A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

The Indy Star has a run down of Indiana lawmakers’ finances (h/t Tippecanoe Politics) .

Items of note:

According to the Palladium-Item, the State will hold five open forums for public comment on the Indiana Trails Plan in the wake of Daniels announcement that he is doubling funding for the state’s recreational trails from $10 million to $20 million in the next fiscal year.

Meetings are 6-8 p.m. local time.

• Thursday: Madison, Clifty Inn, Clifty Falls State Park.
• Tuesday: North Judson, Kankakee Fish and Wildlife Area conference room.
• June 22: Indianapolis, Fort Benjamin Harrison State Park, The Garrison.
• June 27: Fort Wayne, Franke Park Pavilion.
• June 29: Winslow, Sugar Ridge Fish and Wildlife Area cofnerence room.

The Indiana Trails Plan is available here.

I don’t know much about the area so I don’t know how big a deal this is, but the headline caught my eye. Charles M. Bartholomew, writing for the Gary Post Tribune has an article (caution: Post-Trib links go stale quickly) entitled “Daniels foils NIRPC 25-year road plans” that begins as follows:

After 18 months of working and re-working, the Transportation Policy Committee of the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission finally declared its 25-year plan for roads and transit in line with state and federal pollution rules Tuesday.

But as soon as it adopted the resolution by unanimous voice vote, it received some changes to the plan under Gov. Mitch Daniels’ Major Moves that left committee members scratching their heads.

What puzzled planners and stakeholders alike were some discussed projects that director of transportation planning Ken Dallmeyer removed from the 2030 Plan because they had not been included in the governor’s scheme.

The projects included reconfiguration and addition of lanes on the Borman Expressway/Toll Road interchange; widening Broadway between 93rd and 109th avenues in Merrillville and Crown Point near the Purdue Technology Center; and adding lanes to Cline Avenue from the Borman interchange to US 12 and to the Toll Road from SR 49 to SR 51.

Just one more thing to increase Gov. Daniels’ popularity in northern Indiana I suppose.

Libertarian Secretary of State candidate Mike Kole has a good post entitled “Municipal Micromanagement” which takes a look at a couple of municipal ordinances in Speedway and Greenwood governing rental properties. The ordinances look like examples of good intentions which will almost certainly carry unintended consequences.

Speedway’s ordinance, among other things, allow revocation of a rental operating license if the property has too much police activity while Greenwood’s proposed ordinance prohibits rental of a newly constructed home for a three-year period.

Niki Kelly has an article on the oral arguments in the Toll Road hearing before Indiana’s Supreme Court. From her write up, it would seem that the Supreme Court might rule against the Plaintiffs, or arrive at a 2 – 2 split which would leave the trial court ruling standing by default, not so much because the Plaintiffs’ challenge fails on its merits, but simply to avoid opening the can of worms they’ve been asked to open. Special legislation — the constitutionally prohibited act of passing a law specific to one group of people or area of the State when more general legislation is possible — is probably the genie that’s been let out of the bottle. The legislature has been passing special legislation under the fig leaf of population parameters for so long that the Supreme Court might be reluctant to wander into the snares that await if it tries to put an end to the practice. I’m not as familiar with State finance issues, but I imagine they’re reluctant to tell the General Assembly how to spend taxpayer money even if the Constitution requires the General Assembly to retire the public debt before it does anything else.

On the other hand, Matthew Tully has a column suggesting it’s tricky business trying to read into Justices thoughts from the questions they ask. Very true.

Theodore Kim has an article for the Indy Star. Lesley Stedman Weidenbener has an article for the Louisville Courier Journal. Mike Smith has an article for the Associated Press.

The Indiana Law Blog has a post on the arguments and provided a link to the Real Audio video of the oral arguments. Abdul at Indiana Barrister attended the arguments in person as did Michael Ausbrook at INCourts.

There has been more activity in the toll road case. The Indiana Law Blog is doing an excellent job of covering the litigation generally and, more specifically, providing access to the documents in the case.

In today’s news, Justice Dickson announced that he would recuse himself, raising the possibility of a 2 – 2 split at the Supreme Court level. The Plaintiffs asked (pdf) that the Supreme Court reverse its decision to take the case directly from the trial court and asked that the matter be remanded back to the Court of Appeals where the Plaintiffs originally filed the appeal. The background on this is that, if there is a tie, the trial court’s ruling stands even without any controlling appellate decision on the matter. The Plaintiffs argue that a decision of this magnitude really ought to be made by a controlling appellate level decision.

I haven’t really analyzed the procedural posture of this case, so there is probably something I’m missing, but I thought the relevant statute with respect to appeals of bond decisions in public lawsuits was IC 34-13-5-7(d). That statute seems to provide appellate relief of a trial court decision only from the Supreme Court.

Either plaintiff or defendant may appeal an order to post or deny bond to the Indiana supreme court within ten (10) days by notice of appeal and a statement of error in the same manner as is provided in a petition for mandate or prohibition.

Also, the State’s brief is here and the Indiana Finance Authority’s brief is here.