Mary Dalrymple has an article on the weekend raid by the FBI on the Congressional offices of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA). I’m a bit torn on this issue. On the one hand, unless there is an extremely significant wrinkle explaining why he would be accepting a bag of cash ($100,000 in $100 bills) from an FBI informant, then the Democrats should be howling for their colleague to resign. On the other hand, the idea of the executive branch tossing the office of a member of the legislative branch has disturbing implications. It was refreshing to hear that the Bush administration at least bothered to get a search warrant for this search. Being a member of Congress apparently has its privileges. Being an innocent citizen of the U.S. who uses a telephone: not so much.

I am a little annoyed that it takes an FBI search in Congress to get members of Congress interested in the Bill of Rights again. When it’s the rabble citizenry being searched you hear a bunch of “if you’ve got nothing to hide, you have nothing to be afraid of.” When it’s an apparently corrupt member of Congress, suddenly the Constitution becomes a sacred document again.

Advance Indiana has a post on a public records matter (that was also flagged by  a commenter here). A former city employee of the City of Crawfordsville brought an EEOC charge against Mayor Zumer. That matter was settled, but the terms of the settlement include a nondisclosure clause. The AP covers the story here.

The settlement was reached Monday during a mediation session held by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission involving Mayor John Zumer, former assistant Summar Keesee and their attorneys.

“The case is resolved,” said Keesee’s attorney, Bruce Petit. “There is a nondisclosure required in the settlement, so we really can’t say more than we’ve resolved it to a mutual satisfaction.”

I suppose the attorneys are free to decline to comment, but the Indiana Court of Appeals recently held that a settlement agreement entered into by a governmental entity or its insurer is a public record. Knightstown Banner, LLC v. Town of Knightstown, 838 N.E.2d 1127 (Ind.Ct.App. 2005).

The Knightstown case appears to be similar to the Crawfordsville case. The Knightstown case involved a police dispatcher who alleged sexual harassment. The case was settled, but the Town of Knightstown refused to disclose the terms of settlement because of a confidentiality agreement. I don’t see any reason that the Crawfordsville settlement’s confidentiality provisions would hold up where the Knightstown provisions did not.

I can’t find it in the online version, but I found amusing this little note in the “police investigations” section of the Monticello Herald Journal:

1:15 p.m. – Deputy Lee Ann Reinholt responded to the area of CR 725 E and US 24 in reference to a welfare check due to a passer-by calling out several buzzards being on top of a house. Occupants of the house were located and accounted for.

This news is not at all encouraging. Rick Callahan, writing for the Associated Press, has an article on the fitness of Indiana’s citizens.

Long considered among the nation’s most unfit citizens, Indiana residents are apparently losing ground in the battle against obesity, smoking and other unhealthy behavior, according to a new survey.

27.2% of Hoosiers are obese, up from 25.5% in 2004, and they smoke more – 27.3% up from 24.8%, putting Indiana second in smoking behind Kentucky in the percentage of smokers. This is bad, really bad. It jacks up our health costs and likely reduces our productivity. More than that, being unhealthy severely reduces the quality of one’s life.

In this day and age, it’s just mind boggling that our percentage of smokers is increasing. I don’t know the solution, particularly. It seems as if the anti-smoking advertisements have been pretty visible. I don’t know what education is like on the subject in the schools.

As for the obesity, eating habits are a significant factor, but I suspect that Hoosiers’ lack of exercise is an even greater factor. Maybe Major Moves should focus more on bike and running trails and less on roads. But, to the Governor’s credit, his visibility in promoting exercise and healthy habits seems to show that he knows this is a significant issue and ought to be a major concern. Whether his overall approach is effective, I don’t know; but at least it’s on his radar.

