A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Senate Bill 0054 Provides a certain degree of immunity from civil liability for advertisers or sponsors at charitable events, fundraisers, tradeshows, and the like as long as their actions are not willful or reckless and their only involvement is as a sponsor or advertiser. The Senate concurred in the House amendments 47-0. (There is also a tweak to the immunity provided for health care provided free of charge.)

The Indianapolis Star reports Work on state budget nearing completion.

House Ways and Means Chairman Jeff Espich, R-Uniondale, said he hopes to have a printed version of the $24 billion budget conference committee report on House Bill 1001 available by Wednesday morning.

Given my background, what that means to me is that the small but remarkably efficient machinery of the Legislative Services Agency is whirring into gear. (Though in-house printing capacity had been increasing steadily prior to my departure.) Possibly the Director of the Office of Code Revision is commandeering copy machines all around the state house to produce hundreds of copies of a 400 page document overnight. The bill drafters for the House Ways and Means and the Senate Finance Committees can expect a long night as new amendments drift down from majority counsel’s office. A row of proofreaders review the text as best they can in the time allotted. The typists stand by to make the corrections. If the necessary deals haven’t yet been finalized, Code Revision eventually has to let it be known that the legislators can either keep negotiating or they can have their bill printed by the desired time, but not both. The printers probably won’t sleep at all.

At least that’s how I remember it. Maybe it’s all changed.

The Indy Star has an article entitled Daniels to sign judicial pay raise bill, discussing the passage of SB 363. It passed the Senate 42-4 and passed the House 75-17.

Trial court judges get a pay raise from $90,000 to $110,500; appellate court judges go from $110,000 to $129,800; and Supreme Court justices go from $115,000 to $133,600. I don’t begrudge the judges a higher pay particularly after 8 years, but I feel compelled to point out that, from my perspective, that seems like a pretty sweet deal in some of the more rural counties with lighter case loads. I practice in an 11 county radius around Lafayette and the difference in the apparent case loads seems pretty significant. Maybe I just show up on slow days in those counties, but I sort of doubt it. I’m also skeptical of the ability of private practitioners in those counties to make $110,000, guaranteed each and every year, plus pension, health benefits, paid vacation, etc. while working the same number of hours. But, I don’t know, I could easily be wrong, and maybe the argument is that the best lawyers wouldn’t hang around those counties — they’d move to the big cities where they can make considerably more. (On the other hand, those attorneys apparently hung around the area long enough to become established and be elected judge.)

But, that’s just so much hand waving. Each county needs a court. It would just be nice if the case loads could be balanced out a bit. Some courts are so busy as to have the appearance of “justice mills” while others have the appearance of slow, leisurely, stately kinds of places. It seems unfair to pay the judge of the latter as much as the judge of the former.

Court fees are going to go up quite a bit to pay for this. Small claims filings, for example, will cost an additional $10, up 21% from $46 to $56. When I started in private practice in 1999, the fee was $35. So, small claims filing fees are up 60% over 6 years. Court fee increases seem to be keeping pace with health insurance premium increases. Oh well, I suppose that’s just more money to collect from the debtor who was too poor to pay his bill in the first place.

The Indy Star has a Major bills update.

Mary Beth Schneider for the Indianapolis Star is reporting that Daylight saving-time bill has squeaked by once again. According to the article, it cleared the Senate Rules Committee by a 6-5 vote with Senator Allen Paul (R-Richmond) voting the bill out of committee to allow a full Senate vote but stating that he will vote against the bill at that time.

The House and Senate have both adopted the Conference Committee version of Senate Bill 0217 raising speed limits on Indiana highways. The Senate passed the bill 29 to 18 and the House passed it 70 to 23.

The changes are:

On an interstate in a nonurbanized area and the Indiana Toll Road, speed limit increases from 65 to 70 mph (60 to 65 for heavy vehicles other than buses);

On U.S. 20 between Elkhart CR 17 to U.S. 31 and on U.S. 31 from U.S. 20 to the Michigan state line, up from 55 to 65 mph;

On certain other highways up from 55 to 60 mph.

I’m afraid I may have maligned Senator Jackman inappropriately with respect to Engrossed Version, Senate Bill 0089 regarding agricultural equipment which is long and tedious (see previous entry) and incomprehensible to me. Seems that a lot of the garbage seems to have been thrown in by the House. The Conference Committee has adopted a report that strips away the House amendments and leaves the original Senate bill which simply “provides that an implement of husbandry or a farm tractor manufactured after June 30, 2006, must be fitted with equipment that meets certain national standards when operated on a highway and requires the criminal justice institute to adopt rules for the design of a slow moving vehicle emblem.” The House adopted the conference committee version 88 to 1.

By a vote of 60 to 30, the House concurred in the Senate’s changes to House Bill 1004 Tax Amnesty (or, if you prefer, the Cheater’s Rights Bill). The bill requires the Department of Revenue to set up a tax amnesty period for taxes due and payable before July 1, 2004. During that period the taxpayer can pay the principal balance only OR set up a payment arrangement “acceptable to the Department”. The amnesty program is to be available during an 8 week period established by the Dept. of Revenue ending not later than July 1, 2006.

I don’t know that this will happen, but from reading the bill, there doesn’t appear to be anything preventing the Department of Revenue from entering into an interest free payment arrangement whereby tax cheats pay their tax obligation at a nominal sum per month for the next hundred years. There also doesn’t seem to be any requirement that the Dept. of Revenue treat all debtors the same with respect to the payment arrangements. Seems like an awful lot of discretion. I hope there is some way to review Dept. of Revenue agreements with specific tax debtors.

A couple of editorials I came across implore the General Assembly to “just do it” with regard to Daylight Saving Time. Well, actually, as I review the link, the Indianapolis Star piece isn’t labeled an editorial, it just reads like one. The Lafayette Journal and Courier piece urges the legislature to get on with it, then try to get the time zones right.

This urging that legislators pass a bill to get everyone to shut up about it already is just horrible logic. Sometimes squeaky wheels should be removed and replaced rather than getting the grease.