The Indiana Law Blog has a post entitled Florida story on southern Indiana lawyer’s battle with Indiana clocks. The ILB cites an article in the Palm Beach Post.
As many of you probably recall, prior to the recent DST unpleasantness, pockets of southern Indiana near Cincinnati and Louisville observed Daylight Saving Time illegally. The Palm Beach Post story tells the story of New Albany lawyer, Steven Gustafson who attempted to compel the Secretary of Transportation to enforce the law.
He filed a petition in U.S. District Court to force the secretary of transportation, the federal government’s person in charge of time-change rules, to put everyone in southern Indiana on the same schedule. A year later, Gustafson’s complaint was thrown out.
“The federal court ruled that I was right on the statutes, but that having to sit around for an hour waiting for people did not give me standing to make the secretary of transportation enforce the law,” he said.
A few years after that, all of Indiana went on daylight-saving time, so “the things I was talking about are essentially moot now,” said Gustafson, who nonetheless still hates the time change.
“As far as I’m concerned, the time of day is an astronomical fact that should be immune from government tinkering,” he said.
Given the benign neglect showed to southern Indiana by the Secretary of Transportation when they opted to break the time law, seems like the folks in Pulaski County ought to be a little grumpy with the zealousness with which the USDOT seemed intent on enforcing the time law as it applied to Pulaski County. The USDOT pressured the Pulaski County Commissioners to accept Central Time. One USDOT official was quoted as saying, “We don’t have the authority to look the other way. In the ’60s the department did so, was sued and lost.”
Times have changed along with the time.The concept of ‘gentlemen’s agreements’, and ‘look the other way’ are over in politics in general.Benign neglect served Indiana well,and allowed every county to forego DST legally or observe it on a home rule basis .
I kind of remember reading about the original agreement in early 60s that brought the now ended 30 year ‘Pax Indiana’ in time observance..I was just starting at the U of I in Champaign-Urbana,and traveling to Indianapolis was an occasional option ( as well as to Bloomington and Purdue for sports events) As I remember, news accounts read that everyone was in agreement and that a good compromise had been found for the whole state.
Looking at the last year or so of double dealings and deep mistrust so many are carrying, we can assume no easy further re-arranging of time will be soon forthcoming in Indiana.
Once someone sues, in this case the New Albany lawyer, then the spell is broken and good will is gone ( at least this is my assumption of what might be the interpretation in hindsight) But it surely is a very interesting article from Palm Beach Post.
I could have agreed with Lou until, as I take it, he suggests that it was Mr. Gustafson’s decade old, and long forgotten lawsuit that ended “the spell”. Good grief. Individuals who don’t hold office are not the blameworthy people here. And how on earth was Mr. Gustafson “double dealing”? It was now Governor Daniels who engaged in double dealing when he repeatedly suggested in his campaign that he would push for Central time as the vehicle for unifying the state, but when lobbied by Indianapolis broadcast interests after his election went stone cold silent, and then, after he took office, forgot his former position and took us down the road of EDT.