A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Rep. Jackson has introduced HB 1128 concerning mental health assessment of law enforcement officers. It requires the law enforcement training board to come up with procedures for mental health assessments. It sets out a number of factors that should be considered with the assessments. Among them are things like frequency of personnel complaints against the officer, an abrupt change in behavior, irrational verbal conduct, suicidal statements, unexplained fatigue or hyperactivity, sudden weight gain or loss, a pattern of conduct suggesting an inability to defuse or a desire to aggravate, and dramatic negative changes in personal hygiene.

I can’t quite figure out if the assessments are limited to the following situations, the procedures are to be designed for assessments after “a return from military deployment, an exposure to a bloodborne pathogen, or the discharge of any firearm by a law enforcement officer during the course of a use of force incident.” The discharge of a firearm during a use of force incident doesn’t surprise me, but the military deployment and bloodborne pathogen scenarios strike me as oddly specific. Not that I can’t see the need after these situations, but it’s one of those underinclusive/overinclusive thing: lots of other scenarios where you’d probably want to conduct assessments and lots of people returning from military deployments or subject to bloodborne pathogens who don’t particularly need assessments. I don’t have any particular background here, so maybe there is something specific that makes these three scenarios the triple crown.

The legislation also provides for the assessments to be confidential, limits the purposes for which assessments may be used, and requires reasonable accommodations where the person is deemed not psychologically fit for duty.

Senator Sandlin has introduced SB 130 which is special legislation modifying the statute which governs the process by which a city may change its name. The current rule is that 500 registered voters can file a petition to change a city’s name which is then to be considered by the city council. The city council can then adopt an ordinance changing the city’s name. Under Sen. Sandlin’s proposed legislation, cities named in the Indiana Constitution or in the Indiana Code would not have this option.

I know Indianapolis is in the State Constitution. I don’t know if any other cities are mentioned. I suspect a fair number of cities are mentioned here and there in the Indiana Code. For example, Bloomington and West Lafayette are specifically mentioned in the higher education sections. But, given that Sen. Sandlin serves Marion and Johnson County, my guess — and this is just speculation on my part, I haven’t done any research or heard anything in particular — is that this is directed at Indianapolis. Perhaps a pre-emptive strike against locals running with the notion that having a name that includes “Indian” is a bad idea? This bill would stand for the notion that it’s best to take power away from locals and put it in the hands of the General Assembly.

Sen. Grooms has introduced SB 97 which would recognize Indiana grown popcorn as the state snack of Indiana. Sure, these things are kind of silly, but I’m a popcorn junkie (mainly because it’s a vehicle for salt and butter), so this is one I can get behind. I will, however, criticize the legislative drafting. It has the sort of “whereas” puffery that’s more at home in a resolution. (E.g. “Whereas, the State of Indiana produces nearly five hundred million (500,000,000) pounds of popcorn on Hoosier soil each year.”)

Sen. Buck has introduced SJR 2 and Sen. Young has introduced SJR 10, both urging constitutional conventions under Article 5 of the United States Constitution. In relevant part, Article 5 provides, “The Congress … on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments.” SJR 2 wants a convention for the purpose of making a nine justice Supreme Court a constitutional requirement while SJR 10 wants a convention for the purpose of considering term limits for members of the U.S. House and Senate.

The text of SJR 10 purports to limit its application to the consideration of term limits and for no other purpose. The text of SJR 2 proposes specific language for a Constitutional amendment. As I said back in 2014 when they were proposing a convention to address the national debt (because the national debt is a matter vital concern during Democratic Presidential administrations), this is opening a can of worms.  Nothing in the text of Article 5 suggests that there are limitations on the amendments that may be proposed by a Convention once convened. “Revolutions often get away from their bourgeois instigators. Once a Constitutional Convention was opened up, I would anticipate radical factions taking over.”

The Supreme Court amendment is an effort to make the number of Supreme Court Justices a constitutional matter rather than a statutory concern as the Founders originally envisioned. Changes to the number of Justices were not uncommon during the country’s first century. Congress initially set the number at seven Justices where it remained from 1789 – 1807. (In 1801, the number was reduced to 5 but in 1802 that change was negated before it ever took effect.) In 1807, the number was increased to seven members. In 1837, the number was increased to nine. In 1863, the number was increased to 10. In 1866, the number was reduced to seven contingent on vacancies but in 1869, the number was set at nine before all of the vacancies took effect. Since then, there have been the nine justices, although there was a move toward expansion under FDR when ideologues on the court resisted Congressional New Deal efforts. The “switch in time that saved nine” was the quip about how the Supreme Court was able to stay at nine justices when their jurisprudence became more accommodating toward New Deal initiatives.

