SB 17 concerning redevelopment commissions and Tax Increment Financing passed the Senate 47 – 0. I haven’t read it through to understand all of it, and what I do understand is too dull to recount at the moment. But, generally, the bill limits the maximum time for bond issues for economic development; alters the decision making process for TIF allocation areas; and specifies the applicability of the petition and remonstrance process for TIF allocation areas.
SB 3 – Refusal by pharmacist to fill prescriptions
SB 3, authored by Senator Drozda, provides special protections for pharmacists who don’t feel like filling prescriptions based on the pharmacists’ subjective belief that the prescribed medication would be used to cause an abortion, destroy an “unborn” child, or assist a suicide.
By a vote of 22 to 26, the Senate rejected an amendment offered by Senator Simpson that would have specified that the legislation does not extend to contraceptive drugs and devices that have been approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration to prevent pregnancy.
In its current form, in some cases, the pharmacist might have to contact a physician to discuss the reason for the prescription, but I don’t see anything in the legislation that limits the pharmacists’ unfettered discretion to refuse to fill a prescription based on anything that may or may not be said by the physician during the discussion. Further, the pharmacist is granted immunity for his or her actions, and no sanction is permitted. A pharmacy is required to implement procedures to fill such a prescription in the face of recalcitrance by its employee-pharmacist; but the pharmacy is not allowed to discriminate in its employment practices based on the extra effort and expense necessitated by the pharmacist’s actions or refusal to act.
Update Lesley Stedman Weidenbener has an article on the proposed amendment. Apparently at the committee hearing, Sen. Drozda repeatedly said that the legislation wouldn’t apply to contraceptives. Then, once the bill was out of committee, he started backing away from that position. Sen. Simpson offered the amendment to make it clear that the bill didn’t apply to contraceptives and that, if Sen. Drozda meant what he said, it should be a slam dunk. Sen. Drozda said that such an amendment would have been more appropriate at the committee level and urged its rejection on the floor of the Senate. Well, perhaps Sen. Drozda, if you gave the committee accurate information; the issue could have been resolved in committee.
SB 1 – Limits on school and child welfare levies
SB 1 passed the Senate unanimously.
Beginning January 1, 2010, it terminates a number of tax levies. Specifically: (1) the medical assistance to wards property tax levy; (2) the family and children’s property tax levy; (3) the children’s psychiatric residential treatment services property tax levy; (4) the children with special health care needs property tax levy; (5) the maximum permissible tuition support levy; and (6) the county supplemental school financing property tax levy. It specifies that the termination of the tuition support levy does not prohibit a school corporation from imposing a referendum tax levy.
Presumably these services will have to be financed through other funding sources, legislation for which would have to originate in the House.
Sen. Ford hospitalized
The Indy Star has an article reporting that Senator David Ford (R-Hartford) has been hospitalized for, as yet, undisclosed health reasons. Here’s to a speedy recovery from whatever it is.
Update More from the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. Apparently, Sen. Ford has cancer. Once again, good luck to Sen. Ford, and strength to his family. What a tough thing.
Property Tax Day
At the Indiana General Assembly, this will likely be a day, even more than usual, where property taxes will dominate the discussion. The House of Representatives is supposed to take up HB 1001, the budget bill, on Second Reading. This is the stage at which all members of the House get to offer amendments to the bill. I suspect it will be a very long day for the House.
Mary Beth Schneider and Bill Ruthart have an article in the Indy Star entitled “Lawmakers push tweaks to tax plan.”
It all begins at 9 a.m., when the House convenes to consider amendments to Gov. Mitch Daniels’ property tax reform plan. Daniels’ proposal, included in House Bill 1001, would cap homeowners’ bills and increase the state sales tax to 7 percent. His proposal also would eliminate township assessors and institute new spending caps for local governments.
As of Friday, 58 amendments to HB 1001 had been filed. (Update – over 100 as of today.) Lawmakers have until 8 a.m. today to file additional changes. The contents of those amendments won’t be made public until after that deadline.
Meanwhile the Senate Tax and Fiscal Policy Committee will discuss some significant changes to The Daniels Plan which would apparently reduce revenue to local government by $600 billion in its current form. Sen. Kenley is proposing a phase in so that the reduction in revenue to local government would come more gradually.
Kenley proposes to phase that in so that local governments instead lose about $298 million. Under his amendment, homeowners’ bills would be capped at 2 percent this year, 1.5 percent in 2009 and 1 percent in 2010.
Rental property and second homes would be capped at 3 percent in 2008, 2.5 percent in 2009 and 2 percent in 2010. Business property, at 3 percent, would not be capped until 2010.
He is also proposing that local government construction approved by referendum be exempt from the proposed property tax caps under the rationale that “A referendum is kind of a statement of the people as to what they’re willing to spend money (on), and I think that probably needs to override a decision of elected people or political people.”
Dungy’s coming back!
Good news for Colts fans – Tony Dungy is coming back for another season.
Dungy, 52, is the winningest coach in Colts history with an 80-28 record and directed the franchise to its first Super Bowl championship in 36 years last February. He became the first African-American coach to lead a team to a Super Bowl title when the Colts defeated the Chicago Bears 29-17.
