A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Masson's Blog

SB 173 – CAFO protection

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As I mentioned earlier, SB 173-2007 is a bill by Senator Jackman that is something of a follow up to his bill from a couple of years ago, SB 267-2005. The original bill, allowed sort of a bait and switch where an agricultural operation could change significantly and yet be regarded as not having “changed significantly” for the purposes of being immune from a nuisance suit. Small scale agricultural operation could potentially turn into a big confined feeding operation and be immune from the neighbors filing a nuisance suit.

This year’s bill would award attorney’s fees to an agricultural operation prevailing in a nuisance suit. According to the Indiana Judicial Center, Sen. Jackman’s bill was heard by the Senate Corrections, Criminal, and Civil Matters Committee.

After committee debate, in which several members expressed concern about chilling justified nuisance suits, the Chair said that the bill would be held and the meeting was adjourned.

Typically, that means the bill didn’t have enough votes to pass.

[tags]SB173-2005, CAFO, agriculture[/tags]

SB 509: Voluntary death penalty

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Senate Bill 509 Death penalty. Senator Waterman. Allows incarcerated convicts who have been sentenced to at least 200 years imprisonment, an executed sentence of life imprisonment, or life imprisonment without parole to request the imposition of a death sentence. Provides protections to prevent mentally ill individuals from making the election. Allows the convict to chicken out. Allows the convict to make such an election only once.

[tags]SB509-2007, criminal law[/tags]

Political memory

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It’s not terribly insightful, I suppose, but this post at MyDD reminded me how our considerations of candidates is shaped by our political memories and not just our philosophies about policy. The post is about a college student who is developing a Facebook network in support of Barack Obama.

The group had a celebratory conference call just now after they got their 100,000th sign-up, and I was on the call briefly. It was kind of silly, with college guys chit-chatting about the different candidates. There wasn’t a hugely passionate embrace of Obama and the discussion centered around ideas and information that aren’t on CNN and Fox News. These kids are talking to each other, swapping information easily and quickly. They also don’t really remember the bitterness of the Clinton impeachment, and they are not scarred by the politics and fear-mongering prior to the Iraq war that touches each of us, or the incompetence of the Kerry campaign angered all of us who tried to volunteer but were treated as an ATM. Politics for them can be hopeful and fun, as light as another Facebook group.

If I step back and take a look at my own political views, particularly on the national level, it’s tough for me to erase the stain of the Clinton impeachment when considering Republican candidates. Aside from a bit of volunteering for Bush-Quayle in ’88 and some enthusiasm for Perot in ’92 and to a lesser extent ’96, the impeachment was more or less my political awakening. It angered me deeply that the bedrock of our Constitution was being tampered with over something so frivolous and transparently political. Heap on that the toxicity of the Rehnquist Supreme Court stopping the vote count in Florida, and the Iraq War for good measure, and you have a big thumb on my own internal political scales for future Congressional and Presidential races.

Obviously, I’m aware of my own biases in this respect. What I tend to forget is that others have different political memories or (in many cases) no political memories. That goes a long way toward explaining why I can see a candidate much differently than another person, even where our analysis and opinions of the candidate’s policy choices are essentially the same.

Advance Indiana – Major Moves = Major Fraud

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Gary Welsh at Advance Indiana has a good post entitled Major Moves = Major Fraud. At issue is the idea that we can’t build I-69 to Evansville without the two new toll roads proposed by the Governor this year. Says Mr. Welsh:

Excuse me Sen. Wyss, but I’m not an idiot. When the legislature passed Major Moves last year allowing for the privatization of the Indiana Toll Road, the public was told unequivocally that the plan would allow for the construction of not only I-69 from Indianapolis to Evansville, but also a Hoosier Heartland highway from Lafayette to Fort Wayne, I-31 expressway from Indianapolis to South Bend and 2 new bridges over the Ohio River among other projects.

He likens the moving target and forgotten promises to trying to strike a deal with a mortgage broker.

HB 1237: Seat belts

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The perennial seat belt bill is once again in motion. This year, House Bill 1237 requires occupants of motor vehicles to wear seat belts. It passed out of the House Roads and Transportation Committee by a vote of 9 to 1. (Rep. Jim Buck voted against it.)

One of the main bones of contention is the idea of making occupants of pickup trucks wear seat belts. Back since the days when I was drafting this bill, I have contended that current law, read strictly, requires occupants of most pickup trucks to wear a seat belt. Currently, the law requires each front seat occupant of a “passenger motor vehicle” to wear a seat belt. The definition of “passenger motor vehicle” means a motor vehicle designed for carrying passengers, but specifically excludes “trucks, tractors, and recreational vehicles.” However, if you go to the definition of “truck,” it means “a motor vehicle designed, used, or maintained primarily for the transportation of property.” My argument is that the vast majority of pickup trucks are used to transport passengers and are not primarily used to transport property. So, they’re best seen as passenger vehicles and not as “trucks,” as defined by the Indiana Code and, therefore, seat belts ought to be required.

