The Evansville Courier Press offers its opinion on the Inspector General bill. They don’t explicitly endorse the House Democrats’ perspective, but seems as if the Courier Press sees eye-to-eye with them rather than the House Republicans:
In the Senate bill that passed the House unanimously this past week, the inspector general would investigate cases, and if after six months a county prosecutor declined to file charges, the inspector general could petition the Indiana Court of Appeals to have the case moved to the inspector general or another prosecutor to try.
That’s an improvement, yet we still end up – presuming the Senate accepts the reduced prosecutorial powers – with an individual hand-picked by the governor, attempting to go over the head of an elected county prosecutor to file criminal charges. It’s better, we believe, that the inspector general’s powers be limited to investigating wrongdoing and then turning his work over to elected prosecutors.
Let the IG inspect wrongdoing, make it public, and recommend prosecution. But don’t give him prosecutorial powers if he’s going to be hand picked by the governor.
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