A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

HB 1041 requires that parolees and probationers be prohibited from installing or using surveillance equipment at the person’s residence that could be used to detect a law enforcement officer, probation officer, or parole officer who is at or approaching the residence unless the parolee first obtains a waiver.

Rep. Cheatham’s HB 1026 would prohibit a court from considering a reduction or elimination of a parent’s income due to the parent’s incarceration when establishing or modifying a child support order.

I sympathize with this one — why should a parent benefit and a child suffer because the parent got themselves arrested? But, it seems to me, you’re setting the system up for failure if you’re requiring courts to set child support levels based on what amounts to fiction.

HB 1014 states that a physician, nurse, pharmacist or someone studying to do one of those jobs can’t be required to dispense a drug or medical device if the person believes it would be used to cause an abortion or assist a suicide. It appears to grant the person civil immunity if the person’s refusal injures someone else and can’t be reason for an employer to discipline the individual.

It’s a tough old world out there; and, if your morals conflict with your job, you should probably do a different job. And, if acting on your morals causes harm to someone else who was relying on you to do your job, you should probably be accountable for such injury as you cause.

HB 1001 is the much discussed but misleadingly named “right to work” law.

It prohibits an employer from setting a condition of employment for employees, specifically the condition that a person become a union member or, in lieu of that, contribute a union dues equivalent to a charity. In addition, it interferes with an employer’s freedom to contract with a union to set such a condition of employment.

Despite its name, it actually does not grant an employee any rights to work. It only interferes with and criminalizes an employer’s right to set conditions of employment and with the freedom of employers to contract with unions.

SB 184
makes it a Class A misdemeanor to take pictures or video of agricultural land or operations while on someone else’s agricultural property without the land owner’s permission.

This appears to be an effort to prevent undercover videos of confined feeding operations from being taken; based on the notion that, if people actually saw what was going on in some of these places, they might not like it.

The AP has an article entitled Indiana lawmaker: Online tax could replace estate tax at the IBJ.

State Sen. Luke Kenley, a Noblesville Republican who chairs Senate Appropriations Committee, wants Congress to require all online retailers to collect state sales taxes. He said it would be an ideal replacement for the inheritance, or estate tax.

“It’s almost a one-for-one replacement and it’s a perfect replacement for the estate tax,” Kenley told the Times of Munster.

If you’re cool with making the tax code more regressive, I guess it’s a perfect replacement. I’m sure there is some overlap, but I have to think there is a fairly significant difference between the population of people receiving taxable inheritances and those making online purchases.

Sen. Randolph’s SB 164 would offer a tax credit in tax years 2012-2014 to small businesses (having under 150 employees) for hiring, full-time, an individual receiving or who exhausted unemployment benefits at the time the hire is made, after December 31, 2011; or be a former member of the military service who served and was honorably discharged. The credit is non-refundable, can be carried over for three years, and amounts to $3,000 per qualified employee up to a maximum of $100,000 per small business.

The small business must employ a greater number of full-time employees in Indiana in the taxable year than the small business employed in Indiana, on average, in the small business’s base employment period (generally January 1, 2010, through June 30, 2010). Imposes a penalty, if within 18 months after the qualified new employee was initially hired, the employee is hired or made not full-time.

Sen. Boots’ SB 149 would ease restrictions on direct wine sellers. I believe that the recipient of the wine would still have to reside in Indiana; but, there would no longer be a need for an initial, face-to-face meeting. The consumer would have to provide proof of age with a copy of a state issued ID card or driver’s license, and a verified statement, subject to penalties for perjury, that the person is at least 21, has an Indiana address, and intends to use the wine for personal use and not for resale or other commercial purposes.

The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has an editorial on Sen. Kruse’s creation “science” bill, SB 89. It would allow a school board to require creation science to be part of the school curriculum, presumably as science.

According to the editorial, this legislation is particularly inappropriate for the short session (ostensibly reserved for housekeeping and emergency items), is doomed to legal challenge (and therefore, legal bills), and then, failure:

If Kruse’s “creation science” bill is approved, a legal challenge is inevitable, according to Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education.

The U.S. Supreme found Louisiana’s creation-science law unconstitutional. Since the 1987 decision, efforts to chip away at the teaching of evolution have taken different approaches, but none have revived the creation-science approach offered in Kruse’s bill.

“The law is very, very clear on this,” Scott said. “If this bill is passed, it is going to be challenged, and they will lose. The case law is so strong against them.”