(I got into this hair-splitting argument when I was asked to determine whether SUV’s were passenger vehicles or trucks under the seat belt laws.) But, we’ve gotten to where “everybody knows” you don’t have to wear a seat belt in a pickup truck. So, it doesn’t matter a bit what the law actually says. Laws are only as good as their enforcement.

[tags]HB1237-2007, motor vehicles[/tags]

HB 1027: Minimum Wage

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Looks like there was maybe an interesting vote on the minimum wage bill, House Bill 1027. I haven’t seen the news reports and am going only off of the stuff posted on the General Assembly’s website, so I hope I am not getting this wrong.

The House Ways & Means passed the bill as amended by a vote of 14 to 10 along party lines. The amendment increased an inheritance tax exemption from $100,000 to $200,000. The rest of the bill increases the minimum wage from $5.15/hour currently to $6/hour on 9/1/2007, $6.75 on 3/1/08, and $7.50/hour on 9/1/08.

It also increases the wage claims the Commissioner of Labor can take assignments on from $800 to $3,000. (Basically, for these claims, the Department of Labor can act on behalf of the employee against the employer attempting to get the employee paid.)

However, the House Republicans attempted to substitute their own minority committee report. Recall, that the House Dems passed the bill to the House with an amendment increasing the inheritance tax exemption from $100,000 to $200,000. Doubling the exemption was insufficient for the House Republicans. With their proposal, the exemption would have gone to $200,000 on July 1, 2007; to $300,000 on July 1, 2008; and the inheritance tax would have been eliminated after July 1, 2009. This proposal was defeated by a vote of 48 to 51.

I guess this pretty well highlights the nature of the class warfare between the parties. The fact that our legislators see inheritance tax breaks as a natural counterpart to a minimum wage increase disturbs me a bit. But, it’s not really a fair fight. The Democrats do not seem to fight nearly as hard for the poor as their counterparts do for the very rich.

Why (he asks rhetorically) is it always the estate taxes singled out for elimination? Sure, everybody hates taxes. If we could fund government without taxes, that would be neat. But, since that isn’t going to happen and we are going to need taxes of some sort, why not target the more objectionable taxes first? The moral claim of a worker to his or her paycheck at the end of the week is clearly stronger than the moral claim of an heir to the proceeds of a decedent’s estate. So, it seems like a no brainer that the income tax ought to be reduced or eliminated long before we start reducing estate taxes.

[tags]HB1027-2007, taxes, class warfare [/tags]

Gym

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This morning, I woke up briefly at about 4 a.m., considered the time, realized I had 1.5 hours until my alarm went off, figured that didn’t seem like nearly enough time for sleep, and fully intended to blow off my alarm and skip the gym. Seems I forgot to get the memo to our dalmatian, Brooksey. She’s kind of a weird dog, and routinely sleeps under the covers. Last night was no different. But, at 5:25 a.m., she starts dry-heaving, almost always a prelude to a more liquidy sort of regurgitation. Startled out of her sleep by this noise, my wife frantically starts lifting the covers and trying to kick Brooksey out of bed. After being kicked out of bed, Brooksey walked over to the bathroom, gave a few more gurgles, and then wanted to go outside. Probably just a hairball.

That’s a long way of saying, despite my best intentions, I was awake beyond even my abilities to rationalize going back to sleep. So, I headed to the Y, warmed up with 1.4 miles in 7 minutes on the stationary bike, then did some upper body work including a dip/push up combo I’m trying out. No new ground was really broken, however. I can usually increase my weights or reps or whatnot when I go later in the day on weekends.

Weighing In on City Planning

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(Via Slashdot) Science News Online has an article entitled Weighing In on City Planning. The article discusses research into the question of whether urban sprawl contributes to obesity in a city’s residents.

[Lawrence Frank] and other researchers have evidence that associates health problems with urban sprawl, a loose term for humanmade landscapes characterized by a low density of buildings, dependence on automobiles, and a separation of residential and commercial areas. Frank proposes that sprawl discourages physical activity, but some researchers suggest that people who don’t care to exercise choose suburban life. Besides working to settle that disagreement, researchers are looking at facets of urban design that may shortchange health.

As scientists investigate the relationship between sprawl and obesity, a compact style of city development sometimes called smart growth might become a tool in the fight for the nation’s health. However, University of Toronto economist Matthew Turner charges that “a lot of people out there don’t like urban sprawl, and those people are trying to hijack the obesity epidemic to further the smart-growth agenda [and] change how cities look.”

There is an association between the amount of time people spend in cars and how much they weigh and a similar association between the amount of time people walk (and the “walkability” of their cities) and how much they weigh. Apparently a typical white male living in a compact, mixed-use community weighs about 10 pounds less than a smilar man living in a diffuse subdivision containing nothing by homes. There might be a chicken & egg problem here, however. It may be that people with health habits and other propensities toward weight gain might choose neighborhoods where driving is the easiest way to get around. Other researchers challenge that hypothesis for a variety of reasons.

Locally, I suppose, this might put Gov. Daniels fitness agenda at odds with his road-building agenda. Though, to be fair, to date, his toll road proposals probably have more inter-city impact than intra-city impact.