A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

The Senate passed Sen. Steele’s SJR 9 out of committee which amends the Indiana Constitution to provide, among other things, that the commercial production of poultry is a valued part of our heritage which should be preserved forever.

Specifically, it adds a new section to the bill of rights article of the constitution that reads:

Section 38. The people have a right to hunt, fish, harvest game, or engage in the agricultural or commercial production of meat, fish, or poultry, which is a valued part of our heritage and shall be forever preserved for the public good, subject to laws prescribed by the General Assembly and rules prescribed by virtue of the authority of the General Assembly.

I would suggest, respectfully (or maybe not so respectfully), that this is a waste of time. I mean, it doesn’t *do* anything. It says right in the text that the General Assembly regulate these things as it sees fit. And, really, is “harvesting game” (as distinct from hunting) a proud part of our Hoosier tradition?

Lest someone chide me for not decrying threats when they’re made against politicians with whom I usually disagree, I wanted to post to make sure it’s clear that I don’t see any place for this sort of thing in our politics:

Indiana State Sen. Mike Delph has received an e-mail saying the man suspected of shooting U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords should have instead targeted someone like him.

Actual and threatened violence is clearly beyond the pale. You should also not glibly use metaphors that allude to killing people with whom you disagree. The first two are subjects of legal prohibitions. The latter is not, and probably should not be. Not inviting them to parties, and not voting for them or giving them money to campaign is probably sufficient.

Bill Engle, writing for the Richmond Palladium-Item, has an article about HB 1131 introduced by Rep. Koch.

The bill says generally that a provider of video service can’t be required to pay a local franchise fee. The article reports that the bill would have the effect of eliminating the franchise fee that Comcast currently pays to the city of Richmond, a big chunk of which, in turn, goes to a local station, WCTV. Richmond mayor, Sally Hutton, made a statement that had some resonance with me as a guy with a local government bias: “what it boils down to is the state is continually trying to take money away from local governments. They try it every year.”

I expect Rep. Koch would say that he’s trying to get rid of a tax on someone trying to do business in the State. But, I’d say some sort of tax on cable providers is justified if they are using the public right of way, are able to benefit from eminent domain laws, and if there are laws in place insulating them from other cable providers stringing up their lines if they want to compete. Additionally, cutting local government revenue sources is problematic.

Dorothy Schneider, writing for the Lafayette Journal & Courier, has an article about the progress of SB 32 which concerns the vote center model of conducting elections. The bill has passed the Senate and out of the House committee. It might get a full House vote this week.

The basic premise is that, rather than having to vote in your precinct, you can vote anywhere in the county but get the same ballot you would get if you had gone to your specific precinct location. This was a pilot project in Wayne, Tippecanoe, and (I believe) Cass counties. The model seems to have been pretty well liked in Tippecanoe County. The problem currently is that the original period of the pilot project is set to expire. If new legislation isn’t passed, we have to revert back to the old way of doing things which a) will cost money; and b) most people don’t seem to like quite as well. Last year’s bill got tied in with some other, more controversial, provisions and died. This year, the vote center bill seems to be moving pretty fast and, hopefully, can stay relatively clean and get passed without getting bogged down with other stuff.

This particular bill redesignates the original pilot counties as vote center counties. In addition, it gives other counties in the state the option and a procedure for switching to that model if they’d like. Exercising the option would require a unanimous vote of the county’s election board.

I came across this Washington Post article entitled, “States inspired by Arizona illegal-immigration law face tough fiscal realities.” The article itself is a little light on detailing those fiscal realities.

However, it did make me think to check the fiscal analysis report (pdf) for Sen. Delph’s SB 590 which emulates the Arizona immigration law. The costs that could be analyzed could run into the millions. And that’s without being able to calculate the cost for local law enforcement and local government to enforce the law, modify their contracts, and defend their actions against lawsuits.

Heather Gillers, writing for the Indy Star, has a report on Rep. Bill Crawford’s announcement that this, his 20th, will be his last term in the Indiana General Assembly. I guess 40 years is sufficient.

SB 192, introduced by Sen. Tallian, would require the criminal law and sentencing policy study committee to study marijuana & its effect on the Indiana criminal justice system, whether marijuana should continue to be illegal in Indiana and, if so, the appropriate penalties, whether medical marijuana should be implemented in Indiana, whether marijuana should be treated and controlled like alcohol, with controlled and regulated sales, and special taxation. It also gives the committee authority to study any other issue related to marijuana.

Deanna Martin, writing for the AP (h/t Joh Padgett) has an article about the bill.

A state senator is asking a question she hopes will spur debate about sentencing laws and possibly save Indiana millions of dollars: Should the state legalize marijuana?

Democratic Sen. Karen Tallian of Portage wants a criminal law and sentencing study committee to examine Indiana’s marijuana laws next summer and come up with recommendations. Other states have already decriminalized small amounts of marijuana or created programs to allow medical marijuana, and Tallian says it’s time for Indiana to have the discussion.

Seems like a reasonable step to me. Probably it’s just the crowd I hang with (overly educated, left-leaning, youngish (but aging)), but I can’t say I really know a lot of people who have any serious problems with legalization of marijuana. In college, I went so nuts with alcohol, it didn’t strike me as a great idea to venture beyond that particular drug; but it wasn’t because of any moral objection. From everything I’ve heard, marijuana is no more problematic than alcohol and, in a number of respects, less so. Convicting or imprisoning people for nothing other than possessing or using marijuana seems like a waste of our resources and the type of thing that diminishes peoples’ respect for the criminal justice system. So, based on the limited information I have, I suppose I’m in favor of legalization.

That said, I’m not a huge fan of medical marijuana. Where it is called for medicinally, I think it should be available. But, I wouldn’t like it if medicinal marijuana was sort of a fig leaf for general use; where the medicinal need is tenuous or fictitious. I think that kind of thing does more harm than good.