is introducing a bill that would assign all 27 Kernan-Shepard recommendations to a summer study committee of the Legislature. There isn’t time during the Legislature’s 2008 short session to consider the Kernan-Shepard plan, Crooks said. But a summer study committee would be able to thoroughly explore the ideas in preparation for the 2009 session.

Meanwhile, Senator Mike Delph wants to leap before he looks too hard:

Sen. Mike Delph plans to introduce a bill containing portions of the Kernan-Shepard plan in the 2008 session.

“Whether we get all components of the bill done, that will be for the will of the Legislature. But we at least ought to introduce a vehicle to move forward a discussion of the costs of government,” Delph said.

A short session before a major election year where you have major property tax restructuring as the order of the day? That seems like a particularly bad time to push local government restructuring, particularly where you have only a relatively brief report as a blueprint. To my knowledge, nobody has actually run any numbers to determine how much these proposed changes will supposedly save in the way of tax dollars or what costs we might be looking at in terms of direct restructuring costs or indirect reductions in government services. And moving the restructuring in pieces also seems potentially questionable — you always run the risk of passing the easy stuff while the harder stuff gets defeated, leaving you with an incomplete mess that doesn’t do anybody much good.

Trucks and Traffic Congestion

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USA Today had a moderately interesting article on highway traffic congestion and semi-trucks. The trucker they interviewed objected to laws restricting semis to the right two lanes or lower speed limits for trucks than for passenger vehicles. I can see some merit to his objections — he says, for example, that when trucks are restricted to the right two lanes, they create a wall of trucks that prevent traffic from merging into or off of the highway. And, I think you’re probably always asking for a bit of trouble when you have vehicles traveling at significantly different rates of speed. But, his efforts to point the finger at drivers of passenger vehicles with cell phones seemed a little convenient. Most likely the problem is simply too many vehicles for the amount of road available. Building more roads never seems to solve the problem for very long.

For my part, I get annoyed with the vehicles that just live in the left lanes, regardless of whether they are traveling faster than the traffic in the right lanes or semis that are passing other semis with minimal speed differentials — meaning it takes a long time to complete the pass, and God forbid a hill get in the way during the middle of the pass. The problem with people living in the left lane seems especially prominent among mini-vans in Ohio for some reason.