I recall being in Boulder, Colorado for a day or two on my way to Rocky Mountain National Park to do some hiking. For whatever reason, we ended up in a McDonald’s, and I believe we located the only two overweight people in the entire city. Obviously Boulder has some environmental advantages that we don’t — I think it would be tough to have those mountains in your back yard and not want to get outside and enjoy them. But there is also a culture of activity. Everybody bikes, hikes, runs, kayaks, or whatever. While recognizing our environmental disadvantages, we need to cultivate a similar attitude in our communities. I’ve only seen it in passing, but it seems like the Monon Trail around Broad Ripple has encouraged residents to get out and exercise.

Obviously I don’t have a complete solution, but it seems to me that government — probably local government in particular — has a role to play in encouraging the health of its citizens. I suspect the libertarian purists in our midst will complain that this is well beyond the scope of what a government ought to do, but in our current system where we are not willing to let our citizens simply die when they become unhealthy enough, the economically prudent thing to do is to try to make sure citizens do not become unhealthy in the first place. Otherwise, we end up paying for a great deal of medical treatment in the form of Medicaid payments, subsidized emergency rooms, and the like.

So, investments governments make in parks, trails, lakes, and other recreational facilities for its citizens likely pay for themselves, albeit indirectly and over the long term.

(Sorry if this post was a bit disjointed — I had to stop my 9 month old daughter, no less than 7 times, from certain doom as she tried to climb the stairs she is not yet able to climb down. And, in doing so, she showed me up as a hypocrite in that she was getting all sorts of exercise while dear old dad was sitting around staring at a computer screen.)

For some reason, I’m getting annoyed at the way the news is describing Speaker Bosma’s litigation efforts against the District Court’s ruling that he was violating the First Amendment rights of the citizens of Indiana by permitting sectarian prayer as part of the official business of Indiana’s House of Representatives.

A legal battle over the content of Statehouse prayer continues to escalate, as Speaker Brian C. Bosma has appealed a federal court ruling that restricts the content of prayers offered during Indiana House proceedings.

The thing is, he appealed the ruling back in December. No escalation has “continued.” He merely filed a court brief in the litigation he initiated when he filed the appeal. It’s entirely appropriate to describe the content of his brief, but it strikes me as vaguely sensationalist to describe the activity as somehow unusual or an elevation of the conflict. (Marcia Oddi at the Indiana Law Blog had a similar reaction.)

I haven’t read the brief, but from reading the news reports, Speaker Bosma’s central point seems to be unchanged. By ignoring the critical fact that the prayers at issue are government speech, he continues to insist that the First Amendment limits the rights of citizens against their government instead of vice versa.

Looking at the WLFI election returns for the Lafayette area primaries, there seems to be a “throw the bums out” mentality in the Prosecutor races, at least in the areas I know anything about: Carroll County, Benton County, and Tippecanoe County. In Carroll County, Tricia Thompson is leading incumbent Rob Ives 63% to 37%. Tricia was a deputy prosecutor in Tippecanoe County until not too long ago. I don’t believe she was a deputy prosecutor in Carroll County for all that long before she announced as a challenger to Rob Ives.

In Benton County, Bill Weist has defeated incumbent Jud Barce 64% to 36%. The Barce family has a strong prosecutorial history. Jud has been the prosecutor in Benton County for quite some time. His brother Ed Barce is prosecutor in Newton County. And his father, John Barce, was prosecutor in Newton County years ago. Some may recall that John was in the news in 2001 when he was kidnapped and murdered by Lloyd Lichti.

And, in Tippecanoe County, Pat Harrington is beating incumbent Jerry Bean 58% to 42%. I’m not going to comment on that race because I know both Pat and Jerry. I’ll just say that Tippecanoe County will be well served with either of those gentlemen.

You can listen to Neil Young’s album “Living with War” here. I’ve only listened to a bit of it, but almost all of Neil’s stuff is worth listening to.

Just in case anyone was wondering, the briefing schedule has been set in Speaker Bosma’s appeal of the prayer decision. Bosma’s brief is due May 10, the appellee’s brief of Hinrichs, Herold, Quigley, and Gerner is due June 12, 2006. The reply brief, if any, is due June 26, 2006.