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Duck and Cover

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The South Bend Tribune is carrying a Mike Smith Associated Press Story entitled Are three seeking political cover after DST debate?

He suggests that Rep. Steve Heim, Rep. Jackie Walorski, and Sen. Allen Paul have all introduced DST/Time zone related bills as political cover for failing to stop the DST bill when they had the chance. Rep. Heim voted it out of the House Committee with a 6-5 vote. Had he voted against it then, the bill would have died. He ended up voting against it on the floor of the House. Rep. Walorski simply didn’t attend the committee hearing. Had she attended and voted against it, it would not have passed for lack of a majority. Sen. Paul had the chance to kill it in the Senate Rules committee, but, like Rep. Heim, voted for it before voting against it.

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  1. […] Some of what the future holds depends on what the Department of Transportation decides to do. However, we know that a number of legislators have filed bills to repeal the Daylight Saving Time law or hold referenda to put all or most of the state on one time zone or the other depending on how Hoosiers vote. These bills seem very unlikely to receive a hearing. To some degree, the bills are going to be used as political cover by legislators, vulnerable on the issue, who had an opportunity to kill the Daylight Saving Time bill but failed to do so for one reason or another. Legislation changing the result, if any, can be expected if there is political fallout from messing with Hoosiers clocks. There is reason to suspect some fallout will occur. Certainly Rep. Woodruff is a huge target, given that he lives in the western part of the state, is a first term legislator, and renegged on a specific promise not to vote for DST, only to turn around and become the deciding vote on the issue. Other legislators may be affected given that the time issue is an emotional issue for Hoosiers. I don’t think Hoosiers will be motivated to vote for a legislator because of a DST vote they liked, but I think a fair number of them will be motivated to vote against a legislator for failing to leave the clocks alone. Is this a rational reason to cast a vote? Probably not. But, regardless of the issue, “single issue voters” are almost always casting their votes emotionally rather than rationally. […]

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