The term limit amendment does not specify a particular limit for the number of terms that a member of Congress may serve. I generally regard term limits as a specious solution to perceived governmental dysfunction. After all, plenty of the newer members are as bad or worse than older members — many of whom honestly seem to want to be responsive to their constituents. It’s an easy and superficial way to be mad at government generally without having to get into specific policy details which will often bore the ordinary citizens and might prompt them to realize that “Hey! I don’t hate *that* part of government!” Ultimately, short term limits would give more power to lobbyists and bureaucrats who have had time to understand the twists and turns in the government structure. New arrivals would be at a disadvantage and the lobbyists could generally just wait out any difficult members who got elected. That said, I could probably get on board with a term limit that was long enough. McConnell’s been in the Senate for 35 years, Leahy for 45 years. Pelosi has been in the House for 33 years, Don Young has been there for 47 years, and three House members you’ve mostly never heard of have been there for 40 years. A twenty-five year term limit wouldn’t give me any serious heartburn, I don’t think. That’d be about 7% of each chamber: ~30 of the 435 House members and seven of the 100 Senate members. Not sure that’s worth the bother of a Constitutional Convention.

Rep. Frye has introduced HB 1068 which would create local justice advisory councils in each county. It would also add to the duties of the state’s “justice reinvestment advisory council” to include providing guidance to the local councils as well as reviewing state and local sentencing for disproportionality. The local council would consist of the chief public defender, the prosecutor, the sheriff, the head of the local community mental health center, the head of community corrections, the chief probation officer, a member of the board of commissioners, a member of the county council, and one of the local judges. (A couple of those positions don’t necessarily exist in every county so there might be some modifications.) The purpose of the local councils is to advocate for what I’ll glibly characterize as a kinder, gentler, criminal justice system.

Just because I’m being glib, doesn’t mean I’m not in favor of such things. It calls for the councils to promote “evidence based” approaches to sentencing and making greater use of things like community corrections, problem solving courts, mental health & addiction treatment, pre-trial diversion, and other rehabilitation alternatives. I’m a utilitarian at heart, so if we can get offenders on the straight and narrow, making them happier, healthier, productive members of society; I don’t mind at all if we lose out on a little punishment along the way. The bill also calls for the local councils to review and study stuff and make recommendations.  They’ll also submit annual reports to the state council.

I guess I’m skeptical about how much of an impact these local councils will ultimately have. But the goals seem laudable, at any rate.

Sen. Kruse has introduced SB 74 which would require employers to employ someone who refuses immunization if the employee claims to have a religious objection or a medical condition that makes the immunization problematic. The bill provides that workplace immunization requirements can’t be applied to a person “if the immunization is medically contraindicated for the employee or prospective employee, or if receiving the immunization is against the employee’s or prospective employee’s religious beliefs or conscience.”

It authorizes a civil suit with damages that would include actual damages, punitive damages, court costs, and attorney fees.

Empowering anti-vaxxers and discouraging widespread vaccination is a bad idea. Exempting legitimate medical conditions from having to get immunized makes sense, but you’d want some kind of process for making sure it was a legitimate concern — not a made up medical condition or a quack doctor.

Sen. Kruse has introduced SB 12 which sets up a process for a person to get a notation on their driver’s license indicating that the person uses a service animal. It doesn’t have a process for verifying that the person is disabled or the dog has any training – so it appears to be the honor system.

These state level service animal laws concern me mainly because they don’t seem to track the federal Americans with Disabilities Act laws. For example, there is no requirement that service animals have any particular credentials. The training requirements are very loose, “service animals are defined as dogs that are individually trained to do work or perform tasks for people with disabilities.” A person can train their own animal, and I don’t believe there is any requirement that the training be competent or effective.

In any case, if a business owner saw that there was a service animal notation for Indiana driver’s licenses and decided to ask a person to show their driver’s license as a condition of admitting a service animal, the business would likely be in violation of the ADA.