Now, just 7 more months until preseason starts.
Legislative Hearings
I just came across the Indiana Law Blog’s quote of a story by John Byrne in the Gary Post-Tribune:
Glorified broom closets often host the legislators and crowds of interested officials, lobbyists and citizens (aka noncombatants) there to testify about the merits of a particular bill.
Chairs are fought over jealously in these meetings, with VIPs sending flunkies ahead to stake claims, and ostentatious briefcases left on seats as territorial markers long before testimony begins. * * *
The handful of remaining chairs were quickly snatched up, leaving a man who had made a special trip to the Statehouse for Daniels’ appearance griping about getting cut out of the governmental process.
“I drove up here from Evansville for this?” the guy shouted. “So I can stand out in the hall and watch on TV? Where are the seats?”
I haven’t been to a committee hearing in years, so I don’t know exactly how things are today. But, the committee rooms in the early 2000s were significantly improved from those in the late 90s. There was a fair amount of renovation during that time period. While still not opulent, the committee rooms shortly after I stopped working for the legislature were much improved from the way the committee rooms were when I was working at the State House.
As for seating, my recollection was that a few of the higher profile bills might cause seating shortages; but the vast majority of bills passed through committee with a lot of empty chairs in the room.
If I were the legislature, I guess I wouldn’t rush out to spend a bunch of tax money to improve facilities just at the moment. The renovations in the early 2000s were necessary — I recall a conference room with wires hanging down from the ceiling. And the study carrels that served as “offices” for the rank and file House members were a little embarrassing.
Indiana Democrats and Sen. Lugar are bipartisan sometimes
Maureen Groppe has an article in the Louisville Courier Journal entitled “Congress’ Hoosiers Showed Independence in ’07.” But that headline is not entirely accurate. Indiana’s House Republicans — Pence, Burton, Buyer, and Souder — were not notable for their bipartisan efforts.
On the other hand, Bayh, Hill, Donnelly, Ellsworth, and Lugar were noted for crossing party lines from time to time. No word on Carson or Visclosky, though Carson didn’t do much in the way of voting last year and Visclosky presumably voted Democratic like his counterparts Pency, Burton, Buyer, and Souder.
The article mentions that Bayh broke with his party to allow the government to conduct warrantless surveillance in the United States, and to vote against a requirement that utilities get some of their power from renewable resources. Hill, Donnelly, and Ellsworth also voted for warrantless government wiretaps and against children’s health care. Good going, guys.
Patricia Nell Warren on Media & Election Perceptions
Patricia Nell Warren has a great post up over at bilerico on the subject of the media and election perceptions. The major media’s efforts to stuff an event into a particular sort of narrative becomes evident when the event is a little ambiguous. It’s sort of the election equivalent of the legal maxim that “hard cases make bad law.” In both cases, it’s just tough to stuff the thing in the box you had all set up for the occasion.
Nevada is a good example. Every election night, the major news outfits want desperately to declare a “winner.” But, the problem is, things are a little fuzzy out there. In Nevada, they have caucuses that nominate delegates that go up to the state level and eventually 25 state delegates are chose to go to the National Democratic Convention. Getting delegates at the district level who are committed to you is the point of the caucus process, but it guarantees nothing. The delegates aren’t obligated to vote for a particular candidate, though it would seem like the honorable thing to do. Despite losing in the popular vote, Obama is either tied with or ahead of Clinton in terms of probable delegates. Clinton received more votes by a fair margin. Obama is claiming a victory because he got more delegates (according to some counts). Clinton is saying, “you haven’t won anything because those delegates could change allegiance.” Unreliable as the delegate count might be, it was the only thing legally at stake in the Nevada primary. As little as Obama actually “won,” Clinton “won” even less.
Now, what’s really at stake is the media narrative. Clinton wants the national news outlets to declare her a “winner” so that more people will want to jump on her bandwagon further down the line. Events like Nevada make us look at our election process a little closer, and, when we do, it all looks a little ridiculous. Are these primaries really nothing more than a pretext for creating an artificial media narrative? Insane. If that’s not the reason for these elections, and the primaries are about winning delegates, then Obama won Iowa; Obama won New Hampshire – because he got more delegates, even though he lost the popular vote to Clinton; and Obama won or tied Nevada for the same reason. And, for what it’s worth, Clinton isn’t really in a position to make a lot of noise about the virtues of pure democracy in the primary process. Even though that would help her in terms of claiming victory in New Hampshire and Nevada, she has to be mindful of the fact that her real advantage in the primary process at the moment is her lead in the quest for “superdelegates” — those delegates to the Democratic nomination that aren’t directly elected through the primary process, but who are part of the Democratic Party establishment. As I recall, they make up something like 1/3 of the delegates.
The Blizzard of ’78
The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has a retrospective on the Blizzard of 1978. Yes, it gets a capital “B”. It was just that huge. I don’t remember much about it, but it did make something of an impression on my 6 year old mind. Lots of snow; no school. In any case, nothing in the past 30 years has really come close.
Frank Gray has a column on the Blizzard.
To those who didn’t experience it, just accept that no matter how cold it gets, no matter how much it snows, nothing that has happened since can even hold a candle to the storm that roared across the state in late January 1978.
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